Workshops w/ Pinckney Benedict
January 25-26, 2024
Sponsored by the English Department, ICAT & TLOS
Realms: The Art of Immersive Storytelling
The Cube
January 25, 3:30 pm
A presentation blending digital artistry with classical music. Journey over a digitally rendered Southern Illinois, accompanied by spatial audio of Beethoven's Ninth as performed by the SIU Symphony Orchestra. This unique experience is a technical proof-of-concept for the upcoming VR documentary "Sundown Towns," a collaboration by Andrew Primous and Dajonea Robinson of the SIUC MFA program, supported by the SIUC Center for Virtual Expression. Andrew Primous will be on hand to discuss the larger project, which deals in an immersive way with the legacy of segregated towns in Southern Illinois.
Conversing with Tomorrow: Face the Daemon
Playdate
January 26, 8:30 am
Dive into the world of AI-powered conversational avatars, where you'll engage with a GPT-driven digital character created to supercharge medical school curricula but also capable of conversing on a wide array of topics. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, storyteller, or just curious about the future of interactive media, this session promises a glimpse into the evolving landscape of digital expression.
AI for Writers: Roald Dahl, Automata, and Roombas
370/380 Shanks Hall
January 26, 2024, 10:30 am
An extremely abbreviated account of humanity's fascination with artificial beings and simulated worlds. From the mythic Greek giant Talos and the mystical Golem of Prague to the automata of The Renaiisance and Roald Dahl's story "The Great Automatic Grammatisator," this presentation connects ancient myths and golden-age science fiction to modern artificial intelligence and robotics (including the lowly Roomba). Discover how AI and robotics are part of a rich continuum rooted in our earliest storytelling traditions.
AI in the Classroom: Let's Build a GPT to Do Our Work for Us
370/380 Shanks Hall
January 26, 2024, 1:30 pm
We'll delve into the potential of AI to revolutionize the writing classroom. This interactive demonstration will showcase ChatGPT's ability to create custom GPT models with minimal prompts, rapidly. Attendees will actively participate in building several custom GPTs designed to automate routine pedagogical tasks, thereby freeing up teachers to focus on innovative and experimental teaching methods.
Pinckney Benedict is a fiction writer from West Virginia who has published a novel and three collections of short fiction, with a fourth collection forthcoming in 2024. His short stories have been published in many magazines and anthologies including Esquire, Zoetrope: All-Story, and The Oxford Book of the American Short Story. Benedict is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a fiction grant from the Illinois Arts Council, and the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award. He serves as a tutor for Oxford University’s “Artificial Intelligence: Cloud and Edge Implementations” course. He is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, as well as the director of the Center for Virtual Expression of the College of Liberal Arts, which puts generative AI and other creative technologies in the hands of liberal arts students.