In this modern world where artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly directs the current art landscape, creatives can take advantage of its convenience to ease workload and save time and resources. However, as it still remains a matter of debate whether AI is a threat to humans or not, people are urged to initiate further discussions on AI’s ambiguities and implications.
After a three-year hiatus and a virtual event last 2022, the Multimedia Arts and Design (MAD) Summit, an annual activity organized by fourth year multimedia arts (MMA) students returned as an in-campus event at the De La Salle Lipa (DLSL) Sentrum last July 1.
With this year’s futuristic theme “MULTIMETA: The Convergence of Creative Frontiers in Multimedia”, the seventh iteration of the summit featured discourses and demonstrations of how AI influences the creative industry. It featured four speakers who talked about AI’s impacts in the field of graphics, music, writing, and startup.
Rollan Bañez, Adobe Creative Nation Educator, kicked off the event with his talk around “Learning Generative AI Imagery”, showing AI-generated prompts that can be utilized in Adobe Firefly and Adobe Photoshop. He explained how these can revolutionize the creative process as long as the user will not abuse its functions.
Rollan Bañez, Adobe creative nation educator, discusses the uses of generative AI imagery (A.Alamag)
“The emerging trends we have right now, we may reject it, but as time progresses, some may adapt to this technology [while] some may not and it’s fine,” said Bañez.
In terms of music, the event’s second speaker and film score composer Pepe Manikan, with his talk “The Sound Composition Realm: From Past to Future”, discussed the concept of mediamorphosis, a theory that proposes how old media phases out when a new media form arises.
Manikan sampled AI-generated beats for a thriller/suspense genre which earned the interest of the audience, but later on emphasized that there is no need to be scared of its implications yet as AI only serves as a mere generator and the user still gets to decide what beats to use and sequence to follow.
In the field of writing, with his talk entitled “Are books dead? The future of books and publishing amidst the digital age”, third speaker and author-publisher Jerico Silvers, mentioned how technology was the reason the publishing of his books encountered difficulties as people were not inclined with reading physical books especially during the pandemic.
However, Silvers shared that it was also technology that helped in its revival given that he was able to sell his books and publish his works in online platforms.
Meanwhile, Carlo Valencia, founder of Startup PH, discussed “Empathy in the age of AI: The role of humanistic design”, in which he defined design as knowing how things work and not simply how it looks.
Carlo Valencia, Founder of startup PH, sharing his thoughts in the interview. (A.Alamag)
In an interview with Lavoxa Online, Valencia shared that the MAD summit is an opportunity for students to meet people in the industry and go beyond what the institution is providing them.
“If you’re in creatives, […] figure out the skills that you need to learn and learn it, and don’t wait for [the] school. The MAD Summit is really a good way to bridge that gap of what’s in school and what’s not in school,” said Valencia.
This year’s MAD Summit featured different artworks and booths by MMA students and various stations such as henna booth, stickers booth, photo booth, on-the-spot portraits, and merchandise booth, together with displays of 3D anaglyphs and mixed-media art outputs.
Peter Paul Reyes, head organizer, shared that this is the first face-to-face MAD Summit event since 2019, due to the K-12 adjustments and the pandemic.
“[Ang MAD Summit] ay pinaghalong gathering, conference, and workshop […] dedicated for interested artists or designers, kahit ‘di sila multimedia arts students,” said Reyes.
Sponsored by different organizations, special prizes such as sketchbooks, Aquaflasks, a WACOM drawing tablet, and even a trip to Boracay, were raffled for those who registered in the event.
Article by Jazmine Bustamante and Mahnlene Dela Peña
