{"id":104133,"date":"2026-07-13T14:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/104133\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:01:09","slug":"some-art-schools-building-courses-around-a-i-s-creative-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/104133\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Art Schools Building Courses Around A.I.\u2019s Creative Potential"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Three<\/a>Agnieszka Pilat\u2019s Heterobota in the 2023 NGV Triennial. Photo: Sean Fennessy<\/p>\n

While no one can predict what the art of the future will look like, it seems increasingly clear that at least some of it will be created with the help of artificial intelligence. A growing number of visual arts programs at independent art colleges and universities now offer courses\u2014and in some cases, entire degree programs\u2014focused on advanced technology. These include Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, the Cleveland Institute of Art & Design in Ohio, the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University in Bloomington, Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Students graduating from these and similar programs are unlikely to abandon what they\u2019ve learned once they leave school.<\/p>\n

What exactly are they being taught? Rick Dakan<\/a>, chair of the Emerging Technology Committee at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, described artists who make \u201cdigital images with complex workflows that incorporate A.I. tools in their multi-step process. They start with a hand-drawn sketch or drawing, put that in A.I. to get a more detailed color rendering, take that back out and paint over it in Photoshop or Illustrator\u201d\u2014image editing software first developed in the 1980s\u2014\u201cthen take that image and use an A.I. tool to make a three-dimensional rendering of it and print a model with a 3-D printer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caleb Weintraub<\/a>, director of the Eskenazi Technology and Innovation Lab in the School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University, described one of his own creations, a project called \u201cSpeculative Portraiture,\u201d in which \u201ca voice becomes a picture. The finished works are hand-painted portraits on panel, not prints or screen outputs.\u201d He works with A.I.-generated voices\u2014sometimes his own or those of consenting colleagues and family members\u2014to explore what human head images are produced when different vocal features are fed into an A.I. program. \u201cI then make a series of gesture drawings using the images as references, as if encountering the same person in different moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Leeser<\/a>, founding director of the Art and Technology Program and director of the Center for Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), described the initial artistic use of A.I. as \u201cmaking images from prompts, asking a program to generate something based on a question. For instance, make me a sunny day and then you\u2019ll get any number of images of a sunny day.\u201d The next steps, however, can be far more technical. Scott Benzel<\/a>, a faculty member in CalArts\u2019 Program in Art and Technology, recalled a 2017 piece he created, Mathesis and Mathematikoi, for string quartet, dancers and telescope operator. The \u201cscore was composed using earlyish generative A.I., including Noatikl and Wolframtones and was based on Hubble\u2019s Constant, the law of cosmic expansion that Edwin Hubble<\/a> discovered using the telescope at Mt. Wilson in 1929. Other elements of the piece, including the motion of the telescope dome and the \u2018counting\u2019 elements of the dance, were determined using similar generative methods. For the score, I chose and edited the generative output into something that I found pleasing. The score turned out to be too complex, unplayable by humans and had to be simplified by the score conformer and the players.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the process may sound playful, these and other professors stress that A.I. is a tool\u2014not the final product. \u201cOutputs generated solely by A.I. systems are rarely treated as finished work,\u201d Weintraub said, adding that \u201clegal and ethical questions\u2014authorship, attribution, data provenance\u2014are part of the broader critical conversation in courses that engage with A.I. tools.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>Flynn, the first A.I. art student, in a classroom at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Courtesy Malpractice<\/p>\n

Ry Fryar<\/a>, assistant professor of art at York College of Pennsylvania, explained that his courses in the Digital Art and A.I. major teach students to use A.I. tools as part of a larger creative process. \u201cThe focus is on creativity itself, because without that, the results are common, therefore dull and fundamentally inexpert. We work with students on how to guide A.I. tools at a professional level, stay aligned with developing good practices and understand current copyright law, ethics and other standards for responsible A.I. use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence, particularly generative A.I.\u2014which produces text, videos, images and other forms of data\u2014has been both a source of fascination and anxiety in recent years. On the worry side, high school and university faculty in the humanities struggle to determine whether written assignments were completed by students or with ChatGPT or another generative A.I. program. Existing detection tools are unreliable, and educators are hesitant to accuse students of misconduct without solid evidence. Jessica Sponsler<\/a>, assistant professor of art history at York College of Pennsylvania, noted that \u201cI\u2019m a medievalist. I can read Latin,\u201d but added, \u201cI\u2019m dealing, we\u2019re all dealing, with A.I. We are in the middle of a change period, and most faculty here acknowledge that students are using ChatGPT. Our job is to help them use A.I. in a way that improves their skills and doesn\u2019t substitute for those skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Shea<\/a>, associate dean of the School of Design Strategies at Parsons School of Design, said that the college isn\u2019t teaching students to code or create a \u201clarge language model,\u201d nor to \u201cpush a button and get an answer.\u201d Instead, \u201cIt\u2019s about teaching them how to think about when, why and how they might use A.I., if they need to at all. If they do use it, students are expected to learn how to use it intentionally, reflect on its impact on their process, and keep their own voice and vision at the center. I tell them A.I. is like a spice\u2014it can add complexity or shift a flavor, but it can\u2019t be the whole meal. We\u2019re trying to develop better thinkers and makers. Heavily using A.I. often limits both of those from happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside academia, concerns extend further. Will entire fields of employment be replaced by A.I.? Generative A.I. has already become a source of companionship for isolated young people and the elderly, sometimes with troubling consequences. Lawsuits by Getty Images and several artists against Stable AI (creator of Stable Diffusion), Midjourney and DeviantART (maker of DreamUp), alleging copyright infringement, have been winding through the courts for years. Meanwhile, the U.S. Copyright Office continues to wrestle with whether an artwork created using A.I. qualifies for copyright protection, since only human-created works are eligible.<\/p>\n

Basil Masri Zada<\/a>, assistant professor of digital art and technology and head of the Center for Advanced Computing in the School of Art + Design at Ohio University, said convincing faculty, administrators and legal counsel that they weren\u2019t encouraging cheating or risking legal exposure \u201ctook us a year to make sure that we are doing things correctly. We had to educate our own school about what this all is.\u201d<\/p>\n

While colleges and universities in the U.S. appear to be embracing A.I. in studio art courses, not everyone is on board. The University of New South Wales in Australia introduced this fall a course in its School of Art and Design titled \u201cGenerative A.I. for Artists,\u201d prompting a petition signed by more than 7,000 students demanding its cancellation. \u201cOur key objection is that the course encourages and requires students to use generative A.I. to create art,\u201d said Robin, a fourth-year student in the university\u2019s fine art degree program who asked that their last name not be used. \u201cAs detailed further in the petition<\/a>, there are numerous ethical, environmental and humanitarian issues with the use of generative A.I., and we do not believe it is appropriate for a university to be encouraging it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called the idea that A.I. is the inevitable future \u201cdefeatist,\u201d adding, \u201cwe\u2019ve seen how campaigns and legislation around technology, particularly in the E.U., have served to protect people and the environment. Why should we give up hope with generative A.I.? We don\u2019t need to quit before we\u2019ve even started.\u201d A university spokesperson defended the course, noting that it \u201ccritically explores the creative and ethical questions raised by A.I., rather than simply promoting or celebrating its use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether to teach A.I. and how to teach it remains a matter of debate across academia\u2014perhaps more about how than if. Andrew Shea said, \u201cthe deeper issue is authorship. And this is what we focus more on at Parsons with our students: Are you owning your process? Do you decide what to keep, what to reject and what meaning to shape? Or do you simply hand all of that over to systems built on the unpaid labor of countless others?\u201d<\/p>\n

Will A.I. in the arts endure, or is it just the latest trend? Fifty years ago, art students often entered school aspiring to become painters or sculptors but shifted to film and video. Twenty years ago, they turned toward social practice. Now, courses and degrees in artificial intelligence are redefining creative education once again\u2014shaping students\u2019 thinking and offering seemingly new career paths.<\/p>\n

In recent years, university studio art programs\u2014and especially independent art colleges\u2014have expanded their offerings in every direction. The Savannah College of Art and Design, for instance, has degree programs in Equestrian Studies and the Business of Beauty and Fragrance. The Maryland Institute College of Art allows students to minor in cartooning. Ringling College of Art and Design offers an undergraduate degree in Business of Art and Design and CalArts offers a graduate degree in Aesthetics and Politics. The Rhode Island School of Design has even introduced its first-ever tattooing course, which could one day lead to a full program. Maybe the proliferation of A.I. courses in art schools is simply part of higher education\u2019s version of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article was originally published on October 13, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More on A.I. in the Arts<\/p>\n

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