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== Introduction ==
== Introduction ==
[[File:Qr-code.png|center|frameless|600x600px]]
=== Aims of this workshop ===
# To give you an insight into how we are working with AI image creation
# Have a dialogue on possible intersections with your research.
==== Agenda ====
# Background (Chr.)
# AI image generation: techniques and infrastructures  - evading the conventional platforms and capital interests (Nicolas & Pablo)
# Conversation


=== The background (Knowledge Servers) ===  
=== The background (Knowledge Servers) ===  


and our interest in 'autonomy'
Within a larger project on digitization, democracy and citizenship ([https://shape.au.dk/en/ SHAPE]), we run a project that not only questions the role of Big Tech and platforms in the construction of knowledge, but also  how one might ‘delink’ from capital interests.
[[File:Project image, knowledge infrastructures.png|none|thumb|Project image made with Stable Diffusion]]


=== How we proceeded with generative AI ===
We try to speak from the point of view of what you might call grassroots’ internet culture. A culture that had control of the tools, infrastructures and other means for its own existence – what the anthropologist Chris Kelty once called a ‘recursive publics’.


images / Stable Diffusion
History took us elsewhere. To 'client-server' (platform) relations (rather than peer-to-peer).


=== Our interest in "objects of interest / necessity" ===  
We speak of technical infrastructures as a  “epistemic infrastructures” (borrowing the term from [https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=problem-spaces-how-and-why-methodology-matters--9781509507931 Celia Lury]):  An infrastructure for what and how we know things – and not just for how we find information, or use it in other ways.


(a sketch of the map)
[[File:Project image, knowledge infrastructures.png|thumb|Project image made with Stable Diffusion|left]]
<div style="clear:both;"></div>


== Inteligencia común: generación de imágenes con infraestructura propietaria, privada, y comunal ==
==== Our questions ====
[[File:Plan_diagram_xeno.jpg|frameless|800x800px]]
''How does grassroots digital culture respond to this development?''  OR '''''What does technological autonomy look like today?'''''
'''<br />" El taller se centra en la producción comunitaria de imágenes de IA. Analizaremos juntos diferentes proyectos de software, como <s>ComfyUI</s> DrawThings y AI Horde, que desvinculan a los generadores de imágenes de las plataformas hegemónicas. Examinaremos el ecosistema general que hace posibles estas prácticas: las comunidades implicadas, sus prácticas de imagen y curatoriales, así como sus dependencias. A través de presentaciones y demostraciones, nos plantearemos las siguientes preguntas"'''


=== Artbot ===
''… What are the strategies for culturally, democratically and environmentally sustainable knowledge infrastructures?''
En los siguientes 20 minutos, usaremos en conjunto una interfaz para generación (inferencia) de imágenes.


Entra a [https://tinybots.net/artbot/create artbot]
''… What are the tensions within technologies?''


Antes de comenzar, haz click en el botón con un ordenador, y busca al "worker" llamado camilla_horde
''… How do you provide alterantives/other services and infrastructures for communities?''


[[File:Screenshot 20250530 142347.png|frame|none]]
==== Our methods ====
We collaborate with grassroots groups (such as collectives that run such services)
 
We share a history of being part of this culture ourselves
 
Our 'amateurism'  perhaps even attempts to be ‘[https://parsejournal.com/article/undisciplining-who-we-bring-to-the-academic-table/#post-14685-endnote-18 undisciplined]’ – suspending disciplinary regimes (challenging the conditions under which knowledge occurs)
 
We run and build services, "knowledge servers":
 
… a server (within the university ecosystem)
 
… a library
 
… a wiki
 
… an etherpad
 
… a git repository[[File:Portrait of a self-hosted server.png|left|thumb|Portrait of a self-hosted server]]
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
 
==== How we proceeded with generative AI ====
Our outset has been Stable Diffusion - a different visual culture than, say DALL-E.
 
A journey/mapping of, guided by Nicolas.
 
Mapping '[[Objects of interest and necessity|objects of interest/necessity]]'
 
... Objects, not as manifestations of an ideal (an imaginary of autonomy), but the other way around: in our investigation we have found these objects and we try to draw a map of what autonomy looks like, rather than what it is.
 
... That is the objects that create the imaginary
 
... Not what autonomy is, but what it ''looks like'' under given conditions.
 
Resulting in a workshop/exhibition/catalogue, September 2025 (final outcome)[[File:Map objects and planes.jpg|left|thumb|Sketchy map of our journey]]
<div style="clear:both;">
There are things that show
 
...  ‘pixel space’: Images we create or images that are used to create and annotate data sets.
 
There are things that don't show
 
… A 'latent space' of models that generate outcomes
 
… Software and people/communities that use and build on the software, to – for instance – support their own visual culture.
 
… A level of organization of these people (for crowdsourcing p2p, using virtual tokens)
 
… A material level of dependencies on units (such as the GPU, minerals, 'dead labour')
</div>


De esta manera sólo utilizaremos la mesa camilla para nuestra generación de imágenes
== AI Horde image generation with a communal infrastructure ==


Explora las opciones de la interfaz, libremente
=== Why? ===


=== Artbot interfaz ===
* Monopoly and concentration of power in platform capitalism
Las interfaces son omnipresentes como bien sabemos. Son, al mismo tiempo, un poco invisibles. Lo material se deja un poco lado, a la par de lo complejo, se domestica o se hace invisible.
* The user is the product
* Governance
* Epistemic closure


No solo un hay sistema complejo detrás (modelos computacionales basado en grandes y oscuras bases de datos), tTambién un entrecruzamiento un poco invisible entre lo técnico, lo cultural, lo artístico (computacional, ciencias computacionales, el modelero amateur, el artista visual, y el usuario promedio).
=== Platform economy ===
[[File:Numbers of newly funded AI startups.png|none|thumb|Numbers of newly funded AI startups per country]]
[[File:Taller Estampa, map of generative AI.png|none|thumb|Taller Estampa, map of generative AI]]
=== Software ===
[[File:Stable Diffusion page, screenshot.png|none|thumb|Stable Diffusion page, screenshot]]
[[File:Stable Diffusion, training process.png|none|thumb|Stable Diffusion, training process]]
[[File:Stable Diffusion pipeline.png|none|thumb|Stable Diffusion pipeline, Severine Dusollier]]
[[File:Network of actants, Stable Diffusion.png|none|thumb|Network of actants, Stable Diffusion]]
----


Tampoco se trata de una interfase plug-and-play. Si bien es una versión adecuada en la que no es necesario saber de programación (como en las versiones antiguas), no es una interfase blanca y domesticada (piénsese en Apple, o en chatGPT).
=== Decentralisation ===


Hay palancas, botones, deslizadores, cuadros de texto, tuercas y tornillos, decisiones. La interfaz es compleja, y con ella se expande el poder de decisión.
==== CivitAI - a platform/repository ====
* https://www.patreon.com/posts/nsfw-question-72771484
[https://civitai.com/ CivitAI] is a highly popular platform/repository for distributing AI models and images. In our taxonomy, it's what we refer to as a space between the private and the commons. It's private in the sense that it's focused on individuals sharing their work (e.g., the creation of new models), and commons in the sense that most models can be reused and remixed. It's a repository whose primary purpose is to share resources.
* https://www.patreon.com/posts/blacklist-72890784
[[File:Screenshot_20250530_115152.png|center|800x800px]]
* https://dbzer0.com/blog/ai-powered-anti-csam-filter-for-stable-diffusion/
'''(qué comunidades hay detrás de estas interfaces?)'''


=== CivitAI ===
CivitAI has its own currency ("buzz"). It can be purchased or earned by being part of the community (posting, recommending, commenting, etc.). It can be used to leave tips or to order certain models. 
[https://civitai.com/ CivitAI] es una plataforma/repositorio altamente popular para distribuir imágenes y modelos de IA. En nuestra taxonomía, es lo que nos referimos como un espacio entre privado y común. Es privado en el sentido de que está enfocado a individuos que comparten su trabajo (ej. la creación de nuevos modelos), y común en el sentido de que la mayoría de los modelos pueden ser reutilizados, re-mezclados). Es un repositorio cuyo uso principal consiste en compartir recursos.  
[[File:Screenshot_buzz_civitai.png|alt=Captura pantalla civitAI|center|800x800px]]
It is largely a cultural hub, with its own economy, rules, and aesthetic preferences.


[[File:Screenshot_20250530_115152.png|800x800px]]
While many, and the most popular models, recreate canon's of beauty and heteronormative standards, civitAI can be read as a '''hyper-specialisation''' space beyond big tech. This is where the '''"amateur modeler"''' can share their work.  


''buzz buzz buzz'': civitAI tiene su propia moneda de cambio. Puede comprase o ganarse siendo parte la de la comunidad (posteando, recomendado, comentando, etc). Puede usarse para dejar propinas, or para pedir ciertos modelos 
==== AI Horde - a network ====
AI Horde is a distributed computing cluster system. Using open source and crowdfunding, it allows users to borrow and lend other computers with graphics cards to use generative AI models.


[[File:Screenshot buzz civitai.png|Captura pantalla civitAI]]
The system works by creating a directory of "workers" who are part of this network and distributing calls among themselves. In this sense, it is partially decentralised.
[[File:Photo_2025-06-12_12-45-44.png|alt=AI horde diagram|center|frameless|600x600px]]


En gran medida es un hub cultural, con su propia economía, reglas, y preferencias estéticas.
As a worker, you can generate "kudos," the exchange currency with which you can also generate images of other workers (more kudos = better and faster models).


'''Qué tipo de cuerpos habitan los [https://civitai.com/models modelos] más populares?'''
==== Artbot - an interface ====
There are many interfaces for this "decentralised" network of "workers" (since the AI horde software/network is accessible through APIs, access can take many forms)


=== AI Horde ===
One is a web-based interface: [https://tinybots.net/artbot/create artbot]
AI Horde es un sistema de clósters de procesamineto distribuidos. Usando código abierto, y crowd-financiado, es un recurso que permite prestar y tomar prestadas otras computadoras  con trarjetas gráficas con el fin de usar modelos de IA generativa


El sistema funciona creando un directorio de "trabajadores" que forman parte de esta red, y distribuyendo las llamadas entre sí. En este sentido es parcialmente descentralizado.
Not only is there a complex system behind this interface, like with most generative AI interfaces (computational models based on large, obscure databases), but there is also a somewhat invisible intersection between the technical, the cultural, and the artistic (computational, computer science, '''the amateur modeler''', the visual artist, and the average user).


Como trabajador, es posible generar "kudos" , la moneda de intercambio con la que también puede generar imágenes de otros trabajadores (más kudos = modelos mejores y más rápidos)´
Artbot not a plug-and-play interface either. While it is a suitable version in which programming knowledge is not required (as in older versions), it is not a blank, tame interface (think of Apple or chatGPT)


==== <span style="color:#9b0000">Un vistazo al trabajo material detrás de convertirse en un "trabajador":</span> ====
'''If you want to use the GPU in the room, click (as per the image below), and search for the worker called "xpablov117"'''
Conectar con el servidor, la mesa camilla


('''imagina que pides permiso para entrar a una casa que no es tuya, pero una vez que te dan permiso, puedes hacer los quieras: cambiar los muebles, ducharte, abrir puertas, pintar la casa, etc''')
[[File:Screenshot 20250530 142347.png|frame|none]]
    $ ssh -p 2020 xvs@xenocenter.zapto.org
Crear un espacio único en el disco, donde se instalan las versiones del código necesarias, apartado de otros archivos similares (environment)


('''imagina que tienes un horno, y quieres cocinar con dos tipos de guisados casi idénticos. En vez combinar sabores incompatibles en un sólo horno, te haces de otro horno más pequeño, con sus propios ingredientes que hacen sentido entre sí''')
If you choose to use "our" worker, you will be limited to the following models (no LORAs, in_painting or image to image options):
    $ source camilla_horde/bin/activate
Checar el espacio, uso, y distribución de discos duros


('''bueno, yo quiero este nuevo horno chiquito, habrá espacio en la casa?''')
* stable_diffusion
    $ df -a
* Deliberate
Checar memoria RAM, total y disponible
* ICBINP - I Can't Believe It's Not Photography
* AbsoluteReality


('''vale, hay espacio, para el horno, pero cuánto gas puedo usar? algunos de mis modelos, digo, de mis guisados, requieren mucho gas''')
[[File:Screenshot 20250612 133059.png|alt=artbot model option|frameless|600x600px]]
    $ free -h
Checar memoria VRAM y modelo de la tarjeta gráfica


'''(resulta que para mis guisados necesito dos tipos de gas, el segundo, un poco más especial es un poco caro, pero muy potente. Este es realmente el ingredient clave para generar xenovisuales)'''
(here is a list of all the models available in the network at this point: https://tinybots.net/artbot/info/models
    $ sudo lshw -C display
[[File:Screenshot 20250523 122806.png|thumb|tarjetas gráficas del servidor´]]
Corre el programa de GPU decentralizados usando python


'''(pongo mi guisado a hacer, básicamente´)'''
    $ python3 -m venv camilla_horde
Configuración de hordeAI
[[File:Screenshot 20250523 130334.png|thumb|Ejecutando hordeAI]]


('''ah, pero, veámos mis opciones para cocinar, cuáles son los límites? Que guisos quiero tener siempre a la mano? Qué guisos quiero prohibir? Con quien compartiré mi comida? Será picante?''')
About the NSFW issue within AI horde:
    $ nano bridgeData.yaml
* https://www.patreon.com/posts/nsfw-question-72771484
[[File:Screenshot 20250523 122938.png|thumb|archivo de configuración de ´hordeai]]
* https://www.patreon.com/posts/blacklist-72890784
* https://dbzer0.com/blog/ai-powered-anti-csam-filter-for-stable-diffusion/


=== Diálogo ===
==== Configuring AI horde ====
¿Qué significa hacer imágenes de estas maneras?
(if we have time, we can talk/show the file configuration for AI horde)
[[File:Screenshot_20250523_122938.png|frameless|600x600px]]
[[File:Screenshot_20250523_122806.png|200x200px|Installing AI horde|alt=Installing AI horde|thumb]]
[[File:Screenshot_20250523_130334.png|thumb|200x200px|Running AI horde]]


¿Cómo funciona la gobernanza en estos proyectos?
=== Dialogue ===
❧ What does it mean to make images in these ways?


¿Cuál es la relación entre el ethos de compartir de estos proyectos y su generación de valor?
❧ How does governance function in these projects?


¿Qué formas toman la economía, el trabajo, los cuerpos?´
❧ What is the relationship between the sharing ethos of these projects and their value generation?


pad para escribir en conjunto: https://ctp.cc.au.dk/pad/p/xeno_dialogo
❧ What forms do the economy, labor, and bodies take?


=== Recursos ===
=== Resources ===
Startups funded 2013-2023:
Startups funded 2013-2023:
* https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-number-of-ai-startups-by-country/
* https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-number-of-ai-startups-by-country/
Critical perspective:
Critical perspective:
* [http://localhost:8000/draft-presentation-002.pdf Generative AI ecosystem by Taller Estampa]
* [http://localhost:8000/draft-presentation-002.pdf Generative AI ecosystem by Taller Estampa]
AI y materialidad:
AI and materiality
* Big data, and only getting bigger https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/05/where-hyperscale-hardware-goes-to-retire-ars-visits-a-very-big-itad-site
* Big data, and only getting bigger https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/05/where-hyperscale-hardware-goes-to-retire-ars-visits-a-very-big-itad-site


Latest revision as of 10:33, 13 June 2025

Introduction

Aims of this workshop

  1. To give you an insight into how we are working with AI image creation
  2. Have a dialogue on possible intersections with your research.

Agenda

  1. Background (Chr.)
  2. AI image generation: techniques and infrastructures - evading the conventional platforms and capital interests (Nicolas & Pablo)
  3. Conversation

The background (Knowledge Servers)

Within a larger project on digitization, democracy and citizenship (SHAPE), we run a project that not only questions the role of Big Tech and platforms in the construction of knowledge, but also how one might ‘delink’ from capital interests.

We try to speak from the point of view of what you might call grassroots’ internet culture. A culture that had control of the tools, infrastructures and other means for its own existence – what the anthropologist Chris Kelty once called a ‘recursive publics’.

History took us elsewhere. To 'client-server' (platform) relations (rather than peer-to-peer).

We speak of technical infrastructures as a “epistemic infrastructures” (borrowing the term from Celia Lury): An infrastructure for what and how we know things – and not just for how we find information, or use it in other ways.

Project image made with Stable Diffusion

Our questions

How does grassroots digital culture respond to this development? OR What does technological autonomy look like today?

… What are the strategies for culturally, democratically and environmentally sustainable knowledge infrastructures?

… What are the tensions within technologies?

… How do you provide alterantives/other services and infrastructures for communities?

Our methods

We collaborate with grassroots groups (such as collectives that run such services)

We share a history of being part of this culture ourselves

Our 'amateurism' perhaps even attempts to be ‘undisciplined’ – suspending disciplinary regimes (challenging the conditions under which knowledge occurs)

We run and build services, "knowledge servers":

… a server (within the university ecosystem)

… a library

… a wiki

… an etherpad

… a git repository

Portrait of a self-hosted server

How we proceeded with generative AI

Our outset has been Stable Diffusion - a different visual culture than, say DALL-E.

A journey/mapping of, guided by Nicolas.

Mapping 'objects of interest/necessity'

... Objects, not as manifestations of an ideal (an imaginary of autonomy), but the other way around: in our investigation we have found these objects and we try to draw a map of what autonomy looks like, rather than what it is.

... That is the objects that create the imaginary

... Not what autonomy is, but what it looks like under given conditions.

Resulting in a workshop/exhibition/catalogue, September 2025 (final outcome)

Sketchy map of our journey

There are things that show

... ‘pixel space’: Images we create or images that are used to create and annotate data sets.

There are things that don't show

… A 'latent space' of models that generate outcomes

… Software and people/communities that use and build on the software, to – for instance – support their own visual culture.

… A level of organization of these people (for crowdsourcing p2p, using virtual tokens)

… A material level of dependencies on units (such as the GPU, minerals, 'dead labour')

AI Horde image generation with a communal infrastructure

Why?

  • Monopoly and concentration of power in platform capitalism
  • The user is the product
  • Governance
  • Epistemic closure

Platform economy

Numbers of newly funded AI startups per country
Taller Estampa, map of generative AI

Software

Stable Diffusion page, screenshot
Stable Diffusion, training process
Stable Diffusion pipeline, Severine Dusollier
Network of actants, Stable Diffusion

Decentralisation

CivitAI - a platform/repository

CivitAI is a highly popular platform/repository for distributing AI models and images. In our taxonomy, it's what we refer to as a space between the private and the commons. It's private in the sense that it's focused on individuals sharing their work (e.g., the creation of new models), and commons in the sense that most models can be reused and remixed. It's a repository whose primary purpose is to share resources.

CivitAI has its own currency ("buzz"). It can be purchased or earned by being part of the community (posting, recommending, commenting, etc.). It can be used to leave tips or to order certain models.

Captura pantalla civitAI

It is largely a cultural hub, with its own economy, rules, and aesthetic preferences.

While many, and the most popular models, recreate canon's of beauty and heteronormative standards, civitAI can be read as a hyper-specialisation space beyond big tech. This is where the "amateur modeler" can share their work.

AI Horde - a network

AI Horde is a distributed computing cluster system. Using open source and crowdfunding, it allows users to borrow and lend other computers with graphics cards to use generative AI models.

The system works by creating a directory of "workers" who are part of this network and distributing calls among themselves. In this sense, it is partially decentralised.

AI horde diagram

As a worker, you can generate "kudos," the exchange currency with which you can also generate images of other workers (more kudos = better and faster models).

Artbot - an interface

There are many interfaces for this "decentralised" network of "workers" (since the AI horde software/network is accessible through APIs, access can take many forms)

One is a web-based interface: artbot

Not only is there a complex system behind this interface, like with most generative AI interfaces (computational models based on large, obscure databases), but there is also a somewhat invisible intersection between the technical, the cultural, and the artistic (computational, computer science, the amateur modeler, the visual artist, and the average user).

Artbot not a plug-and-play interface either. While it is a suitable version in which programming knowledge is not required (as in older versions), it is not a blank, tame interface (think of Apple or chatGPT)

If you want to use the GPU in the room, click (as per the image below), and search for the worker called "xpablov117"

If you choose to use "our" worker, you will be limited to the following models (no LORAs, in_painting or image to image options):

  • stable_diffusion
  • Deliberate
  • ICBINP - I Can't Believe It's Not Photography
  • AbsoluteReality

artbot model option

(here is a list of all the models available in the network at this point: https://tinybots.net/artbot/info/models


About the NSFW issue within AI horde:

Configuring AI horde

(if we have time, we can talk/show the file configuration for AI horde)

Installing AI horde
Installing AI horde
Running AI horde

Dialogue

❧ What does it mean to make images in these ways?

❧ How does governance function in these projects?

❧ What is the relationship between the sharing ethos of these projects and their value generation?

❧ What forms do the economy, labor, and bodies take?

Resources

Startups funded 2013-2023:

Critical perspective:

AI and materiality

Software

Training LoRAs

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