This trip was my first time visiting the Simons Center! I’ve had class in the Physics building before, but I’ve never gone beyond the statue there. I had no idea that there was a building there and I’m sure many other people didn’t know either. The first thing I spotted was how new the building looked, everything was so clean. Then I noticed the sculptures made by Professor Toby! I was thinking of joining her intro to ceramics class but unfortunately my schedule could not fit the class. Then, I noticed the gallery with artwork from Professor Maurides and Dr. Yager! It was very exciting to see! I wasn’t able to attend the gallery opening since my physics lab was during that time, but I finally got the chance to visit.
Professor Walsh’s presentation was super interesting to listen to! It was really interesting to learn that machine learning didn’t exactly mean artificial intelligence. I really liked that all of her artwork used original photography and video instead of taking images from the internet. I think that the ethics of AI use in art is very controversial and I tend to lean towards the anti-AI in art side. I think it was nice to see that you can use AI as a tool to create parts of art but not the whole thing. We also learned about her plans for her course in machine learning over the summer. I like that her plans included teaching about ethical AI usage and the impact of using AI on the world (excessive water usage, energy usage, etc.). I was also really excited to learn that Professor Walsh was a fan of watercolor painting! Watercolor was one of my first mediums and it is definitely one of my favorite mediums to use. I really enjoyed her collection of watercolor plants that don’t exist! The blue she used especially caught my attention, it was a great contrast against the pink-purple color!