Light Art Vision & Making the Most of ChatGPT

Welcome and Introductions: 11:30 am to 11:45 am

Initial Presentation: 11:45 am to 12:45 pm

Speaker: Carol Klitzner

Topic: Making the Most of ChatGPT: How to craft prompts that produce the best results from this AI tool

ChatGPT and other large language model (LLM) tools have taken the world by storm in the last year. This talk will explain and demonstrate how ChatGPT works. It will show how AI can be a timesaver and personal assistant in creating documents, answering questions, and providing helpful guidance on a range of topics. What is it like to have a “conversation” with an AI bot? How can you get the best help from this tool? This talk will show examples and give tips for the most effective interactions.

Carol Klitzner is a graduate of Carleton College, with a BA in sociology/anthropology. She worked in the very early days of computer-assisted instruction in the late 1960s and then went on to work in educational publishing —writing and editing a range of materials for students in all grades. As head of an educational computer software company, she produced computer-based educational materials for companies such as Children's Television Workshop, Harcourt Brace, and others. Starting in the 1990s, Carol pivoted to working as a technical writer in the pharmaceutical, medical, and financial industries. She produced a wide range of materials for both technical and non-technical audiences. In 2016, Carol joined a blockchain-startup company, Digital Asset, and she has been involved in cutting-edge applications for such projects as the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) Synapse project, Versana syndicated loan platform, and a number of pilots of central bank digital currency.

Main Presentation: 12:45 pm to 2:30 pm

Speaker: Seth D. Riskin

Topic: Light Art Vision

This image-driven talk focuses on Light Dance, an original artistic practice developed by the presenter. Moving with projection instruments attached to his body, the artist articulates geometrically elemental light forms on the boundaries of the otherwise dark room. These Light Dance experiences—shaping as they do primary perceptions of space and time through the manipulation of light—speak to the early visual system of the human brain. Riskin sees his work reflecting a long, artistic tradition of probing perception and as a contemporary model for collaboration between visual art and vision neuroscience. In his work, Riskin endeavors to rework the relationship between visual art and vision neuroscience, centering artistic insight not as corroboration of scientific theory, but as companion—and at times, as lead—to discoveries on the nature of perception.

Seth Riskin is an artist who uses light to explore human perception. He has long worked at MIT, where he originated his Light Dance art form in 1987. Riskin performs in varied cultural settings, e.g., on a Fulbright scholarship to India in 1992-93 where he studied Hindu fire dancing in relation to his art. He earned a PhD at the Center for Advanced Integrative Arts (CAiiA) at Plymouth University in England in 2021 (with Roy Ascott) and a Master’s degree at MIT in 1989 at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) under the direction of German artist Otto Piene, a leading figure in technology-based art. Riskin’s MIT Museum Studio and Compton Gallery program brings experimental museum practice to forefronts of research and education. Each Fall, Riskin co-teaches “Vision in Art and Neuroscience,” offered by the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Drawing students from across the campus, the course introduces core concepts in vision neuroscience through artistic methods of handling light, resulting in a public exhibition of projects.