Senior Lecturer
Ulrich Gaulke
JMSC, HKU Hong Kong
Program Director Documentary Filmmaking
A.I. Concentration & Innovation Advisor
The Moving AI Image
The development of image production using AI models is growing rapidly. Applications such as RUNWAY, KLING AI and LUMA make promises in order to replace our real image production with a virtual one. The AI models trained with tons of moving images have no understanding of reality. They generate images based on probabilities. This often leads to unexpected creations that have little to do with what we understand as reality. On the other hand, our human perception is also a product of a training process that relies on similar neural structures. What makes us think that AI is unable to develop an idea of the world around us? And if it does, what would that idea look like?
My contribution to the symposium deals with the question of how the production of moving images in the era of artificial intelligence leads to a new interpretation of reality. Using two different projects, I would like to explain how an AI works with moving images. In a video installation entitled “Step by Step”, which premiered at last year's Venice Biennale, I will show how an AI independently produces a two-minute stream of images that changes every 10 seconds and is based only on a prompt and a reference image. In another work, the creator (me) tries to permanently influence the production of images by communicating with the AI through prompting and reference images from the real world. We will discuss both AI works and enter into a discourse about the creation of artificial realities.
BIO
Uli Gaulke is an author and director of award-winning documentaries.
At the Journalism and Media Studies Centre (JMSC), Uli teaches courses such as Generative AI in Media Applications, Documentary Video Production and Documentary Film Appreciation. He received the Social Science Outstanding Teaching Award 2023 from the University of Hong Kong.
Born in East Germany, Uli studied directing at the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, in Postdam. His first feature-length documentary, Havanna, Mi Amor, won a prize for Best Documentary at the 2001 German Film Award, also known as Lola.
His second film, Marry Me (2003), was screened at the Berlinale. It was followed by Comrades in Dreams, which was shown at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for the World Cinema Jury Prize for Documentary. As Time Goes By In Shanghai (2013) premiered at Hot Docs Toronto and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival 2014. Sunset Over Hollywood (2018) was nominated for the German Documentary Film Award and selected for the SXSW Festival.
Uli also worked as a director and cinematographer for TV documentaries like 24h Jerusalem and 24H Europe, which were aired on ARTE and other TV stations across Europe.
He has also taught master classes in Vietnam, South Korea and Russia; at the Berlinale’s Talent Campus in Berlin and New Delhi; as well as at his alma mater, the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg.
ARTWORK [11]
STEP BY STEP, Venice Biennale 2024
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Ulrich Gaulke
JMSC, HKU Hong Kong
Program Director Documentary Filmmaking
A.I. Concentration & Innovation Advisor
The Moving AI Image
The development of image production using AI models is growing rapidly. Applications such as RUNWAY, KLING AI and LUMA make promises in order to replace our real image production with a virtual one. The AI models trained with tons of moving images have no understanding of reality. They generate images based on probabilities. This often leads to unexpected creations that have little to do with what we understand as reality. On the other hand, our human perception is also a product of a training process that relies on similar neural structures. What makes us think that AI is unable to develop an idea of the world around us? And if it does, what would that idea look like?
My contribution to the symposium deals with the question of how the production of moving images in the era of artificial intelligence leads to a new interpretation of reality. Using two different projects, I would like to explain how an AI works with moving images. In a video installation entitled “Step by Step”, which premiered at last year's Venice Biennale, I will show how an AI independently produces a two-minute stream of images that changes every 10 seconds and is based only on a prompt and a reference image. In another work, the creator (me) tries to permanently influence the production of images by communicating with the AI through prompting and reference images from the real world. We will discuss both AI works and enter into a discourse about the creation of artificial realities.
BIO
Uli Gaulke is an author and director of award-winning documentaries.
At the Journalism and Media Studies Centre (JMSC), Uli teaches courses such as Generative AI in Media Applications, Documentary Video Production and Documentary Film Appreciation. He received the Social Science Outstanding Teaching Award 2023 from the University of Hong Kong.
Born in East Germany, Uli studied directing at the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, in Postdam. His first feature-length documentary, Havanna, Mi Amor, won a prize for Best Documentary at the 2001 German Film Award, also known as Lola.
His second film, Marry Me (2003), was screened at the Berlinale. It was followed by Comrades in Dreams, which was shown at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for the World Cinema Jury Prize for Documentary. As Time Goes By In Shanghai (2013) premiered at Hot Docs Toronto and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival 2014. Sunset Over Hollywood (2018) was nominated for the German Documentary Film Award and selected for the SXSW Festival.
Uli also worked as a director and cinematographer for TV documentaries like 24h Jerusalem and 24H Europe, which were aired on ARTE and other TV stations across Europe.
He has also taught master classes in Vietnam, South Korea and Russia; at the Berlinale’s Talent Campus in Berlin and New Delhi; as well as at his alma mater, the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg.
ARTWORK [11]
STEP BY STEP, Venice Biennale 2024
<< previous | next >>