In order to live a balanced and healthy life, one must not only take care of one’s physical health but also of one’s mental health. The problem in our society is that mental health is still a taboo subject and therefore too few people receive or claim the help they need.
A topic that has received more and more attention in the last few years, at least in my generation, but is still not talked about enough is Mental Health. The Awareness for mental health grew over all but during the corona crises, mental health issues in young adults grew as well.
My motivation stems from having taken therapeutic support myself, which has helped me in many areas and improved my quality of life overall. I believe that many people would feel the same way and that they would benefit from getting help. I have been an advocate for mental health since I started claiming mental health services myself and try to incorporate this into my community. However, I noticed in the discourse with my friends and family that even though they also suffered mentally, they did not want to seek the necessary support.
In my following research, I would like to prove the relevance of this topic, find out what reasons prevent people from seeking the help they need, where the biggest hurdles lie, and look into mental health Apps and services. I also would like to take a look at the possible solutions like destigmatizing mental health issues.
Quellen
Jacobi, F., Höfler, M., Strehle, J., Mack, S., Gerschler, A., Scholl, L., … Wittchen, H.-U. (2014). Psychische Störungen in der Allgemeinbevölkerung. Der Nervenarzt, 85(1), 77–87. doi:10.1007/s00115-013-3961-y
Richter, D., & Berger, K. (2013). Nehmen psychische Störungen zu? Psychiatrische Praxis, 40(04), 176–182. doi:10.1055/s-0032-1333060
Hofmann, FH., Sperth, M. & Holm-Hadulla, R.M. Psychische Belastungen und Probleme Studierender. Psychotherapeut62, 395–402 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007
We hope that by this point you are beginning to understand how important it is to include sustainability ideas in design. We must keep in mind that sustainability is a concept that may be utilized in almost all facets of daily life. Its core objective would encompass securing better alternatives in face of disaster or unprecedented damages but also serve as a guarantee that we can have a better life today and our children will still stand a chance to benefit from the same innovations. When applied to the design of everyday things and services, sustainability makes what we can call in that context sustainable design. And sustainable design has lots of benefits and advantages. we want to walk you through some of the successful sustainable designs we read.
Since the rise of sustainable design, designers have been asserting that sustainability has a much stronger case than just environmental reasons: There is also a viable economic argument for designing buildings with environmental benefits [1].
Even when no formal certification is sought, sustainability is baked into most new commercial and multifamily housing projects, but when it is (and competitors are in the field) the certification of choice for many developers is still U.S. Green Building Councils Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Diana Mosher studies some sustainable designs relating to housing. One example of a sustainable building she wrote about is the University of California Irvine’s NET-ZERO HOUSING. The University of California (UC) is well-known for its dedication to sustainability, particularly since the implementation of its carbon-neutral policy. When Plaza Verde student housing debuted in September 2019, the net-zero project (which is still pending final LEED Platinum certification) was hailed as the greenest housing complex in the entire UC system by the Provost.
Plaza Verde features an all-electric system that eliminates the need for natural gas and employs cutting-edge technologies such as heat pump water heaters and an electric outdoor grill system, among other energy-saving equipment. “We soon decided that because natural gas is a nonrenewable energy source, this building would not have any natural gas service,” Kasdan added. A central boiler system is a common energy-efficient technique for providing hot water in large buildings, but there is currently no electric boiler system that can serve a building of this size. As a result, each apartment received its own electric water heater and heat pump.
The sustainability of Plaza Verde extends beyond building and into operations and resident behavior. Ceiling fans improve the facility’s comfort and efficiency while lowering the campus’s overall energy consumption. Water-saving plumbing fixtures contribute to significant reductions in potable water consumption. Students are also encouraged to use alternate modes of transportation; bike storage holds over 760 bikes, and the Irvine site provides access to many public transportation lines as well as near walking proximity to community facilities.
David Lancor, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is an architect and associate principal with Clark Nexsen. He conducted a case study with the redesign of Rhodedes Hall, UNC Asheville’s 1950s Academic Building, Rhodedes Hall, UNC Asheville’s 1950s Academic Building, serves as a case study of the economic value of sustainable design: it achieved an annual 46.8 percent decrease in energy use and a nearly 25 percent decrease in energy costs.
The findings from the research presented help the design community to implement strategies that not only achieve the building energy-savings goals, but also address occupants’ needs regarding comfort and utilization of the space, creating a total system of efficiency for users and building managers, and thereby achieving all three components of sustainability: reductions in environmental impacts, increased societal outcomes, and lowered financial costs [2].
The design team was able to find the most cost-effective alternative for the project by conducting a comparative life cycle cost study of different grades of glazing and their impact on the tonnage required for the mechanical system. This option provided immediate cost savings while also saving the owner money over the life of the building.
Water-efficiency techniques in green buildings help to reduce water use by encouraging stormwater capture and the use of non-potable sources.
One of the biggest benefits of green buildings is the lower cost of upkeep: With specifically engineered design elements helping reduce power and water bills, these energy-efficient structures can save the business and residential owners a bundle. All these categories can benefit from having a building certified as Green and increasing operating efficiencies. In addition to UNC Asheville’s interest in reduced operational costs and energy use, UNC Asheville values water management and conservation, making reducing water usage central to our design process [2].
It is already common knowledge that placing a green roof on a building helps to reduce energy use, absorb runoff, and combat air pollution. Green roofing benefits go beyond aesthetics, from reduced stormwater runoff and urban dust to energy-efficient cooling.
It is important to stipulate here that ecological design does not address the core issue of whether the product is needed within the context of total sustainability. Designing for reusability and recyclability is generally seen as an easier choice where increasing energy efficiency or decreasing emissions might lead to fewer environmental impacts (Goggin and Dewberry, 1997).
Andrew Sadler, a renewable energy specialist, presents seven criteria for sustainable construction. Principles that we believe are important to mention. Constructions certainly have consequential impacts on the environment. They are accounted to be causing 45% of total UK carbon emissions for example. To ensure that building projects are as sustainable as feasible, environmental factors such as the 7 principles of sustainable construction must be considered from the very beginning of the construction process. The seven principles of sustainable construction proposed by Andrew Sadler are a technique for contributing to a better built environment while reducing our overall carbon footprint. They cover areas like sustainable design, durability, energy efficiency, waste reduction, indoor air quality, water conservation, sustainable building materials.
To sum Andrew Sadler’s 7 principles up, we can say that :
The early planning and design of a building have a significant impact on lowering energy consumption and pollution. The earlier you incorporate sustainable construction into your design, the more sustainable the building will be.
Referring to durability, the astonishing antiquity of Austrian structures demonstrates the longevity of construction materials. These structures are excellent examples of how to construct modern, sustainable structures.
Increasing energy efficiency will help you save money by cutting fuel usage, which reduces CO2 emissions. This allows us to reduce our contribution to climate change.
Improving the energy efficiency of technology has the potential to drastically cut energy usage and emissions. Switching to environmentally friendly energy technology will transform your sources into services such as illumination, transportation, and heat.
Developers can now choose from a wide range of energy-efficient building materials. Insulating concrete forms, low-emissivity windows, structural insulated panels, and many other materials are available.
To be successful, you must execute your goal of producing an energy-efficient building throughout the concept/design stage.
Bad air quality, which is often produced by indoor pollution that emits dangerous particles, can have a severe impact on interior settings and people’s health.
Water is becoming an increasingly valuable resource, with pollution and climate change having a significant impact on freshwater supplies. You can recall this in the case study with the redesign of Rhodedes Hall, UNC Asheville’s 1950s Academic Building, Rhodedes Hall, UNC Asheville’s 1950s Academic Building where the designers made reducing water usage central to their design process and it worked. And finally, sustainable materials can be explained as materials that have no direct impact on the environment and do not use non-renewable resources
We also suggest having a look at the top 10 eco-friendly design trends of 2022 published by Srishti Mitra, a junior editor and a social media marketer at Yanko Design.
What technological device are you currently reading this article with: your computer, your phone, or maybe your tablet? You may even have a plugin installed that reads it aloud to you while you’re driving in your car or shopping, because that way you can do two things at once. Let’s forget this particular article for a second, can you say exactly how much time in your life is spent surrounded by various devices, or would it be easier for you to answer how much time you spend without them? Before answering, think carefully about whether you wear a smart watch or a device that helps your heart beat, or perhaps helps you hear better? For many people today, life is so intertwined with technology that they have trouble answering these questions, and why should they?
As a student of Interaction Design, I understand that as no one else in my profession will be associated not only with high and modern technology, but also with their implementation in the lives of other people. That’s why I wanted to ask myself at the very beginning of my career, “how much technology do people need? It’s great if they can help people make better diagnoses or make their lives safer, and if they can help increase education, but I also started to hear more and more about the flipside of technology: it can reduce the safety of driving if not used correctly (maybe you heard about the time that the captain of the vehicle lost control because his analog device was replaced with a touchscreen), or it can completely displace people from creative professions that they enjoy (like right now I’ll tell you this). So, given these trends, it is not hard to see that there is a certain boundary between the right level of technology and the alarming level of it, which is unspoken and which nobody marked before we entered the age of information technology. It is this line that is the subject of my interest for this blog.
First of all, I want to briefly outline the advantages and disadvantages of technology in relation to certain industry sectors, because in my opinion, the need for technology is equally distributed between different areas.
Medicine: Technology has made huge breakthroughs in this field over the past decades. Innovations such as AR, 3D printing, AI, robotic assistants and virtual healthcare have surely saved and improved the quality of more than one life. Recently, an experiment was conducted in which 15 experienced doctors from China and an artificial intelligence called BioMind AI competed against each other in making diagnoses related to neurological pathologies. While the AI could find 87% of pathologies in 225 cases, the team of doctors could achieve only 66% accuracy. Similar results were obtained in a competition to identify brain hematomas. And despite the fact that it is already clear that such technology will displace many extremely talented diagnosticians from the working market, many will say “I do not care who diagnoses me, human or machine, as long as the disease is found”. Since we are talking about human lives, in my opinion, in this case high technology is appropriate and necessary, if it can work more accurately than humans or increase the success of treatment. Naturally, this also requires patience, adaptability and teachability in the medical profession.
Education: In my opinion, things are more complicated in this field. On the one hand, if every student had a tablet with a complete school program, which would also adjust to the abilities of the learner, it would be great: students could decide at what pace to study and when they could try to pass exams, their cognitive abilities and interests could be taken into account in setting homework, teachers could concentrate on supporting their class and would be freed from the monotonous routine work. However, this sounds utopian enough, and any utopia always inevitably leads to various dystopian scenarios. During the coronavirus, it became clear that students, contrary to all expectations of the adult generation, were not delighted with long sessions with computers and tablets: they complained of back pain, lack of communication and even depressive states. All this points to the fact that in education technology should not be used thoughtlessly and count on it in every aspect.
Art: This is probably the most difficult area. The vast majority of designers working in the industry use technology for their work, be it Figma or Adobe Suite. In recent years the appearance of new plugins in Figma or brushes for Photoshop has excited the community of illustrators and designers, but after the appearance of Mid Journey, many have become very skeptical of the development of technology in this area, even to the point of asking for the ” cancellation of AI in art “. This kind of antipathy to progress has not been seen since the Industrial Revolution, so it seems to me that this topic is vast and will remain an open question for a long time to come.
(“The cover illustrations for our blog posts created by human designers are on the left, and those generated with Midjourney on the right”, Source: Kirdina, 2022)
As you can see, the topic of technology is totally controversial and can be approached from different perspectives when it comes to different areas. That is why I find it interesting and fascinating, so in my next articles I plan to explore it from different angles.
The Sinus-Milieus are a social model and are considered the gold standard of psychographic target group segmentation in the German-speaking market (in this case Austria). This model arranges people with similar values, lifestyle and comparable social situation. The Transition between milieus are fluid.
The Sinus-Milieus illustrate the motivations behind the various lifestyles in our society.
Conservatives 5 % The older, structurally conservative elite: Strongly characterized by Christian ethics, high estimation of education and culture. Skeptical towards current social development. Demographic info: Age: 60+ Men are Academic schooled Woman are housewifes Retired 2 person household
Established 8 % Strongly focused on status, exclusiveness, responsibility and leadership
Demographic info: age between 40 – 60 high educational level Senior servants and self-employed and freelancer High income Life in a 3 or more household
Performers 8% Flexible and globally orientated. Individual performance, efficiency and success have top-priority; competent in business and IT. Demographic info: Age: under 30 Most of them are still in school Education level is high Good income
Digital individualists 9% Individual, networking, digital avant-garde. Mentally and geographically worldwide mobile, cross-linked online and offline, permanently looking for new experiences Demographic info: Age: Under 35 small self-employed or freelancers trainees, pupils and students without income is high. Net household income is still above average. Thanks to good situated parents. A lot of singles
Adaptive-Navigators 12% The young pragmatic middle stratum. Strong desire for anchorage, membership, security, performance-orientation but also the wish for fun and entertainment
Demographic info: Age 30-60 Personal households Child friendly Middle-income employees, civil servants or skilled workers
Post-materialist 10 % Open-minded social critics. Variated aspects of culture; cosmopolitan orientation, but critical towards globalization; socially engaged. Demographic info: Age: begin 30 after school they work in qualified and leading jobs. high income big households with kids
Modern Mainstreamers % Adaptive mainstream. Seeking professional and social establishment, secure and harmonic circumstances, support and orientation, peace and a slow pace.
Demographic info: Above 50 Simple educated Jobs in administration, business and culture Employed and unemployed
Traditionals 12 % Emphasizing on security, order and stability. Rooted in the old pretty bourgeois world, in the traditional blue collar culture or in the rural milieu
Demographic info: 65+ (Boomers) A lot of women in this milieu A lot of traditional jobs (skilled worker/ farmers)
Consumption Oriented 8%
Materialistic lower class striving for participation. Sense of discrimination. Striving to stay connected with the consumption standards of the middle class.
Demographic info: Younger and middle age group to 50, focus under 30 Simple to medium education. Students and trainees are high. Middle rage income
Consumer Hedonistic Milieu 8% The modern lower middle class, living for the excitement of the moment. Seeking fun and amusement; rejection of traditional standards and conventions.
Demographic info: Wide ranch up to 60 Most completed elementary school or secondary school. Lower income. Social disadvantages such as unemployment, illness or incomplete family often make the situation even more difficult
Sources: – The gold standard for target group segmentation. (2023). https://www.sinus-institut.de/. Retrieved January 11, 2023, from https://www.sinus-institut.de/en/sinus-milieus – Sinus-Milieus® Austria. (2018). https://www.sinus-institut.de/. Retrieved January 11, 2023, from https://www.sinus-institut.de/en/sinus-milieus/sinus-milieus-oesterreich – PDF Sinus milieus (2009)
Das Bild wurde mit dem Verfahren, das zu jeweiligem Zeitpunkt auf Glas statt auf Zinkplatten hergestellt wurde, war immer noch schwer und lang andauernd. Alles veränderte sich, als George Eastman 1884 in New York den Rollfilm vorstellte. Die Fotografie wurde für jedermann zugänglich. Eastman war auch gleichzeitig der Gründer der Firma [1]Kodak, die bis heute noch in den Köpfen der analogen Fotografie-Liebhaberinnen und -Liebhaber vorhanden ist. Mit seiner neuen ´Browie` Kamera, die nur einen Dollar kostete, kam die Zugänglichkeit der Fotografie an die Öffentlichkeit und Bilder konnten nacheinander gereicht aufgenommen werden. Die Lichtkamera erzeugte anfangs auf dem 100-Aufnahmefähigen Film kreisrunde Lichtbilder. Weiters kümmerte sich die Firma Kodak um die Entwicklung der Bilder. Durch ein weiteres fortgeschrittenes Model der Browie ermöglichte Kodak den Kundinnen und den Kunden die eigenständige Entwicklung der Schwarz-Weiß- Fotografie. Nun brauchte nicht jeder ein Wissenschaftler oder Chemiker sein. Film einlegen, Bilder schießen und selbst entwickeln stand an der Tagesordnung. Dies bedeutete: Bahn frei für die Kleinbildkamera, das Porträtieren und das Ausprobieren.
Wegen der leichteren Zugänglichkeit und der starken Konkurrenz zwischen der traditionellen, porträtierenden Malerei und der neuen Fotografie, mussten sich die Künstlerinnen und die Künstler neue, 13einzigartige Stile ausdenken. Dabei stand das Empfinden der Wirklichkeit anstatt einer schlichten, genauen Abbildung im Vordergrund. Beispielsweise dafür ist das Gemälde von Else Berg unter dem Namen: `Mädchen am Tisch`.
Abbildung 7 Mädchen am Tisch, Else Berg
FAZIT
All diese Ereignisse mussten stattfinden, damit Sie und ich ein Schnappschuss unserer erlebten Momente aufbewahren können. Fotografie ist viel mehr als nur das Einfallen des Lichtes durch ein Objektiv und ein Gehäuse. Es sind die Winkel, die Motive, die Belichtungen des Objektes, die Gesichtsausdrücke und die Aussage des Bildes, die erst die Fotografie so faszinierend macht- zusammengefasst ist es das fotografische Erlebnis. Ja, die professionelle Fotografie ist nicht nur ein einfaches Abdrücken, es ist eine inszenierte teilweise dokumentierende und vom Fotografen bestimmte Realität. Die mich und Sie darstellen.
[1] Geschichte der Fotografie, Willfried Baatz, S.65
Die vertragliche Wissens-Partnerschaft zwischen Joseph Nicéphore Niépce und Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre hat dazu geführt, dass die Suche nach einem Fixierstoff fortgeführt wurde. Daguerre, ein angesehener Kunstmaler,[1] ließ sich auch nicht von Niépces unerwarteten Tod entmutigen. Er entwickelte mithilfe von [2]Jodsilberplatten einen Bildträger, der nach einiger Belichtungszeit in der linsenintegrierten Camera Obscura mithilfe von Quecksilberdämpfen, Kochsalz und später Natriumthiosulfat gewaschen und anschließend getrocknet werden konnte. Das resultierte in spiegelverkehrten Unikaten, die aufgrund der Oxidation des Silbers verglast und eingerahmt werden mussten. Das Daguerretypieverfahren, und somit das zweite Bild der Welt, wurde geboren.
Abbildung 4 Boulevard du Temple
Die Abbildung zeigt eine an sich befahrene Straße. Aufgrund der langen Belichtungszeit konnten alle Bewegungseinflüsse nicht auf dem Bild eingefangen werden. Nur ein Mann beim Brunnen im linken Bildabschnitt ist erkennbar. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass er sich so lange die Schuhe putzen ließ, dass er von der Kamera eingenommen werden konnte.
Daguerre wollte nun die Erfindung weltberühmt machen. Mit seinem ausgeprägten Geschäftssinn und einer großen Motivation gelang es ihm, seine und Niépce Erfindung am französischen Staat zu verkaufen. Weiterhin schaffte er, dem eigentlich von Niépce und ihm erschaffenen Verfahren, alleine patentieren zu lassen. Als wäre dieser Siegeszug für ihn nicht genug, hat er sich und seinem Schwager das alleinige Recht des Baus und Vertriebs seines Apparates `le Daguerretype` beschaffen. Daguerre zählt somit zu den Gründern der Fotografie.
4. WILLIAM HENRY TOX TALBOT- REPRODUZIERBARKEIT
Nach der Bekanntgabe der Erfindung von Daguerre arbeitete der Engländer William Henry Tox Talbot an seinen Erfindungen weiter. Im Jahr [3]1840 erfand er eine geeignete Substanz, um das Fotopapier zu sensibilisieren. Zusätzlich schaffte er mit seinem kleinen, hölzernen Würfel, die Belichtungszeit von 60 Minuten auf Sekunden zu verringern. Mit dieser Gerätschaft, die von seiner Frau ‚Mausefalle‘ _genannt worden war, legte er die Grundlage der Negativ-Positiv-Fotografie, dessen Verfahren er Kalotypie nannte. Ab diesem Zeitpunkt war die Reproduzierbarkeit der Bilder möglich und die Türen der Fotografie als Massenmedium standen ganz weit offen. [4]1844 bis 1846 sind erstmals in einem Printmedium Fotografien erschienen, die mit der Massenproduzierbarkeit der Kalotypien erschaffen worden waren. Davor erhielt Talbot ein Patent für sein Verfahren mit dem Namen Kalotypie, das später unter dem Begriff der Talbotypie bekannt war. Im Übrigen erschuf er davor, im August 1835, die berühmte Aufnahme des `Oriel Fensters` auf Lacock Abbey.
Abbildung 5 Oriel Fensters` auf Lacock Abbey
Trotz dessen war erst 1839 das öffentliche Geburtsjahr der Fotografie. Das Interesse und die Verbreitung der Fotografie vergrößerten sich ebenso. Anfangs kamen die kalten Schwarz- Weiß- Bilder an der Bevölkerung nicht wirklich gut an. Doch mithilfe von Schwefel enstanden braun- oder orangestichige Bilder, die wiederum aufgrund deren warmen Farbton einen großen Anklang in der Gesellschaft fanden. Die bräunlichen Bilder, die im Vergleich zu den schwarz-weiß palen Bildern der Realität näherkamen, sind unter dem Namen [5]Sepia bekannt, als Beispiel dient das Landschaftsbild von Adolphe Braun.
Abbildung 6 Blumenstilleben Adolphe Braun
[1] Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografie, Anselm Wunderer, S. 17
[2] Geschichte der Fotografie, Willfried Baatz, S.19 und https://www.deutsches-museum.de/sammlungen/meisterwerke/meisterwerke-iv/kamera/
[3] Geschichte der Fotografie, Willfried Baatz, S.21
[4] Geschichte der Fotografie, Willfried Baatz, S.22
[5] Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografie, Anselm Wunderer, S. 23
Bekannt war, dass Sonnenlicht in Kombination mit bestimmten Chemikalien, wie [1]Silbernitrate und Silberoxid das Aussehen von Gegenständen schwärzen können. Der Arzt des Herzogs von Mecklenburg war einer der Ersten, der dieses Ereignis beobachtete und dokumentierte. Rasch folgten weitere Vertreter, die die außergewöhnliche Lichtempfindlichkeit des Silbersalzes mitverfolgten. Unter ihnen auch der schwedische Chemiker Carl Wilhelm Scheele. Er entdeckte, dass Ammoniak das geschwärzte Silberchlorid konserviert und die Schwärze aufgrund dieser Methode unlöslich wird.
2.1 THOMAS WEDGWOOD
Sowohl die Camera Obscura, als auch die Chemikalien konnten alleine kein erhaltenes Bild entstehen lassen, nur in der Zusammensetzung waren sie wirksam. Zu derselben Erkenntnis ist ebenfalls der Chemiestudent Thomas Wedgwood gekommen. Er legte zum ersten Mal ein Silbernitratgetränktes Papier in seine Camera Obscura ein. Anschließend färbte sich das Bild durch die Lichteinflüsse komplett schwarz, sodass nichts auf dem Papier zu sehen war. Obwohl es ein Misserfolg für ihn persönlich war, war es ein Erfolg für die Fotografie. Der Grundbaustein war gelegt und weitere Erfinder konnten sich von seinen Experimenten inspirieren lassen.
2.2 JOSEPH NICÉPHORE NIÉPCE
Auch der unzureichende Zeichentalent [3]Joseph Nicéphore Niépce ist zu erwähnen. Er probierte 1826 oder 1827 eine verbesserte Variante des Prinzips von Thomas Wedgwood aus. Dabei bestellte er eine handangefertigte, personalisierte Camera Obscura beim Optiker Chevalier her, die er anschließend im Fenster seines Landhauses legte und eine von ihm lichtempfindlich gemachte Zinnplatte 8 Stunden lang beleuchten ließ. Das jemals festgehaltene Bild mit dem Titel `Blick aus dem Fenster seines Arbeitszimmers` ist entstanden. Es ist die aller erste dokumentierte Abbildung, die die Menschen jemals zu Gesicht bekommen haben.
Abbildung 3 Blick aus dem Fenster seines Arbeitszimmers
[1] Geschichte der Fotografie, Willfried Baatz, S.16
[2] Geschichte der Fotografie, Willfried Baatz, S.14
[3] Geschichte der Fotografie, Willfried Baatz, S.16
Looking back, AI has definitely been one of the hottest topics of 2022, at the center of which it seemed like were text-to-image AI and neural networks. A polarising topic to be sure with some criticising the possible use cases, especially in the arts, and some praising the technology and it finding a special place within internet culture.
All this buzz can make it confusing to understand just how and what these AI everyone seems to be talking about are. This is what I want to clear up within this blog entry.
OpenAI
I want to start by examining OpenAI briefly. It is a research laboratory founded in 2015 with the aim of creating AI that benefits humanity as a whole in some fashion that has since given birth to many generative models that are now being used as a basis for text-to-image style AI.
OpenAI consists of the for-profit OpenAI LP as well as the non-profit OpenAI Inc. When it was founded, it started with a pledge of 1 billion US dollars from founders Sam Altman and Elon Musk. In 2019, Microsoft invested another 1 billion US dollars into the company.
GPT
OpenAI’s generative pre-trained transformers, or GPT, GPT-2 and GPT-3, respectively are generative models with the purpose of understanding language models. These started out as relatively simple models used to autocomplete sentences in computer programs. The newest model, GPT-3 is a highly complex network with over 175 billion parameters that is capable of understanding long, complex sentences, produce well-formed text and is being used for ChatGPT, a service that lets users converse with the AI. As of June 2020, GPT-3 is licensed exclusively to Microsoft.
DALL-E
OpenAI has also developed DALL-E and its successor DALL-E 2, transformer models that can generate images based on text prompts. Both use GPT-3 as a base to understand the text prompts and then generate images based on said prompts. No public code has been released so far.
CLIP
CLIP can be seen as the opposite of DALL-E as it is capable of creating detailed descriptions of images. CLIP as well as similar AI models are already being used by many websites such as unsplash.com to create descriptions or alt texts for the images hosted on the site.
Point-E
A more recent development has created Point-E, a transformer model similar to DALL-E that, instead of images creates 3D models based on text prompts interpreted by GPT-3. This is another feature that I believe to be of incredible value, as creating 3D assets is a challenging, highly technical as well as time-consuming and hence expensive feat.
Midjourney
Another noteworthy text-to-image generating AI is Midjourney, which has entered open beta in July 2022 and as of November 2022 has reached its fourth version. The AI can be used through bot commands using the chat platform ‘Discord’.
Stable Diffusion
Perhaps the most notable client-side text-to-image model is stable diffusion, a collaborative effort by Stability AI, CompVis LMU and Runway along with other contributors. Stable diffusion is based on a diffusion model, its main purpose consisting of de-noising images. Stable diffusion works by creating random noise which it then iteratively de-noises based on a text prompt by the user, eventually creating highly detailed images.
As previously mentioned before, stable diffusion is remarkable in the sense that, in contrast to many other AI text-to-image models, users are able to run it on their private machines rather than only through server or cloud services.
This screenshot below shows stable diffusion working as a blender add-on on my personal computer. On the left you can see the actual model and viewport, the right image shows what stable diffusion creates after being given the viewport render as well as the text prompt ‘Photorealistic face of a monkey’.
The philological method is usually applied to works of art. But art had become a part of our daily lives. Never before has this kind of art played the role as it does today.
Subjection of man to the impersonal necessities of social, economy and political life. An emphasis on the beautiful has penetrated in all levels; it has also penetrated to the forms of propaganda used to advertise these goods.
And the success of such attempts at aesthetic appeal achieved by modern advertising is confirmed by many exhibits of original commercial designs which have attracted a large public.
There exists today whole literature devoted to the requirements of effective advertisements
(H.F. Adams – Advertising and its Laws/ H.E. Burtt – Psychology of Advertising)
In such treatments the emphasis is generally placed on the psychological element and on the utilitarian efficacy of the propaganda
Attempt to appeal aesthetic The success of modern advertisement in its attempts to appeal aesthetic.
In this Commercial for Sunkist oranges is the scene so perfect with a nice mountain view snow that shimmers in de sun and the color of the juice is perfect. > but in the whole commercial there is nothing said about the juice itself how healthy it is and how nice the taste is. There is no human only the nature and how you can experience the miracle you would experience when you drink the orange juice.
The fact that these oranges have to be transported kilometers to end at our house is not a matter.
Advertisements need to be aesthetically pleasing and need to provoke a feeling you get the product out of the ideal world. The origin of the product doesn’t matter. The aim of the advertisement is to sell and make money and not inform people.
