Creative Futures: An AI Workshop for Artists and Makers

What have you always wanted to make but never believed you could?

An animation? A piece of music? A comic, a small app, or something you don’t yet have a name for? Emerging AI tools are opening new possibilities for creative expression, inviting us to venture into forms we once thought were beyond our reach. With these possibilities come new questions: What makes a work our own? Are these new tools expanding our imagination? Or are they making too many choices for us?

Join Voices of Esalen’s Sam Stern for a playful weekend creative lab exploring these questions through making. We’ll approach AI as a collaborator, bringing our own imagination, intention, taste, and discernment to the process. Through guided experiments, with dedicated time to work individually and as a group, we’ll explore unfamiliar tools and new ways of creating .

Throughout the weekend, we will:

• Begin each morning with gentle movement to warm up our bodies and invite curiosity and play.
• Explore how AI can help us work in unfamiliar creative forms, including experiments that translate an idea from one medium into another.
• Practice choosing, revising, and refining our work, developing the discernment that keeps our own human voice present.
• Develop a small creative project of your choosing, leaving with an early version and ideas for where to take it next.
• Share our experiments and discoveries, learning from one another’s approaches, surprises, and creative detours.

You’ll have opportunities to experiment creatively with and without AI. You may discover tools to keep exploring, renew your enthusiasm for developing, crafting, and designing by hand, or find an unexpected combination of the two.

Practicing artists, curious beginners, and thoughtful skeptics are all welcome. No technical experience is required. Just bring your curiosity and enthusiasm for that passion project you would love to bring to fruition.