As 2024 comes to a close I wanted to reflect on some of my professional accomplishments, but more importantly I needed to get the ball rolling again on my blog posts which have been lagging since this past summer. The reason for the lack of posts is simple, life in all forms got really busy starting in July and just mercifully let up for the final few days of the year. Mostly good busy though!
The highlight of the second half of 2024 was being asked to be a co-presenter for the 2024 RMCAD Fall Faculty Convocation Keynote Address, the topic of the talk was “AI in Education”. My co-presenter, Jillian Sinha, and I shared our research into the technology, ethics, legality, and practical applications of AI in the classroom for our colleagues attending in person in the Mary Harris Auditorium on our Denver campus and those streaming the address over Zoom across the country. This talk was given after a long list of smaller talks and roundtable discussions I have had the opportunity to give about AI in Education as well as how I use it in my artistic practice. Speaking about AI in an official capacity has become a regular event in my life this past year.
Jillian and I also got to do a more creative session with our colleagues where we battled it out in a version of dueling pianos where Jillian used Adobe Firefly (the ‘good’ AI from ethically sourced media) and I used Midjourney (the ‘evil’ questionably sourced AI) in a head to head competition making generations from audience made AI Generated Mad-Libs. While we battled an AI Playlist made using Suno played in the background. It ended up being a very fun, albeit slightly chaotic event.
As for the creative side of life, I continue to create images for the Typical American series, with over 4,000 individual images created to date. I will be working on a second portfolio of Fake Plants, Real Prints during my sabbatical this winter and am actively seeking venues to exhibit the project in. I also will be dedicating some time to compiling my work from the project A False History of Photography, and begin to create page layouts for the book and work on the written histories that will go along with each image. Finally, a return to making the type of photographic illustrations in the style of my alter ego, Art Block, is also on the horizon in my art making future. My website will receive its annual update before the end of February as well.
In closing, I will drop a teaser and hope you will return in a couple of weeks when I can officially announce an exhibition I was invited to in conjunction with the 2025 Denver Month of Photography, but for now, I will say that it is the biggest exhibition opportunity of my career to date, and I am super excited to be able to share more soon. Happy New Year to all of you, here’s looking forward to another great year in 2025!
Conceptual Art by Todd Dobbs 
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