EchtNep Leeszaal

EchtNep?! @ Leeszaal West

Communication

Chat groups & Social Media

We posted the event on the XPUB instagram, and it was co-posted by Leeszaal. We also shared the image and text in different chat groups on Signal and WhatsApp.

Flyers

We left flyers in different locations in Rotterdam, one of them being Leeszaal itself.

Personal invitations

Daan invited friends (from outside of XPUB). This proved to be the most effective, because all of our participants (two 🥲) heard about it in this way.

Workshop

Ema showing one of the example images

Joe and Valentin during the break

Daan scanning the zine pages

Chatting

For about half an hour, we waited for people to arrive (one person who was planning to come ended up not to), and took the time to chat (mostly about dogs).

Introduction

We introduced us to each other, and asked the participants why they decided to come. This already started a very interesting gossips and discussion! We then shared our motivation and intention for the workshop.

Gossips

V: My aunt are working in a travelling agency (biggest in the country!) and had some new posters arrive—all were AI generated. I had just finished school in graphic design and it really annoyed me to see this development.

V: My sister has a friend who is writing a book and wants illustration. Instead of hiring an illustrator, they were just asking which LLM to use.

G: Albeda has posters around the city with three children on it and all three of them have eyes that are slightly too big. It is very uncanny!

D: I have not used Instagram for quite some time, and once I did again, I was taken aback my how bloated with AI it is now.

V: In Hungary, AI is used heavily in elections. There is only two parties, and the ruling party is heavily generating propaganda: Comic style, the opposition is changed to appear half European-faced, half Ukrainian-faced.

G: When I get AI generated content sent to me in a chat (of course, by boomers… always boomers), I'm asking myself: why can't they send me anything personal? It makes me feel irritated and annoyed.

V: I have an example of an image that I actually enjoyed: A disgustingly perfect image. Drawn by colored pencil. Like an animation, psychedelic image. It is a style that I really like, so I did feel interested and maybe a bit excited.

G: I don't want give in. Don't want to look for "good" reasons to use AI. I don't want to be part of it. Its scares me how easy things would become. I don't want to betray myself, so I stay away of it as far as possible. I WANT the struggle of coming up with concepts.

Discussing the images

image	context	what do we think about it? why is it confusing/alienating/exiting…?
	Taken from Vinted from a verified pro account	This image looks fairly okay.
	Taken from Vinted from the same account as above	This image looks a little too polished, and the plant is similar to the one in the first image, but not the same.
	Taken from Vinted from the same account as above	This image looks very fake—seems to be either heavily edited or generated.

Documentation: Making a zine

At the end of the workshop, we reserved one hour to make a collective zine. We cut out parts of the images we discussed, snippets of our notes, and wrote down a few anecdotes shared during the two hours before. We didn't have the time to scan everything and print the zine that day, but are planning to do that afterwards (also distributing the zine to the participants).

Slightly related: A book next to our table at Leeszaal

Debrief

Debriefing in the sun

What went well?

• First question round: Why did you decide to join the workshop. It already triggered very interesting answers and a lot of discussion.
• Before, we were worried: Did we choose a boring topic? Will it be lame? > It wasn't boring at all!
• Once you ask people why there are there, and what is interesting or important to them, the stay engaged.
• Game was fun!
• The fact that there were only 2 people gave a lot of room for extraspecial experiences - gossips.
• Lots of gossips! Without asking for it specifically, the setting allowed for story telling, sharing of anecdotes and experiences around peers and in family
• Sharing experiences and doubt really shapes the workshop. When somebody shares openly the vibes become more open cozy.

What could be improved?

• We lost some valuable time with chatting and having a somewhat long intro. (Might have been different if strangers had been there)
• Communication/promotion wasn’t great: Only two people came. Through chatgroups and social media, we are mostly reaching our peers, and not the intended audience of older (and younger) people.
• Communication and organization with Tante Nino quickly became high maintenance. We then choose a comfortable, low effort promotion, which was not very effective. A middle ground would have been good!

Interesting for future editions of the workshop

• Frame it differently? A workshop is interesting to people who are engaged (maybe studying already). Could we do a community get-together? A consulting hour? Shared story time?
• How can we deal in future with people who would be less critical then Guus and Valentin? Might be a lot harder to approach
• The fact Guus said everything she looks at shes questioning if everything is AI. Very aware eventhough she isnt that technical.
• How can we help people with that feeling / being so anxious or unsure?
• Maybe (like Doriane said) thinking less about if it is AI or not, but if it is harmful or not, how it changes the way we engage and make decisions
• But it is getting harder and harder. What if there’s a moment where we cannot recognize it. Lets not overlook the fact that its important to keep it apart from each other.

Class debrief

• Possible other editions: pub quiz, group therapy
• Visual communication does not have to be pretty or artsy, but target the intended audience (older people, or kids)