Collagraphs in the Age of AI: Time, Labor, and Human Presence

This 2-session course (2 × 3 hours) asks participants to use collagraph printmaking with found materials as a means of resisting AI’s slick speed and predictive systems. Through slow, tactile processes, students will create imagery that foregrounds human time, bodily labor, and perceptual nuance. The course reframes “error,” “imprecision,” and “duration” as radical values—making presence the medium itself.

This workshop will address the contemporary art theme of making art politically which is not about making political art.

Presence Over Representation

Public printing space = visible process

Value plate-building time; keep labor traces visible

Radical Generosity

• Share plates and prints; allow gifting instead of archiving

• Challenge art as commodity

Imperfect Infrastructures

• Use everyday/recycled materials

• Material gathering becomes part of the artwork

Collective Time

• Prints evolve over multiple passes

• Swap plates; co-create one continuous record

Interdependence

• Build a group mural from everyone’s prints

• Collective labor forms the final work

Political Methods (Not Symbols)

• Slow, manual processes resist speed/efficiency culture

• Transform AI-influenced imagery through texture and disruption

Time as Material

• Maintain visible time-logs; display them with the prints

• Labor is part of the content

Everyday Materials

• Fragile plates deteriorate—entropy is meaningful

• Plates exhibited alongside prints and logs

If you want, I can also format this as a polished poster panel or slide for your critique or exhibition.

Location: ArtStudioKWT (Fnaitees)