While text-to-image generators allow users to create stunning images--from surreal and fantastical dreamscapes to photorealistic portraits or film stills--with simple text entries, composing the right prompt has emerged as its own kind of craft. This competition was a way to showcase the human and artistic elements of prompt composition and to encourage discussion, in our community, around the social issues that arise with increased access to these new technologies.
The Competition
Players competed in two consecutive rounds, attempting to craft and alter prompts that built off of, and responded to, their opponent's text, ideas, and style while generating interesting and engaging images.
Each round began with two nouns and one verb chosen by Lab staff.
The first player then had three minutes to craft a prompt around those words, generate a series of four initial images using Midjourney, and choose one image for upscale. The upscaled image represented the final image for the player's turn.
The second player then had 3 minutes to assess the image and alter the existing prompt to improve it in some fashion. How might they make the current image more interesting, realistic, or engaging? How might they make it more fantastical, grotesque, or bizarre? How might they take the current topic/prompt in a different direction entirely? In altering the prompt, the second player could add as much text as they like but could only remove 1/2 of the words already in the prompt - thus working with, while still altering, their opponents ideas and style.
The first player then had 3 minutes to repeat the process.
After 3 volleys (6 turns each), the audience voted on the best of the 6 images generated throughout the full round.
Contents of this path:
1media/round_1_header_image.jpg2022-10-19T23:19:36-07:00Curtis Fletcher3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673eRound 119Player One: Matthew Fontaine, PhD candidate, Computer Science
Player Two: Samuel Teets, PhD candidate, Department of English
Opening Words: Wind, Glass, and Float.image_header2022-10-21T15:16:01-07:00Curtis Fletcher3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
Player Two: Anna Shaposhnik, Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation (Major); Astronautical Engineering (Minor)
Opening Words: Weather, Hill, and Fly.image_header2022-10-20T16:48:31-07:00Curtis Fletcher3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
1media/round_3_volley_2_player_2b.png2022-10-19T23:21:39-07:00Curtis Fletcher3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673eFinals11Player One: Matthew Fontaine, PhD candidate, Computer Science
Player Two: Nivedit Balam, Master's Computer Science
Opening Words: Winter, Book, and Draw.image_header2022-10-20T16:49:37-07:00Curtis Fletcher3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
This page references:
1media/IMG_1883_thumb.jpeg2022-10-20T11:07:35-07:00Event Photo 35Samuel Teets, a PhD candidate in English, uses a copy of Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand for inspiration during Round 1.media/IMG_1883.jpegplain2022-10-20T11:44:10-07:002022101917212420221019172124-0700
1media/IMG_1881_thumb.jpeg2022-10-20T11:07:08-07:00Event Photo 12Contestants at thier battle stations while audience members comment on the results of Round 1, Volley 1.media/IMG_1881.jpegplain2022-10-20T12:26:24-07:002022101917203920221019172039-0700