With over two decades of experience Miguel E. Elasmar is a seasoned UX/UI/Product consultant who specializes in bringing software and hardware solutions to market for companies from early-stage startups to large international healthcare installs. Working as a fractional resource he helps founders and CEOs go “beyond design” by offering creative consulting on strategy marketing and general pipeline process improvement. When he’s not helping his teams succeed Miguel is an active student mentor and a die-hard Metal drummer.

The Mirror’s Echo, presented by Krista Faist, is a real-time interactive piece built in TouchDesigner, using Whisper AI and StreamDiffusion. Spoken language is transcribed, filtered, and transformed into AI-generated visuals that simultaneously respond to participants’ voices and movements. The work explores the interplay between language, body, and machine. It invites reflection on authorship, perception, and ephemerality through a feedback loop of voice, code, and form.

AI can’t replace your unique story and voice unless you let it. This session shows how to harness tools like MidJourney, Runway, Kling, and Suno to create emotionally rich narratives without losing your creative fingerprint. Through examples of animated shorts and visual essays, you’ll learn how to shape AI output with intention, maintain a consistent art style, and use AI as a narrative partner. For artists ready to push boundaries and go with the magic.

The Deepfake Game is an educational tool designed to cultivate critical thinking and ethical reasoning in the face of increasingly sophisticated digital manipulations. It challenges players to explore how technology mediates reality, critically evaluate content for authenticity, and respond responsibly to deepfakes and other forms of mediated deception. This interactive session presents the core elements of The Deepfake Game and relates them explicitly to the 4D AI Fluency Framework.

Many of us in the arts work diligently to cultivate our own voices in our creative practice. Imagine being told by “tech-bros” that AI art is comparable to a lovingly tailored garment crafted by hand. Has Big AI’s pursuit of dispassionate “efficiency” overlooked the passionate value of individual artistry? This case study presents the application of AI within a Character Design curriculum, and a contentious debate held during a university exhibition of student “roughs.”

This presentation explores how decolonizing AI in visual design requires engaging with cultural traditions beyond the Western canon. Drawing from Iranian and Islamic design histories, it calls for a collective effort to learn from diverse visual systems and integrate them into AI. By expanding algorithms together, we can build more inclusive design technologies and challenge the biases embedded in current AI-driven creative tools.

In a world saturated with AI-generated content, how do creatives protect what makes their work unmistakably human? This session introduces the Four Pillars of Creative Power: Imagination, Expression, Risk-taking, and Reflection, a practical framework to preserve artistic authenticity. Through stories, reflections, and interactive exercises, participants will leave with tools to safeguard their voice and thrive creatively in the age of AI.

This presentation explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping visual storytelling, transforming it from a linear process into a dynamic and collaborative practice. Drawing on a semester-long Visual Storytelling course at the University of Maryland, he will share how students used AI tools from ideation and storyboarding to motion graphics, narration, music, and final production. Attendees will see how AI functions as a creative partner—expanding narrative possibilities and accessibility—while engaging with student projects that highlight both opportunities and ethical challenges.