“CinémA.I” in Studio 13-16 at the Centre Pompidou

Film-making workshop in collaboration with artificial intelligences, for teenagers at the Centre Pompidou’s Studio 13-16. Creative proposal conceived by Benoît Labourdette, which took place during the winter vacations of 2024.

Write a script, imagine a world, a story, characters, then create images, sounds, and finally edit and soundtrack them, and at every stage collaborate with artificial intelligences, to produce differently, and reflect on what these technologies are changing, how they’re changing us.

Of course, everyone is familiar with generative artificial intelligences and uses them, more or less, in their lives. But creating with them, experimenting with their potential to open up personal expression, learning a tried-and-tested method of audiovisual production with AIs, discovering creative capacities greater than we thought possible, then sharing and valorizing them with others, can be an exceptional and even seminal experience.

This is what Benoît Labourdette co-constructed at the request of Studio 13-16 of the Centre Pompidou, with the mediation team and a group of female students, to give birth to the “CinémA.I” workshop (title proposed by the students), open during the 15 days of the February 2024 vacation. The teenagers’ participation time was free (Studio 13-16 principle). Some came back several times, devoting many hours to their project, while others made a film in half an hour or half a day.

The aim of this workshop was above all to enable concrete experimentation, to learn by creating, to discover new skills, and to produce quality projects in a limited time and in a fun way. Teenagers were also able to discover and master free tools for creating images, sound and video editing.

CinémA.I workshop proposal text

During the 15 days of the February 2024 vacations at Studio 13-16 du Centre Pompidou, take part with artist Benoît Labourdette in a multidisciplinary video creation workshop, in collaboration with artificial intelligences.

How can we use artificial intelligence as an asset for human beings, for creation and democracy, while maintaining a critical mind?

A scenography welcomes visitors in front of Studio 13-16. There are several creative hubs, identified by signage (script, characters, music, podcast, video, etc.). In each hub, participants create “rushes”: photos in Studio 13-16, podcasts, music, videos... and share them with their cell phones in a collaborative digital space (which is also accessible outside the Studio, via a QR code). Then, from all this material, they take what they want, and finalize productions, mainly video, with the Capcut application. It’s a space of collective intelligence for creation.

Artificial intelligence is a partner for creation. Benoît Labourdette’s experience and collaborative approaches with machines enable us to find ways of inventing singular imaginary worlds. Artificial intelligence is like a new brush in the palette of budding artists, helping them to move forward. We won’t be using it as a tool that shapes the eye, but as an interlocutor that allows us to dialogue to go further.

The Studio 13-16
The Studio 13-16 du Centre Pompidou is a space open, without registration and without queuing, to people aged 13 to 25, to work, create, learn, photograph, develop personal projects with the help of mediators, and be able to participate in artistic projects.

The first and only programming space dedicated exclusively to young people in a French cultural institution, Studio 13/16 aims to accompany teenagers towards the discovery of creation and to demonstrate that cultural venues are also places for socialization, pleasure and sharing.

As an attractive, lively space, and thanks to its multidisciplinary programming focused on contemporary societal issues, it proposes to actively involve young people in the process of reflection and creation in fields that particularly affect them, and makes encounters with today’s artists the high point of this artistic and cultural experience.

• A space dedicated to young people and contemporary creation.
• In situ, off-site and digital programming.
• Collaborations with contemporary artists.
• Shared challenges: identity, environment, community.

Details on the CinémA.I workshop
Creative tools, including the tools of generative artificial intelligence, are only tools, which only make sense if we use them with intention and method. Without this, we remain superficial users. That’s why this workshop proposed, in a way staged by the scenography, a method of audiovisual creation in cooperation with artificial intelligences, conceived by Benoît Labourdette in collaboration with the Studio 13-16 mediation team and a group of students.

The method is based on a proposal put forward by Serge Tisseron (in his contribution to the meeting Le numérique, un outil de médiation et de démocratie culturelle): to get the best out of artificial intelligence, we mustn’t ask it to produce for us, as that would be very banal and formatted, but rather to make our own proposals, constructed in our own way, from which it will react, enrich us, and become a relevant interlocutor, in relation to which we remain free and responsible.

Making a film means :

1. Writing the script.
2. Creating images, characters and sounds.
3. Editing.
4. Distribution.

These four facets were identified by distinct spaces, and invested. The mediators of Studio 13-16 had been trained by Benoît Labourdette, so the CinémA.I workshop was, in its animation, a collective proposition.

The images, are and edits of the films, partial or final, as well as the experiments, were put online in this collective digital sharing space (
https://www.benoitlabourdette.com/_docs/projets/2024/2024_cinemai/), allowing participants to draw inspiration from and, where appropriate, use the images and sounds of others, review and share their own creations, and discover those of others, before, during and after the workshop. In this way, digital technology creates links and adds value and consistency to the process.

Some thirty films were made, many of which can be seen below. The young people were accompanied in the method, but were autonomous in their creative explorations and the subjects of their films. Each was accompanied according to his or her needs. Satisfaction was unanimous among participants, who spoke of the great opportunities opened up by this workshop.