Photographer Manja Wachsmuth Reflects on Recognition, Creative Vision, and Why “Less Is More”
54th Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition is a wonderful showcase of USI student artwork
If you were to walk into the Kenneth P. McCutchan Art Center/Pace Galleries between Oct. 30 – Dec. 9, you would be greeted by peculiar paintings, sturdy woodwork, beautiful ceramics and artwork you can’t view anywhere else in the world. The 54th Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition has been presented in the lower level of…
Festival spotlights Indigenous artists
When Gabriel Ayala — an internationally recognized guitarist and painter — noticed the lack of Native American cultural events in Tucson, he created his own.
The first Native American Arts and Music Festival is Friday, Nov. 24, at the Plaza at Hotel Congress.
The theme, “All My Relations,” encourages the exchange of cultures.
A member of the Yaqui people of Southern Arizona, Ayala said the city had Tucson Indian Days 20 years ago.
“It was a full week of cultural events that led up to a giant powwow at the convention center,” Ayala said.
“It unfortunately just fizzled out and never happened again. I was always disappointed and wishing that something like this would happen again. I took it upon myself to reach out to the people at Hotel Congress and pitched them the idea. They loved it, and I’m very thankful that they are hosting the event for us.”
Ayala participated in “Tucson Indian Days,”
“It was seven full days,” he said.
“Every night, there were concerts or some type of cultural event happening at various locations throughout all of Tucson. Now, it’s just vanished. I remember being a part of these events. I remember going to watch these concerts. I remember as a powwow dancer going to the powwow and dancing all weekend long. It was at the hockey rink, and they would have to put mats over the ice. What a great memory. It’s too bad it’s just a memory, and this generation doesn’t know it. Hopefully in the years to come, we will make this a weeklong festival.”
He hopes to see his event continue to grow, highlighting different Native American cultures.
“I want to start bringing something back,” Ayala said.
“Here, it’s Native American Heritage Month, and there’s not a lot going on. So, I thought if I can bring it back, we’ll start with a one-night event, go into two days next year and start slowly adding a day or two here and there. I would love to be responsible for bringing back ‘Tucson Indian Days.”
The upcoming event will honor Native American contributions in the Southwest by highlighting local Indigenous musicians, artisans and dancers.
Ayala said it was important to him to showcase traditional and contemporary performers. Among this year’s performers are world champion hoop dancers Sampson and Scott Sinquah.
The show’s headliner is One Way Sky, an alternative rock group of youth from the Tohono O’odham Nation and Gila River Indian Community.
Ayala said he wanted to spotlight this up-and-coming group.
“As an older musician, someone who has been at it for my whole life, I felt it is important to showcase them, these artists that don’t always have the opportunity to be a headlining band,” Ayala said.
Many performers are also visual artists. Along with playing the Native American flute, Randy Kemp is a storyteller, painter and printmaker. He is a member of the Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek and Euchee tribal nations.
Adrian Wall is a renowned sculptor, Native American flute player and singer-songwriter from the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico.
Ayala chose artists from a range of mediums, who will bring clothing, wall art, jewelry and other types of artwork.
“Everything is going to be really diverse and multimedia, so it’s not the same things at every booth. Everybody is going to be unique to themselves,” Ayala said.
During the event, Ayala will act as emcee. He wanted to spotlight others.
“For me, I didn’t want it to be just about me,” Ayala said.
“I didn’t want to run an event so I could just showcase myself and blast myself the whole night. In our culture, it’s never about that. It’s about giving back. For me, this festival is really about giving back and letting everyone else shine.”
Madison leaders dedicate new art sculptures on S. Pinckney Street
The pieces are called “Greeting Arc I” and “Greeting Arc II” and were made by Minnesota artist Sunghee Min.
Silver Screenings: Rosita
TIFF is a charitable cultural organization with a mission to transform the way people see the world, through film.
Sebastião Salgado to receive outstanding contribution to photography award
Iconic documentary photographer Sebastião Salgado is set to receive the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award from the Sony World Photography Awards 2024.
The Brazilian photographer is known for his powerful black-and-white imagery incorporating themes of poverty, war, displacement, and the environment captured over a career spanning more than 50 years.
The Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award recognizes a person or a group of people who have made a significant contribution to photography. Salgado is the 17th recipient of the award, and joins the likes of William Egglestone (2013), Elliot Erwitt (2015), Martin Parr (2017), and Rinko Kawauchi (2023).
“I am honoured to receive this award, and to know that my work is reaching audiences,” Salgado says.
“Photography is my way of life, it is my language, and throughout my career I have always been interested in capturing the historical moment in which we are living, and telling the stories of our species and our planet.
“A photographer photographs with his heritage, and in my work I seek to explore our shared human experience.”
Dozens of photographs by Salgado will be on view as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2024 exhibition, which will be on show at Somerset House, London from 19 April – 6 May 2024.
The selections feature works from his early projects such as Gold (1986) and Workers (1993), and more recent series like Genesis (2011) and Amazônia (2019).
Born in 1944 in Aimorés, Brazil, Sebastião Salgado trained and practised as an economist before embarking on a full-time career in photography in 1973, going on to work with leading photographic agencies Sygma, Gamma and Magnum.
According to Salgado, his childhood in rural Brazil, surrounded by the great expanse of nature and the open skies, was an important aesthetic touchpoint, guiding his lens and informing his approach to light, contrast and proportionality.
In the 1980s and 1990s, he travelled around the world to pursue many photography projects, producing a number of acclaimed series, which continue to influence visual culture today.
Beautiful Monarch butterfly sculpture unveiled in Jamieson Park
FALL RIVER: A beautiful, majestic new metal-handmade Monarch butterfly greets people as they head up over the hill past Jamieson Park on Fall River Road. The park, nestled between Georges P. Vanier Junior High and Ash Lee Jefferson Elementary School, is HRM owned but maintained by the volunteers with the Fall River Garden Club. Improvements […]
5 Things to Do This Weekend: Viking Pub Crawl, Ice Skating, ‘Downton
Viking pub crawl. (Jamie Kelter Davis)
1. Revel
Thanks to our sponsors:
The sixth annual Viking Pub Crawl is expected to draw more than 300 costumed Vikings to Andersonville. Tickets include a commemorative glass, an appetizer and access to drink specials. If you really want to go all out, a limited number of cow horn drinking horns are available.
Details: 3-6 p.m. Saturday along Clark Street and Ashland Avenue in Andersonville. $35
Looking for more events? Check out the season’s light shows, markets, performances and pop-ups in our 2023 Chicago Holiday Events Guide.
2. Glide
Three ice rinks in the Chicago area open this weekend. Lace up your skates or rent a pair at Maggie Daley Park’s Ice Skating Ribbon or Millennium Park’s McCormick Tribune Ice Rink. Or head to the Chicago Wolves Ice Rink at Parkway Bank Park, where you’ll also find a “Light Up the Park” tree-lighting ceremony Saturday featuring an afternoon of family-friendly programming.
Details for the Ice Skating Ribbon: Friday through March 10 at Maggie Daley Park, 337 E. Randolph St. free-$20 / MAP
Details for the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink: Friday through March 3 at Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St. free-$20 / MAP
Details for the Chicago Wolves Ice Rink: Saturday through Jan. 28 at Parkway Bank Park, 5501 Park Place in Rosemont. free-$8 / MAP
McCormick Tribune Ice Rink, 2021. (Courtesy of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events)
3. Mangia!
At Eataly’s Holiday Kick-Off Taste-Around, guests receive two glasses of regional Italian wine and access to at least 10 tasting stations. On the menu are Wagyu spiedini, black truffle agnolotti, and pear and truffle honey crostini.
Details: 6-7:30 p.m. Friday at Eataly Chicago, 43 E. Ohio St. $65 / MAP
4. Imagine
Calling all “Downton Abbey” fans. “Downton Abbey: The Exhibition” has set up shop in Skokie with production props, exclusive footage from the series, more than 60 costumes, and recreations of Mrs. Patmore’s kitchen, Carson’s office and the Crawley family’s dining room. Read a review from WTTW News reporter Marc Vitali.
Details: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday through March 31 (closed Thanksgiving) at Westfield Old Orchard Shopping Center, 4905 Old Orchard Center in Skokie. $27-59 ages 12 and up; kids under 12 free / MAP
5. Collect
Shop local and support artists at three markets this weekend. Refine Collective’s third annual Maker Mall features women and POC makers; you’ll find more than 30 businesses represented, plus a non-alcoholic spritz bar courtesy of San Pellegrino. Show of Hands is putting on a 10th Anniversary Holiday Show. Expect one-of-a-kind items from more than 30 vendors; a Friday night preview includes cocktails from Bitter Ex Bitters. And the Millennium Park Holiday Art Market features dozens of local artists selling jewelry, pottery, paintings, drawings and more.
Details for the Refine Collective Maker Mall: noon-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at salonlb., 1010 W. 35th St., suite 500. Free / MAP
Details for Show of Hands 10th Anniversary Holiday Show: 5-9 p.m. Friday ($10), 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (Free) at Color Club, 4146 N. Elston Ave. / MAP
Details for the Millennium Park Holiday Art Market: noon-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday at Millennium Park, Chase Promenade North, 201 E. Randolph St. Free / MAP
Millennium Park Art Market, 2019. (Courtesy of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events)
Events listed are subject to change. We recommend double-checking times and locations before you head out the door. Want to share your upcoming events with us for consideration in a future roundup? Send us an email.
Thanks to our sponsors:
Thanks to our sponsors:
ArtSci Roundup: Baroque Ensemble, Duwamish November Native Art Market, Book Talks, and more
November 16, 2023
This week, attend the Baroque Ensemble led by Tekla Cunningham, head to the Duwamish November Native Art Market, engage in a discussion on P. Sainath’s book: The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom, and more.
November 19, 3:00pm | Baroque Ensemble, Brechemin Auditorium
Tekla Cunningham, Artist in Residence and Director for the UW Baroque Ensemble, leads the Baroque Ensemble to perform the “Baroque Pearls from Venice,” a program of works by Merula, Castello, Rosenmüller, Marini, Uccellini, as well as a fully improvised Passamezzo Antico in this end-of-quarter concert.
Free | More info
November 21, 4:00 – 6:00pm | Book Talk with Elliott Prasse-Freeman | Rights Refused: Grassroots Activism and State Violence in Myanmar, Thomson Hall
In this book, Elliott Prasse-Freeman documents grassroots political activists who advocate for workers and peasants across Burma, covering not only the so-called “democratic transition” from 2011-2021, but also the February 2021 military coup that ended that experiment and the ongoing mass uprising against it.
Elliot Prasse-Freeman is the Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore.
Free | More info & Registration
November 21, 4:00pm | Voice Division Recital, Brechemin Auditorium
Students of Thomas Harper, Associate Professor of Voice, and Carrie Shaw, Artist In Residence for the Voice Program, perform works from the vocal repertoire.
Free | More info
November 24 – 26, 10:00am – 7:00pm | Duwamish November Native Art Market 2023, Duwamish Longhouse & Cultural Center
Come to the November Native Art Market to support native artists and food vendors on site.
Free | More info
November 28, 7:30pm | Concert and Campus Bands: Sonic Luminescence, Meany Hall
The UW Concert and Campus Bands, led by Roger Wu Fu and David Stewart, present “Sonic Luminescence,” performing music by Julie Giroux, Frank Ticheli, David Maslanka, Eric Whitacre, and others.
Buy Tickets | More info & Tickets
November 29, 10:30am | Guest Artist Master Class: Atar Arad, viola, Brechemin Auditorium 
Viola students of Melia Watras perform for renowned violist Atar Arad, longtime professor at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Arad will also give a talk, “A Tiger in the Room,” about dealing with stage fright.
Free | RSVP & More info
November 29, 4:00pm | Garrick Ohlsson Residency: Panel Discussion, Brechemin Auditorium
The internationally esteemed concert pianist Garrick Ohlsson takes part in a public panel discussion during a three-day residency at the UW School of Music.
Free | More info
November 29, 7:30 pm | Percussion Ensemble: Ionisation, Meany Hall
The UW Percussion Ensemble, led by Director Bonnie Whiting, explores early 1930s percussion repertoire in its program Ionisation, reimagining Edgard Varèse’s iconic early percussion work with the Afrocubanismo pioneer Amadeo Roldán’s Ritmicas as well as music by James Tenney, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Nick Hubble.
Buy Tickets | More info & Tickets
November 30, 5:00 – 6:30pm | LECTURE | P. Sainath | The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom, Kane Hall
Join the South Asia Center for a discussion with acclaimed journalist P. Sainath, who will discuss his new book: The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom. The book features millions of ordinary people living in India – farmers, laborers, homemakers, forest produce gatherers, artisans, and others – that stood up to the British. Dive deep into the difference between freedom and independence through the voices of these people in P. Sainath’s book.
P. Sainath is the Founder Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), an outcome of his three decades-plus experience in journalism. PARI aims to report and record the two-thirds of India’s population that were hidden from corporate media.
Free | More info & Registration
November 30, 6:30pm | “Twenty Dreams”: Fall 2023 Katz Distinguished Lecture, Husky Union Building
Katherine McKittrick will present new work that highlights anti-colonial methodologies and addresses some limitations and possibilities of theorizing climate catastrophe and ecocide alongside race and racism. McKittrick’s thinking is propelled by methodological clues and analytical frames that tend to equate environmental toxicities with (degraded) blackness. McKittrick will also center pedagogy and draw attention to how black livingness is not a concept, per se, but a set of actions that teach people how to theorize the environs anew.
The Katz Distinguished Lectures in the Humanities Series recognizes scholars in the humanities and emphasizes the role of the humanities in liberal education.
Free | More info
October – November | “Ways of Knowing” Podcast: Episode 6
“Ways of Knowing” is an eight-episode podcast connecting humanities research with current events and issues. In this week’s episode, Diana Ruíz discusses how the same images can be used on both sides of the same debate. In this case, pro- and anti-immigration. Ruíz, assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the UW, describes how the photos evoked empathy and assistance for humanitarian organizations, but were also used to promote support for vigilante groups by inducing fear.
This season features faculty from the UW College of Arts & Sciences as they explore race, immigration, history, the natural world—even comic books. Each episode analyzes a work, or an idea, and provides additional resources for learning more.
Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu)
Tag(s): Center for Southeast Asia & its Diasporas • Department of American Indian Studies • Department of Asian Languages & Literature • Department of Cinema & Media Studies • School of Music • Simpson Center for the Humanities • South Asia Center
‘Do It Right’ with AI: Ally creators experiment with generative AI in marketing test case
‘Do It Right’ with AI: Ally creators experiment with generative AI in marketing test case
Early results show Ally.ai capabilities could boost speed, drive team creativity and productivity
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) announced today the early results of an experimental generative AI use case with its marketing team designed to help understand the real-world impact the technology could have on campaign development and employee productivity. Using the Ally.ai platform’s large language model (LLM) chat and prompt functionality, a select group of marketers were able to reduce the time needed to produce creative campaigns and content by up to 2-3 weeks and reported an average time savings of 34%, compared to typical processes without AI.
Additional results reported from the month-long experimental program include:
- The reduction in time needed for content creation and other marketing outputs of up to 2-3 weeks was primarily found in the early stages of the creative process in tasks such as research, first drafts and naming exercises
- The 34% time savings on tasks when using the Ally.ai interface could equate to an annual savings of almost 3,000 hours across the participant team
- More than 80 prompts developed by participants during the test had an 87% usefulness rate, showing the value of prompt engineering training for teammates and the effectiveness of outputs that could be used in assigned work
- Users also noted a prompt accuracy rate of 81%, signifying that they received the right type of content or response outputs from the Ally.ai platform to complete their assignments
- Participants also saw usefulness and accuracy in outputs when using Ally.ai for data analysis, quality controls and search engine optimization (SEO)
“The best marketing teams know the art of evolution, which includes evaluating and testing of transformative technologies,” said Andrea Brimmer, Chief Marketing and Public Relations Officer at Ally. “The early results demonstrate how AI could enable our talent to focus on creative tasks that needed the most human involvement, while speeding up the routine efforts of our day-to-day work. We look forward to the continued exploration of generative AI and learning more about how the technology can assist our team.”
Ally.ai, the company’s proprietary, cloud-based AI platform that serves as a secure, private bridge between enterprise-grade LLMs and Ally’s data and AI applications, launched in June 2023. The test with marketing comes on the heels of Ally’s pilot with its Customer Care and Experience group where Ally.ai was used to quickly and accurately summarize customer service calls, helping associates focus their energy on more meaningful customer interactions and reduce the time needed to service and close a customer inquiry.
Read more about Ally.ai and the Customer Care use case here.
Both use cases reflect a commitment to Ally’s core principles for the enterprise use of AI: initially focusing on use cases that support employee productivity and optimizing internal business processes; providing human intervention and controls for oversight and training; protecting against the disclosure of personal identifying information and prohibiting third party model providers from using Ally data to train their foundational models.
“The purpose of building Ally.ai in-house, and with foundational data, cloud and network infrastructure already in place, is to scale its use throughout the organization while also keeping a close eye on potential risks and opportunities for new use cases,” said Sathish Muthukrishnan, Chief Information, Data and Digital Officer at Ally. “The value that our marketing colleagues could get from Ally.ai demonstrates how important cross-functional collaboration is to the development of enterprise AI capabilities.”
Generative AI in Marketing: Supporting Productivity
In addition to the preset system prompts and security features already embedded in Ally.ai, the platform needed a place where teammates could engage with the LLM directly. Understanding that most LLMs and generative AI applications are good for summarization, content creation, ideation/brainstorming, and information analysis, Ally’s developers built an open prompt user interface (UI) for Ally.ai that would allow teammates to do two types of work: chat directly with the secured LLM and also develop specialized prompts that could be saved, used again, and shared with colleagues based on their accuracy and usefulness rates.
Teammates could change features of the platform depending on the work they did, including toggling between chat and prompt mode, adjusting prompt length as well as the model’s creative parameters and vocabulary. The participant team frequently used Ally.ai as a starting point for creative development, specifically for first drafts of advertising copy, video scripts or social media posts, or enhancing human-driven ideas that originated from brainstorms or naming exercises.
An example: the content team performed a test of Ally.ai by providing the platform with a transcript of a podcast that featured an Ally executive. The team asked the platform to create the first draft of a 750-word article for Ally’s Conversationally blog with the information provided, plus direction to incorporate the most insightful, informative and entertaining parts that would be relevant to consumers. While the Ally.ai output required editing and the finesse of Ally’s content writers and it still went through Ally’s well-established regulatory review processes, having a quick first draft done in 15 minutes helped reduce the total time needed to create and edit the blog article from four hours to just one.
“We look at Ally.ai as an assistant that will be able to help our teammates with faster and smarter project delivery, which leads to a better experience for our customers,” Brimmer said. “In several different instances, our content writers were able to use thoughtfully crafted prompts to either start up the creative process or help extend the distribution of content to new channels. Anytime we can reduce the time to publish while also letting our creatives do what they do best, that means a lot in our fast-moving, competitive environment.”
Dig deeper on how the Ally Marketing team tested AI on the Ally Tech blog.
With the Ally.ai UI in place, Ally teammates can be trained to use it for the exploration and development of approved business use cases. The opportunity to learn more about AI and train using the platform has created a positive energy inside the company. Earlier this month, Ally hosted its second AI Day – a half-day dedicated to education and knowledge sharing around AI – with almost 1,000 teammates from multiple business units in attendance.
“You can’t escape the conversation around AI, so we are taking hold of that momentum and using it as a springboard to continue to explore new use cases that will drive AI adoption internally while supporting business goals,” Muthukrishnan said. “Right now, there are more than 100 use cases being carefully evaluated throughout the enterprise. While not all of them will pass our rigorous testing, we remain optimistic about what AI can bring to our teammates at Ally and to the financial services industry.”
For more insights from the technology team at Ally, including how the team is exploring new innovations like quantum computing and digital accessibility, visit https://ally.tech.
About Ally Financial
Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a financial services company with the nation’s largest all-digital bank and an industry-leading auto financing business, driven by a mission to “Do It Right” and be a relentless ally for customers and communities. The company serves more than 11 million customers through a full range of online banking services (including deposits, mortgage, point-of-sale personal lending, and credit card products) and securities brokerage and investment advisory services. The company also includes a robust corporate finance business that offers capital for equity sponsors and middle-market companies, as well as auto financing and insurance offerings. For more information, please visit www.ally.com and follow @allyfinancial.
For more information and disclosures about Ally, visit https://www.ally.com/#disclosures.
For further images and news on Ally, please visit http://media.ally.com.
Contacts:
Laurie Hurst
Ally Communications (Media)
media@ally.com
SOURCE Ally Financial
