Marco Roso is a cofounder of DIS, a New York-based art collective dealing with a wide range of media and platforms, exploiting the methods of production, use and dissemination of content online. They first launched DIS Magazine in 2010 — publishing fashion editorials beside mixes and critical essays. Later, DIS launched a stock image databank (DISimages) made by artists and a store (DISown) for products and accessories developed with artists as well. In 2018, they replaced dismagazine.com with their new streaming edutainment platform, dis.art. Over time, DIS has enhanced and amplified the possibilities and capabilities of art and its role in the artistic, commercial, entertainment and public spheres—folding all into one.
Most recently DIS wrote, directed and produced Everything but the World, a 38-minute pilot episode for a TV series plotting new narratives for new histories. The pilot was nominated for the New:Visions award at CPH:DOX and has played in theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
From the beginning, DIS has also been involved with art projects beyond the context of the magazine and satellite platforms, such as exhibitions at MoMA and the New Museum in New York. In 2016, the artist collective curated the 9th Berlin Biennale, and most recently they co-curated the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2021 at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève with the Centre’s director Andrea Bellini. DIS has had exhibitions at MoMA and the New Museum (New York), de Young Museum (San Francisco), La Casa Encendia (Madrid), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), Secession (Vienna) and Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin).
Courses
Spring 2025 Courses
CTC 2021-01 - GHOST IN THE MACHINE: AI CREATIVE DIRECTION STUDIO
LevelUndergraduate
UnitExperimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Computation,Technology, and Culture
Period Spring 2025
Credits 3
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
CTC 2021-01
GHOST IN THE MACHINE: AI CREATIVE DIRECTION STUDIO
LevelUndergraduate
UnitExperimental and Foundation Studies
Subject Computation,Technology, and Culture
PeriodSpring 2025
Credits3
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2025-02-13 to 2025-05-23
Times: TH | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Marco RosoLocation(s): Waterman Building, Room 33Enrolled / Capacity: 15Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Creative directors are often artists in disguise, with roles as fluid as myths. They could helm a magazine, a fashion house, or an art exhibition, devise strategies to link brands with people, or they could lead a media platform masquerading as a tech company, or vice versa. Bound by a scope of work, a creative director's work is a collective effort, not a standalone piece. They orchestrate behind the scenes, curating concepts and crafting communication strategies. Their role is essentially non-material—focused more on process than product—and is precise and covert, with the client seen as the 'author' of the work.
This studio course operates at the intersection of creative direction and artificial intelligence, investigating the evolving relationship between AI systems and creative practice. As AI systems evolve from tools into collaborators and potential competitors, we must reconsider how human creative direction can evolve alongside—or in resistance to—artificial intelligence.
Through hands-on workshops, students will design and train AI models for creative tasks. Weekly projects focus on implementing machine learning models for specific creative direction tasks. We will explore the possibility of training personalized AI agents that embody and extend individual creative methodologies. Students will develop their own AI creative director agent while critically examining the implications of delegating creative decisions to artificial systems. The course combines applied studio work with critical discussions about the future of creative direction and the ethical implications of automated creativity.
