AI Film “Flight 888” by Brad Necyk and Jason Silva. Created with the AI pipeline taught in this class
AI Film “Seeing like an artist” by Brad Necyk and Jason Silva using Midjourney, Sora, Suno, and Elevenlabs
AI Filmmaking Intensive
Dates: March 8 – 15 · 2026 | Limited to 5 participants
Write, art-direct, compose, and edit your own short film using intelligent media tools that are reshaping cinema itself.
Across seven days, you’ll learn how to build narrative and visual systems using ChatGPT, Midjourney, RunwayML, Sora, Suno, and Eleven Labs—developing your own cinematic voice at the edge of human and machine creativity.
Guided by Dr. Brad Necyk, co-creator (with futurist Jason Silva) of the viral hit Psychedelic Puppet Show, this workshop blends hands-on production with daily critique, creative mentoring, and reflection in nature.
No experience required.
Open to beginners, established filmmakers, and media artists retraining for the intelligent age.
Price: $700 CAD for provided accommodations + $600 CAD tuition
Total: $1,300 CAD (~925 USD)
Vibe Coding Experiments by Brad Necyk
AI VibeCoding: Generative Art and Digital Flow
Dates: March 1 – 7 · 2026 | Limited to 5 participants
Discover how to merge code, sound, and image into living digital systems.
This week-long intensive introduces p5.js for creative coding, paired with leading AI tools—Midjourney, Suno, Eleven Labs, Sora, and RunwayML—to design visual worlds that move, listen, and respond.
Each participant will craft an interactive or time-based artwork exploring rhythm, mood, and atmosphere—what we call vibe coding.
No experience required.
Designed for curious beginners and experienced artists alike, this residency balances technical learning with deep creative exploration in one of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth.
Price: $700 CAD for provided accommodations + $600 CAD tuition
Total: $1,300 CAD (~925 USD)
Integrating AI into Art School Practice
Format: Online (Live & recorded)
Time: Currently running a cohort. We are planning the next cohort for early 2026. Contact Brad if you have questions or would like to be added to the waitlist: brad@apositiononretreat.com
Session Length: ~1.5 hours/week
Price: $500 CAD (~350 USD)
Course Description:
This professional development course is designed for university-level art professors interested in integrating generative AI into their own practice and classroom. Participants will explore foundational and advanced uses of large language models, generative image and video tools, AI music generation, narration, and creative coding—all through the lens of artistic practice and pedagogy. This is not a course on technology alone, but an imagining of how AI can become a collaborative partner in studio work, critique, teaching, and conceptual development.
Target Audience:
Art professors and educators working in painting, printmaking, video, photography, sound, digital media, art theory, and interdisciplinary practices who want to understand and teach AI-enhanced creative methods.
You’ll learn how to:
Co-develop artwork with AI in your unique aesthetic style
Use large language models to help students deepen conceptual thinking
Convert your paintings or prints into time-based moving-image works
Generate personalized feedback and critique summaries for students
Develop AI-enhanced lectures, assignments, and studio prompts
Create immersive soundtracks and narrated materials using generative audio
Explore creative coding through systems that require no prior experience
Module 1: Opening the Conversation — Tensions, Hopes, and First Encounters This opening session invites participants to share early uses, hesitations, and philosophical or pedagogical concerns around generative AI. A group-mind exploration of both excitement and discomfort, this module surfaces key themes that will inform the trajectory of the course. We will nuance the landscape of AI in art schools—its promises, risks, and deeply human questions.
Module 2: Image & Video as Time-Based Media Use Midjourney to explore composition, atmosphere, and image-styling. Learn how to animate or extend static works using Midjourney/Runway/Sora and prompt temporal narratives from still imagery. This session builds foundational skills in AI-enhanced visual thinking.
Module 3: Teaching, Feedback, and Documentation with AI Leverage AI to generate lecture summaries, critique notes, action items, and student feedback—all in your own voice. Learn how to streamline grading and enhance the communication of ideas across diverse learning styles. We will discuss how to maintain pedagogical integrity while improving communication and time management.
Module 4: Writing, Sound & Voice in Contemporary Practice Generate soundtracks with Suno and narrated audio with ElevenLabs to create immersive installations or asynchronous teaching tools. Engage with LLMs for creative and grant ideation and writing. Explore poetic narration, ambient sound design, and experimental voice use in both artistic works and lecture materials.
Module 5: Generative Systems, Infinite Art & Coding Without Code Explore how to build generative artworks using p5.js and ChatGPT without needing prior coding experience. Participants will design simple interactive systems, infinite artworks, or generative visuals and learn how to incorporate systems-based thinking into their studio practice.
Module 6: Conversing with Machines & Designing AI-Augmented Curriculum This final module explores how to use LLMs (like ChatGPT) as ideation and critique partners for both instructors and students. We’ll practice shaping prompts to draw out intuition, deepen reflection, and design full assignments and critiques. This session closes with an open reflection and sharing on lessons learned, challenges ahead, and visions for integrating AI into the art school in a grounded, creative way.
30 minutes for Q&A and ideation:
Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions or brainstorm with Brad on AI applications within their studio courses.
Tools Used:
ChatGPT, MidJourney, Runway/Sora, Suno, ElevenLabs, p5.js
Mental Health & Storytelling
Format: Online (Live & Recorded) | 6 Weeks | Any Creative Medium
Time: We are planning the next cohort for February 2026. Contact Brad if you have questions or would like to be added to the waitlist: brad@apositiononretreat.com
Session Length: ~1.5 hours/per week
Instructor: Dr. Brad Necyk, PhD (Psychiatry, Arts-Based Research), MFA, BFA, BComm
Bio: Dr. Brad Necyk is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, writer, and researcher whose work explores the intersection of mental health, creativity, and storytelling. Holding a Governor General’s Gold Medal–winning PhD in Psychiatry (Arts-Based Research), Brad has exhibited internationally, published widely, and collaborated with diverse communities to share stories of resilience and healing. His background as a postdoctoral fellow in cinema, research associate in film, and long-standing university educator uniquely positions him to guide students in transforming deeply personal experiences into art that resonates on a universal scale.
Prerequisites: None — open to all levels
Mediums: Writing, Visual Art, Movement, Film, Music, Mixed Media
Price: $700 CAD (~$500 USD)
Contact Brad with questions: brad@apositiononretreat.com
Course Overview
This course offers a creative deep dive into transforming lived experiences into universal stories that foster empathy, connection, and understanding. Based on my Governor General’s Gold Medal-winning arts-based PhD in Psychiatry and over a decade of mental health–focused exhibitions, filmmaking, writing, and advocacy, the course views personal narratives as sites of meaning-making and knowledge generation.
You will explore how to turn your experiences — whether of physical or mental illness, healing, resilience, or transformation — into works of art that others can feel, understand, and carry with them.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will:
1. Identify and refine a personal narrative connected to mental health or life experience.
2. Translate personal experience into a universal story through metaphor, symbol, and form.
3. Develop a completed creative work (in your chosen medium) that communicates emotional truth.
4. Understand how art functions as testimony, witness, and knowledge creation.
5. Gain tools for universalizing your personal experience so others can empathetically engage with that experience, especially when representing sensitive or vulnerable experiences.
Final Project
Create a finished creative work in any medium that communicates an emotional truth from your lived experience in a way that resonates universally. This work should be ready to share in a public or semi-public context.
Who This Course is For
Artists working with trauma, mental illness, recovery, or personal history
Artists living with mental illness
Mental health advocates and peer support workers
Anyone who wants to transform life experiences into powerful, meaningful art