About
Alyse Marie Allred (she/her) is a second-year doctoral student in Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington. She received her two previous degrees from Purdue University: M.S. in UX Design and B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. Outside of academics, Alyse Marie is a freelance illustrator, animator, and web designer, which can be seen in her design portfolio.
Alyse Marie’s work applies qualitative ethnographic methods in action research, with the goals of both academic contribution and research as activism. She is interested in the complex relationships of cross-platform online communities, particularly around digital counterculture, remix and transformative works, and online creative collaboration. Critically, her research engages heavily with intersections of marginalization such as queer identity, racial and cultural background, and disability. Ultimately, she hopes to help elevate the voices of these communities, raising awareness and increasing legitimacy in their self-advocacy work.
Selected Work
Art in the Machine: Value Misalignment and AI “Art”
Alyse Marie Allred & Dr. Cecilia Aragon
CDVE 2023
Abstract: Why have online artist communities largely rejected AI image generators when they have embraced other technologies? We focus on cooperative design and community values to first frame these communities as digital counterculture akin to transformative fandom. Then, we use this framework to explore the online art community’s core principles in order to surface four key values (accessibility, distributed mentoring, gift economy, and authenticity), and illustrate their fundamental disconnect with the values espoused by advocates of current AI image generators. Finally, we conclude with suggestions for human and value-centered design of these technologies in collaborative creative visual communities to prevent similar unintended consequences.
“Be gay, do crimes”: the co-production and activist potential of contemporary fanzines
Alyse Marie Allred & Dr. Colin Gray
CSCW 2021
Abstract: Online creative communities are increasingly a space for marginalized groups to build solidarity and engage in activist work, encouraging the exploration and articulation of intersectionally-marginalized identities through processes of creative production. One such context for creative production includes community-driven sites such as Archive of Our Own, which by their design are intended to leverage and effectively support voices that are marginalized on other social platforms. In this paper, we build upon work on creative production and fan communities to further describe the work of fanart and fanzine collectives. We share the results of 1) an interview study with fanzine producers and 2) a two month remote co-design study where we further explored fanzine culture and the potential of future archival support.
Curriculum Vitae
Allred, A.M., Aragon, C.: Art in the Machine: Value Misalignment and AI “Art”. In: Luo, Y. (eds) Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering. CDVE 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14166. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43815-8_4
Allred, A.M., Gray, C.M.: “Be gay, do crimes”: the co-production and activist potential of contemporary fanzines. Proceedings ACM Human-Computer Interaction 5, 1–35 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3479520
Clepper, G.,Martinez J.S., Farooq A., Allred A.M., Carr, I., McDonald, K., Toombs A., and Tan H.Z. “Feeling creepy: a haptic haunted house.” In IEEE Haptics Symposium 2020. IEEE, 2020.