Fotoğraf Tarihçisi, Küratör, Editör / Photography Historian, Curator, Editor
MACARİSTAN / HUNGARY
Head of the Historical Photo Department at the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest
fisli.eva@hnm.hu
Eva Fisli, Budapeşte'deki Eötvös Üniversitesi'nde (ELTE) Tarih ve Edebiyat bölümünden mezun oldu. 2012 yılında Sciences Po Paris ve ELTE Budapeşte'de doktora derecesi aldı. 2005-2009 yılları arasında Macaristan Ulusal Müzesi'nde kayıt ve sergi koordinatörü olarak çalıştı. 2009 yılından bu yana Müze'nin Tarihi Fotoğraf Bölümü'nde sergi küratörü olarak çalışmaktadır. Eylül 2024'ten beri bölüm başkanıdır. 2012-2018 yılları arasında Macar Fotoğraf Tarihi Derneği'nin sekreterliğini ve web sitesinin editörlüğünü yaptı (www.mafot.hu). Fényképtárgy / Material Photograpy adlı iki dilli kitabın ve kadın fotoğrafçılar hakkında Macarca bir konferans kitabı olan Fotográfusnők'ün (2020) editörlüğünü yaptı. 2024 yılında, Macar Ulusal Müzesi tarafından düzenlenen André Kertész 130 sergisinin küratörlüğünü yaptı. Şimdilerde görsel anlatılar, fotoğraf kitapları, hibrit çalışmalar (analog ve dijitalin karşılaşması) ile ilgileniyor.
Bu sunumda, maddi fotoğraflar ve çevrimdışı gerçekliklerle değişen ilişkilerimiz hakkında sorular sormak istiyorum. Genç bir Macar sanatçı olan Levente Ákos'un, botanikçi ve sanal bir Avrupa ülkesinin vatandaşı olan D Uedd Udd adlı bir adamı yaratmak için Yapay Zekâ (DALL-E) ile işbirliği yaparak, eski özel fotoğraflardan oluşan Yapay Arşivini (2022-2023) nasıl oluşturduğunu inceleyeceğim. Udd, 1943 yılında, İkinci Dünya Savaşı'na giren Blajssoane'ın bir askeri olarak öldü. Dul eşi, daha sonra, Ákos tarafından bir bit pazarında bulunacak olan bir fotoğraf albümü derledi.
Fantezi ve gerçekliğin harmanlanmasından bahsederken, projenin 20. yüzyıl Arjantinli yazarı Jorge Luis Borges'in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius adlı kısa öyküsüyle birlikte okunabileceğini savunacağım. Borges hikayesinin, çağdaş bir sanatçının görsel bir biyografinin şemalarını ortaya çıkarmak ve geçmişe dair kişisel ve kolektif anlatılarımızın kalıplarını sorgulamak için icat ettiği bu fotoğrafik aldatmacayla ilişkilendirilebileceğini göstereceğim.
Yapay Zekâ, Borges, Karma ve Çapraz Gerçeklik, Sanallık
In this presentation I would like to raise questions about our changing relationships with material photographs and offline realities.
I will examine how Levente Ákos, a young Hungarian artist constructed his Artificial Archive of old private photos (2022-2023) while collaborating with Artificial Intelligence (DALL-E) to create a man called D Uedd Udd, a botanist and citizen of a virtual European country. Udd died as a soldier of Blajssoane, which entered World War II in 1943. His widow compiled a photographic album that was later found by Ákos at a flea market.
Speaking about the blend of fantasy and reality, I will argue that the project can be read together with Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, a short story by the 20th-century Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. I will demonstrate that the Borgesian story can be related to this photographic hoax invented by a contemporary artist to reveal the schemas of a visual biography and to question the patterns of our personal and collective narratives of the past.
Artificial Intelligence, Borges, Mixed & Cross reality, Virtuality
I
Just ten years ago, in the depths of the darkroom, lifting the two edges of the photographic paper, I swung a transparent plastic cup filled with coloured pieces of paper. I let it go, it slowed down, swayed with ever decreasing amplitude, and then I made the exposure. All I wanted to do was to make visible the contents invisible to the naked eye.
The exposure suspended the movement in each image. In one of them, the body of the cup splits in two due to the speed, in another, the strange interstellar geometry of the coloured pieces of paper is revealed for a moment, and in the third, a figure resembling a living being emerges in a translucent shell through the colour transitions.
Thanks to the encounter of predictability and chance, the recorded spectacle in each case came from beyond human perception. I photographed something that I had not seen, only imagined and later tried to decipher.
This is the magic of cameraless photography. By creating a specific spatial situation, I renounced the display possibilities and limitations imposed by lens-based photography, but I still insisted on the imprints of the objects.
The creation of the “phase photograms” was significant for me, because creating them had an impact on my thinking. (The questions of what makes an image authentic, or what is the relationship between “reality” and photographs came later.)
However, the changing ways of visual representation and photographic image-making have had an irrevocable impact on the perception of reality of us all, whether microscopically or telescopically, or even through photograms (etc.). But our perception, already permeated by images and the industrialization of vision (by market-leading analogue and digital formats, algorithms, and trends), also affects the reality we experience. In this world flooded with images, can we (still) speak of a mere duality of real and fake photographs?
II
The Argentine writer Borges' text Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius focuses on the mirror, mirroring, reproduction and, of course, the power of language (and imagination) to create the world. The first-person narrator happens to come across a description of a fictional country in Asia Minor, Uqbar, in a pirated encyclopaedia, the tenth reprint of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Not only does he gain knowledge of its approximate and deliberately obscure geography, but he also learns „that the literature of Uqbar was one of fantasy and that its epics and legends never referred to reality, but to the two imaginary regions of Mlejnas and Tlön.” (Borges, 1940)
The Borgesian storytelling then switches, after a few jumps, to a description of Tlön. However, volume 11 of the 1001 (!) pages of the First Encyclopaedia of Tlön, found by chance, is no longer “a superficial description of a nonexistent country”, but “a vast methodical fragment of an unknown planet's entire history”. (Borges, 1940)
The Postscript to the text written in 1940, dated 7 years later, reveals that generations of secret tlönist scholars have been working on lexicons describing Orbis Tertius. And the imagined idealistic and orderly world is increasingly intruding into the real one. Its orderliness makes this "labyrinth devised by men" (Borges, 1940) extremely attractive in contrast to a reality that is governed by divine (i.e. inhuman, therefore incomprehensible) laws.
However, the narrator's fascination turns into a cold and helpless aloofness at the end of the postscript. For humanity, enchanted by the rigor of Tlön, forgets repeatedly „that it is a rigor of chess masters, not of angels.” (Borges, 1940)
And the imagined world is already there in brains, in looks, in gestures, in the rewriting of the past, in words and in dreams. Borges's disillusioned narrator opens the door to a fictional world that expands ever wider, penetrates reality and then devours it.
“If our forecasts are not in error, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred volumes of the Second Encyclopedia of Tlön,” writes the narrator at the end. “Then English and French and mere Spanish will disappear from the globe. The world will be Tlön.” (Borges, 1940).
If my forecast is not in error, we will be in 2040 then.
III
During 2022-2023, the young Hungarian artist Levente Ákos created a photographic album dedicated to a man called D Uedd Udd. He used 74 gelatin silver contact prints and a newspaper article written in an unknown language as the basis for his work, all of which he generated using artificial intelligence. He wanted to understand "how the meaning and deceptive nature of artificially generated images change or are amplified depending on the medium and context. Is a form (family album, photographic paper) alone that we are collectively able to relate to and believe to be real enough to make both the fictional photographs and the fictional story real?" (Ákos, 2023)
According to the story told by the artist, the widow of a young botanist from Blajssoane who died in World War II is the actual compiler of the album found at a flea market. She selected and arranged the pictures one after the other. However, the particularly foreign-sounding names of people and places arouse suspicion in the viewer of the album. And not without reason: the story told by the artist is entirely fictitious, “the photographs and the album were not compiled by Dorirs Aiusy, who never existed, just like D Uedd Udd and Blajssoane.” (Ákos, 2023)
In other words, it is an existing photographic album compiled by the non-existent wife of a non-existent man that creates the Republic of Blajssoane itself. Generated from the artist's prompts and then manually aged by him, the photographic album is ultimately a homage to Borges and a strange mirror. Through it, Ákos points out the visual patterns that pervade our reality and our life stories, the 'ordinary' stories, the common denominator between individual lives documented by archival photographs. And if we look at the AI-generated images as representations of (one of) the models of the world represented by photographs (i.e. not a mixture or montage of „real” photos, but something else that is created during the generation process), it may seem that we are dealing with the purest simulacrum (Wasilievski, 2024).
And while Ákos mirrors our globe into a possible other, imagined world, his work also raises many other questions. What can a photographic album as a narrative even tell us? What is the role of omissions, silences, missing images within it? If we don't know the characters, what do the family photos taken of them, placed one after the other, and considered important by them tell us? Are we able to look at them independently of our own prejudices, our learned vision? What are the stories made of? Who compiled or narrate them and why?
IV
On one day in November 2023, our Photokick [1] workshop at the Hungarian National Museum brought together archival, tangible photo albums and AI-generated images, including a presentation of Ákos' project. The whole programme was aimed at secondary school teachers, starting with questions such as "What are the roots of prompt and promptography? How can AI be used in teaching? How can it be exploited, for example, in teaching language, literature, history, and geography? What can it do in the hands of contemporary artists? What is the difference between an archival and a fictional photographic album?" (Photokick, 2023)
In the first half of the workshop, we, the curators, gave examples of manipulation techniques that existed in analogue photography, and spoke about the patterns that can be found in 20th century family albums when we flip through them as historians. In the second half of the day, looking at the photo album dedicated to the love of a woman in Blajssoane, we tried to pinpoint the flaws of AI-generated images and to spot their virtues. The artificially aged fictitious photos, placed in the body of an old album, had not yet fooled us, but we could already guess that they might soon bear a striking resemblance to photographs.
I was enchanted, I can tell you. And yet, I can only think that the faster the world coming to life from our prompts crawls into our brains, the more important it is to critically examine old photographs.
[1] https://photokick.eu/ Accessed 21 March 2025. The project running in 2022-24 included an international photo competition with a subcategory entitled Imagined Cities, specifically for AI-generated images.
References
Ákos, L. (2023). „A történet teljes egészében igaz, mert elejétől végig én találtam ki” – ln Memoriam D Uedd Udd – Mesterséges Archívum (2022–2023) www.punkt.hu, 03.09.2023., https://punkt.hu/2023/09/03/a-to%CC%88rtenet-teljes-egeszeben-igaz-mert-elejeto%CC%8Bl-vegig-en-talaltam-ki-ln-memoriam-d-uedd-udd-mesterseges-arc/ punkt Accessed 20 March 2025 Borges, J.L. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius (Sur, May 1940,
English translation by James E. Irby, 1961) Photokick, (2023). Photokick-élménynap https://mnm.hu/hu/esemenyek/muzeumi-elet/photokick-elmenynap mnm.hu Accessed 21 March 2025
Wasilievski, A. (2024). The Latent Objective World. Photography and the Real after Generative AI In Shobeiri, A. and Westgeest, H. (eds.) Virtual Photography, Artificial Intelligence, In-game, and Extended Reality, 2024, transcript Verlag, Bielefeld https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-7203-9/virtual-photography/?c=411000190 Accessed 21 March 2025
Eva Fisli graduated in History and Literature at Eötvös University (ELTE), Budapest. In 2012 she obtained a PhD at Sciences Po Paris and ELTE Budapest. Between 2005 and 2009 she was a registrar and an exhibition coordinator at the Hungarian National Museum. Since 2009 she has been working at the Historical Photo Department of the Museum as a curator of exhibits. Since September 2024 she is the head of department.
From 2012 to 2018 she was the secretary of the Hungarian Society for the History of Photography and editor of its website (www.mafot.hu). She edited the bilingual volume of Fényképtárgy / Material photograph, and Fotográfusnők, a Hungarian conference book about women photographers (2020). In 2024 she was the curator of André Kertész 130, a series of exhibitions organized by the Hungarian National Museum. She is currently interested in visual narratives, photobooks, hybrid works (encounters of analogue and digital.)
Sanatçı / Artist
TÜRKİYE
bagerakbay@gmail.com
Fotoğrafçı / Photographer: Şeref Yılmaz
Yapay Zekâ çok şey yapabiliyor, ama hâlâ göremediği, anlayamadığı, sezgiyle kavrayamadığı alanlar var. Özellikle geometri, kompozisyon ve metin gibi alanlarda yüzeysel bir taklit yeteneğine sahip; ama bazen, fotoğrafı olmayan şeylerde bocalıyor.
Yapay Zekâ’nın nasıl görsel ürettiğini; neleri üretirken nasıl zorlandığını irdeleyen bu sunum, Yapay Zekâ’nın “zayıflıklarının” ve henüz giderilememiş “boşluklarının”, birer yaratıcı alan olarak, nasıl değerlendirilebileceğini tartışıyor.
Yapay Zekâ, Geometri, Kompozisyon, Taklit Yeteneği
Artificial Intelligence can do a lot, but there are still areas that it cannot see, understand or grasp intuitively. It has a superficial imitation ability, especially in areas such as geometry, composition and text; but sometimes it falters in things that don't have photographs.
This presentation examines how Artificial Intelligence produces images and what it has difficulty in producing, and discusses how Artificial Intelligence's “weaknesses” and “gaps” that have not yet been eliminated can be utilized as creative spaces.
Artificial Intelligence, Geometry, Composition, Imitation
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Türkiye
İrem Çoban, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi, İletişim Fakültesi, Dijital Oyun Tasarımı Bölümü'nde doktor öğretim üyesidir ve deneysel film yapımı, video kolaj ve görsel hikaye anlatımı alanlarında uzmanlaşmış bir multimedya sanatçısıdır. Galatasaray Üniversitesi'nde iletişim alanında, lisans derecesini birincilikle aldıktan sonra, aynı kurumda medya ve iletişim çalışmaları alanında yüksek lisansını tamamlamıştır. Ardından, Maltepe Üniversitesinde sinema alanında, sanatta yeterlik derecesi almıştır. Sanatta yeterlik tezi, 2020 Shenema Uluslararası Kısa Film Festivali kapsamında, Doktora Tezi Araştırma Bursu'na layık görülmüştür.
Sanatsal çalışmaları, ABD, Japonya, Yunanistan, Kanada ve Güney Kore gibi ülkeler de dahil olmak üzere, dünya çapında saygın grup sergilerinde, festivallerde sergilenmiştir. İtalya Lecce’de bulunan Primo Piano LivinGallery tarafından düzenlenen Art Woman 2020 Geo-Graphies Sergisi’nde, En İyi Teknik Uygulama Ödülünü almıştır. Kısa filmi "Hear," uluslararası film ve sanat festivallerinde gösterilmiştir. Barselona'daki Espronceda Sanat ve Kültür Enstitüsü'nün ev sahipliği yaptığı Immensiva 2022'nin, yerleşik sanatçılarından biridir. Mayıs 2023'te Polonya, Wrocław'daki Eugeniusz Geppert Sanat ve Tasarım Akademisi'nde, misafir eğitmen olarak VR Gravity Sketch atölyeleri gerçekleştirmiştir.
Çoban, Üç Eser koleksiyonuyla Londra merkezli Sedition Art Platform'u sanatçılardan biridir. Londra, İstanbul ve Dubai'de faaliyet gösteren, dijital sanat küratörlüğü ve araştırması için kadın liderliğindeki bir girişim olan capitArtX'in kurucu ortaklarındandır. Ayrıca toplumsal cinsiyet ve sanat/sinema üzerine çeşitli akademik yayınları bulunmaktadır; “Yeni Medyada Görsel Küresel Politikalar” kitabının editörlerinden biridir.
Yapay Zekâ (YZ), uzun süredir, film prodüksiyonunu özel efektler ve animasyon yoluyla zenginleştirmiş olsa da yaratıcı sürece daha derin entegrasyonu, farklı soruları gündeme getirmektedir. Bu bağlamda çalışma, Yapay Zekâ destekli film yapımcılığının yeni ortaya çıkan alanını incelemekte ve bu alanın, görsel kompozisyonu yeniden tanımlama potansiyelini araştırmaktadır. Bu amaçla çalışmada, YZ’nın sinematik anlamı nasıl dönüştürdüğü, örneklem olarak seçilen “The Frost” (2024) adlı YZ ile üretilmiş kısa film üzerinden, Christian Metz’in (1974) göstergebilimsel film analizi çerçevesinde incelenmektedir. Metz’in göstergebilimsel analiz yöntemi doğrultusunda film, sentagmatik (sıralı düzen) ve paradigmatik (ilişkisel bağlantılar) eksenlerde analiz edilmektedir.
Çalışmada elde edilen sonuç, Yapay Zekânın, film yapım süreci üzerindeki etkisinin hâlâ gelişmekte olduğudur. Filmde yer alan karakterler, herhangi bir aksiyon içinde bulunana kadar gerçekçi etkide görsel tasarıma sahip olsa da harekete başladıkları zaman, senkronu bozuk ve tekinsiz biçimlerle, izleyiciyi anlatının dışına çıkarmaktadır. Bu durum, Sigmund Freud’un (1919/2003) tekinsizlik kavramı ve Masahiro Mori’nin (1970/2012) tekinsiz vadi fenomeni ile örtüşerek, izleyicide rahatsız edici bir etki oluşturmaktadır.
Film, geleneksel anlatı kodlarını barındırsa da YZ kaynaklı görsel anomaliler ve zaman algısını bozan estetik tercihler, anlatının akıcılığını bozarak izleyiciyi yabancılaştırmaktadır. Bu nedenle YZ destekli film yapımcılığının, geleneksel film diline meydan okuyan yeni anlamlandırma biçimlerine zemin hazırladığını belirtmek mümkündür. Ancak, sinematik anlamın güçlü ve akıcı şekilde inşa edilebilmesi için, YZ tabanlı görsel üretim tekniklerinde ilerlemeye ihtiyaç duyulmaktadır.
Sinema, Yapay Zekâ, Göstergebilim, Film Yapımı, Video Tasarımı
Although artificial intelligence (AI) has long enriched film production through special effects and animation, its deeper integration into the creative process raises critical questions. In this context, this study examines the emerging field of AI-assisted filmmaking and explores its potential to redefine visual composition. To this end, the research analyzes how AI transforms cinematic meaning within Christian Metz’s (1974) semiotic film analysis framework, using “The Frost” (2024), a short film entirely generated by AI, as a case study. Applying Metz’s semiotic analysis, the film is examined along syntagmatic (sequential arrangement) and paradigmatic (relational connections) axes.
The findings suggest that the impact of AI on filmmaking remains in its developmental stages. While the characters initially appear visually realistic, their movements disrupt synchronization, producing an unsettling effect that distances the audience from the narrative. This phenomenon aligns with Sigmund Freud’s (1919/2003) concept of the uncanny and Masahiro Mori’s (1970/2012) uncanny valley hypothesis, generating a sense of discomfort in viewers.
Although the film adheres to traditional narrative codes, AI-induced visual anomalies and aesthetic distortions of time perception disrupt its fluidity, ultimately alienating the audience. Thus, AI-driven filmmaking challenges conventional cinematic language by introducing new meaning-making processes. However, achieving a coherent and immersive cinematic experience requires further advancements in AI-based visual production techniques.
Cinema, Artificial Intelligence, Semiology, Filmmaking, Video Design
Akademisyen, Yazar / Academician, Writer
TÜRKİYE
onurtatar84@gmail.com
1984 Yılında, Çanakkale’de doğan Onur Tatar, 2008 yılında Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi (DEÜ), Güzel Sanatlar Fakültesi, Fotoğraf Bölümü’nden mezun oldu. 2012 Yılında, DEÜ, Güzel Sanatlar Enstitüsü, Fotoğraf Anasanat Dalı’ndan mezun oldu. Öğrenciliği döneminde, Atlas Dergisi'nde foto muhabirlik yapıp çeşitli konularda foto röportajlar hazırladı. Tatar, Ege Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Radyo - Televizyon ve Sinema Doktora Programı’ndan “Fotoğraf Sanatında Hipermetin ve Değişen Estetik Anlayışı” adlı teziyle 2018 yılında mezun oldu. Görüntü yönetmenliği ve kurgu alanında çeşitli çalışmalarda yer alan Tatar, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, İletişim Fakültesi, Gazetecilik Bölümü’nde, Doçent olarak akademik çalışmalarına devam etmektedir. Tatar’ın çalışmaları, ulusal ve uluslararası boyutta kişisel ve karma sergilerde yer almıştır.
A. G. Baumgarten tarafından, 18. yüzyılda, felsefenin bir dalı olarak kuramsallaşan estetik, en temel düzeyiyle epistemenin bir sorunsalıdır. Bu yönüyle, estetik obje yani sanat yapıtı, özellikle postyapısal teori bağlamında, bir metin biçimi olarak ele alınmaktadır. Temelinde bilme eyleminin yattığı metin; öznenin, zamansal ve mekânsal deneyimlerinden yola çıkarak ve mediumdan faydalanarak yarattığı bir ifade biçimidir. Öznel deneyimler olan zaman ve mekân kavrayışı, teknolojik değişiklikler temelinde, değişikliğe uğramakta, öznenin gerçeklik deneyimlerini de derinden etkilemektedir. Böylesine bir devingenlik içinde de estetiğin, dönemsel olarak değişen bir anlayış haline gelmesi olağandır.
Modernizm’in yaratıcı dehasından, postmodern şizofreniye… Zaman, mekân, özne, gerçeklik ve ürettiği metin biçimleri…
Bir ifade biçimi olarak fotoğraf, kuşkusuz ki bir metindir. Ve bu metin; Postmodernizm sonrasında, dijital teknolojilerin yükselişe geçtiği, dijimodern dönemde, yeni estetik biçimlere kavuşmuştur. Diğer bir deyişle, Web 2.0’ın ya da hipermetinin gündelik yaşantıya sirayet etmesi, öznenin ifade biçimlerini etkileyerek, fotoğrafın, yeni bir estetik çehreye bürünmesini sağlamıştır. Bu dönem içerisinde, Yapay Zekâ teknolojisinin gelişerek yaygınlaşması da zaman ve mekân kavrayışını, özneyi, öznenin gerçeklik algısını ve dolayısıyla fotoğrafın estetik biçimini, ontolojik bir çıkmaza sürüklemektedir.
Estetik, Episteme, Gerçeklik, Zaman, Mekan, Özne, Yapay Zekâ
Aesthetics, theorized as a branch of philosophy by A. G. Baumgarten in the 18th century, is at its most basic level a problematic of episteme. In this respect, the aesthetic object, the work of art, is treated as a form of text, especially in the context of poststructural theory. The text, which is based on the act of knowing, is a form of expression created by the subject based on his/her temporal and spatial experiences and utilizing the medium. The comprehension of time and space, which are subjective experiences, undergoes changes on the basis of technological changes, profoundly affecting the subject's experience of reality. In such a dynamic environment, it is usual for aesthetics to become a periodically changing understanding.
From the creative genius of modernism to postmodern schizophrenia… Time, space, subject, reality and the textual forms it produces…
Photography as a form of expression is undoubtedly a text. And this text has acquired new aesthetic forms in the post-postmodern, digimodern period, when digital technologies have been on the rise. In other words, the penetration of Web 2.0 or hypertext into everyday life has affected the subject's forms of expression and enabled photography to take on a new aesthetic face. In this period, the development and widespread use of artificial intelligence technology has led the understanding of time and space, the subject, the subject's perception of reality, and thus the aesthetic form of photography to an ontological impasse.
Aesthetics, Episteme, Reality, Time, Space, Subject, Artificial Intelligence
Sanatçı, Akademisyen / Artist, Academician;
TÜRKİYE
egekanar@gmail.com
Lisans derecesini Sabancı Üniversitesi, Görsel Sanatlar ve İletişim Tasarımı programında tamamlayan Ege Kanar, yüksek lisans derecesini Prag Performans Sanatları Akademisi’nden Fotoğraf alanında almıştır. Görsel sanatlar alanında ürettiği çalışmalarında fotografik
görüntülerin ontolojik yapılarına ve arşivlerin anlam üretme biçimlerine odaklanmaktadır. Çeşitli kurumlarda fotoğraf üzerine dersler de veren Kanar, çalışmalarını İstanbul’da sürdürmektedir.
Barın Han’da, 2024 yılında gerçekleşen “Critical Shifts” grup sergisi kapsamında ürettiğim, “Bir Kazı Alanına Yaklaşırken” isimli çalışmadan yola çıkarak, kurmaca anlatılar, fotoğraf ve sentetik görüntüler arasındaki ilişkiye odaklanacağım bu konuşma; Yapay Zekâ tabanlı görüntü üretme tekniklerinin örtük doğasını da sorguya açmayı hedefliyor.
1924 Yılında, yeni demir yatakları keşfetmek üzere, Chitawa Havzası’na gönderilen jeolog Edward C. Hayes ve ekibinin kurmaca hikayesine dayanan “Bir Kazı Alanına Yaklaşırken”, Yapay Zekâ araçları kullanarak oluşturduğum fotoğraf benzeri görüntülerden; Hayes’in günlüklerinden alıntılandığı iddia edilen metin parçalarından ve yolculuk boyunca yaşananları günümüz bilimsel perspektifinden anlamlandırmaya çalışan bir jeofizikçi ile yapılan farazi bir röportajdan oluşuyor.
Doğayı çeşitli müdahalelerle ehlileştirerek ondan fayda sağlama arzusunu, insan algısının sınırlı ve kırılgan doğasıyla temas halinde ele alan bu çalışma, ekonomik getiri için kazılan maden sahalarından, Yapay Zekâ algoritmalarını beslemek için hasat edilen görüntülere kadar, her türlü kazma/çıkarma faaliyetinin nasıl öngörülemez sonuçlar doğurabileceğine dair, spekülatif bir öneri olarak okunabilir.
Umuyorum ki, bu öneri etrafında beliren meseleleri gündeme taşımak, hem fotoğrafın kolonyal tarihini tekrar düşünmeye hem de fotografik görüntüleri yığınlar halinde soğurup, sentezlerken, bu görüntülerin otoritesini iyice zayıflatan Yapay Zekâ algoritmaları tarafından üretilen sentetik imajların arkasını kazımaya vesile olacak.
Kurmaca Anlatılar, Fotoğraf ve Sentetik Görüntü, Yapay Zekâ.
Based on the work titled “Approaching an Excavation Site” that I produced as part of the group exhibition “Critical Shifts” at Barın Han in 2024, this talk will focus on the relationship between fictional narratives, photography and synthetic images, and aims to interrogate the implicit nature of Artificial Intelligence-based image-making techniques.
Based on the 1924 fictional story of geologist Edward C. Hayes and his team sent to the Chitawa.
Basin to discover new iron deposits, “Approaching an Excavation Site” consists of photo-like images I created using Artificial Intelligence tools, text fragments purportedly taken from Hayes' diaries, and a hypothetical interview with a geophysicist who tries to make sense of what happened during the journey from a contemporary scientific perspective.
This study, which deals with the desire to benefit from nature by taming it through various interventions, in contact with the limited and fragile nature of human perception, examines all kinds of mining sites, from mining sites dug for economic return to images harvested to feed Artificial Intelligence algorithms can be read as a speculative suggestion of how digging/extraction can have unpredictable consequences.
I hope that raising the issues around this proposal will lead us to rethink the colonial history of photography and to scrape the back of the synthetic images produced by artificial intelligence algorithms that absorb and synthesize masses of photographic images while further undermining the authority of these images.
Fictional Narratives, Photography and Synthetic Image, Artificial Intelligence.
Yüksek Makine Mühendisi, Yazılımcı, Fotoğraf Sanatçısı / Senior Mechanical Engineer, Software Developer, Photographer;
TÜRKİYE
melihozbek@dijitalakademi.com
Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesinde, Makina Mühendisliği alanında lisans ve yüksek lisans derecelerini tamamladı. Kariyeri boyunca, yazılım geliştirme ve yaban hayatı fotoğrafçılığı gibi alanlarda, çeşitli ulusal projelerde liderlik yaptı. 2005 Yılında, AFSAD’da, dijital ortamda fotoğrafçılık dersleri vermeye başladı. 2009 Yılında, profesyonel olarak fotoğrafçılık ve fotoğraf eğitmenliği yapmaya başladı ve Dijital Akademi’yi kurdu. 2013 Yılında, Hacettepe Üniversitesinde, seçmeli fotoğraf dersleri vermeye başladı ve 2022 yılından itibaren yine aynı üniversitede Güzel Sanatlar Fakültesi Grafik Bölümü’nde, yarı zamanlı öğretim görevlisi olarak ders vermeye başladı. Özbek, 2022'den itibaren Yapay Zekâ ve büyük dil modelleri üzerine yoğunlaşarak, GPT Akademi'nin kurucu ortakları arasında yer aldı. Şimdilerde, gelişmiş teknolojik altyapı ve yenilikçi Yapay Zekâ ürünlerinin tasarımıyla ilgili kurumsal müşterilere danışmanlık hizmetleri sunmaktadır.
Fotoğrafçı olmak için çok güzel bir dönemde yaşıyoruz… Ya da çok kötü… Bardağın hangi tarafına baktığınıza göre değişse de son yıllarda hiç durmayan gelişmeler, fotoğraf alışkanlıklarımızı yeniden gözden geçirmemize neden oldu.
Önce hesaplamalı ya da bilişimsel fotoğrafçılık yeni ufuklar açtı. Arkasından Yapay Zekâ, iş akışlarını kökünden değiştirme yolunda. Artık fotoğraf makinalarının içinde, fotoğraf işleme programlarında, fotoğrafın her aşamasında Yapay Zekâ, iş akışlarına girmiş durumda.
Artık programlar, fotoğrafları işlerken, içindeki nesneleri tanıyorlar. Fotoğraftaki alan derinliğini algılayıp fotoğrafçının, nesnelerin kendisine olan uzaklığına göre işlem yapmasına imkân sağlıyor. Akıllı gürültü temizleme programları, artık fotoğrafta neyin gürültü, neyin fotoğrafa ait olduğunu daha kolay anlıyor ve fotoğrafçıların fotoğraf çekerken seçeceği ayarları yeni bir seviyeye taşıyor.
Fotoğrafçılık asla eskisi gibi olmayacak.
Bilişimsel Fotoğrafçılık, Yapay Zekâ.
We are living in a truly fascinating time to be a photographer… or perhaps a very challenging one. It all depends on how you look at it. Whether you see the glass as half full or half empty, the relentless advancements of recent years have made us rethink our photography habits.
First, computational photography opened up completely new horizons. Then, artificial intelligence began to transform workflows from the ground up. AI is now integrated into every stage of photography- inside cameras, in editing software, and throughout the entire photographic process.
Nowadays, editing programs can recognize the objects in a photo. They can detect the depth of field and allow photographers to edit images based on how far objects are from the lens. Intelligent noise reduction tools are now better at distinguishing between what’s noise and what actually in the image, pushing photographers to a new level of control when making adjustments during a shoot.
Photography will never be the same again.
Computational Photography, Artificial Intelligence.
Medya Sanatçısı, Yayıncı / Media Artist, Publisher
ALMANYA / GERMANY
muellerpohle.net
equivalence.com
mail@equivalence.com
Andreas Müller-Pohle, Berlin'de yaşayan bir medya sanatçısı ve yayıncıdır. Uluslararası çağdaş fotoğrafçılık, yeni medya ve yapay zekâ alanlarında yayın yapan ve bu yıl 45. yılını kutlayan bağımsız sanat dergisi European Photography'nin kurucusudur. Medya filozofu Vilém Flusser'in, ufuk açıcı Fotoğraf Felsefesi de dahil olmak üzere, başlıca eserlerinin editörlüğünü yapmıştır. Pek çok yayın yapan, sergilere katılan Andreas’ın fotoğraf, video ve bilgisayar çalışmaları, dünya çapında, çok sayıda özel koleksiyonda ve müzede yer almaktadır. Avrupa, Kuzey ve Güney Amerika ile Asya'da çok sayıda kurumda, konuk profesör ve öğretim görevlisi olarak bulunmuştur. Şimdilerde, teorik ve pratik odağı fotoğrafçılık ve yapay zekânın kesişimi üzerinedir.
Doğal olandan yapay zekâya geçiş, merkezinde fotoğrafçılığın yer aldığı, derin bir teknolojik ve kültürel değişime işaret ediyor. Yapay zekâdaki, özellikle de görüntü üretimindeki hızlı ilerlemeler, yerleşik yazarlık ve gerçeklik kavramlarına meydan okuyor. Işığın yakalanmasına dayanan geleneksel fotoğrafçılık, veri ve algoritmalardan türetilen yapay zekâ görüntüleriyle zora sokuluyor. Bu değişim, fotoğrafın, güvenilirliğin kalesi olarak oynadığı tarihsel rolü zayıflatıyor ve olasılığı, gerçekliğin yerine koyuyor. YZ tarafından üretilen görüntüler, çoğaldıkça, bilim ve demokratik toplum için önemli etkileri olan hem estetik hem de politik zevksizliği teşvik ediyor. Ucu bucağı olmayan karmaşıklıklarından ötürü YZ sistemleri “süper kara kutular” olarak işlev görmekte, etik ve yasal hesap verebilirliği zorlaştırmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, özgün fotoğraf makinesi görüntüsü yeni bir önem kazanıyor. Sanatçılar, yeni teknolojileri yalnızca bir araç olarak benimsemek yerine, onları eleştirel bir gözle inceleyen kavramsal stratejilerle yanıt veriyorlar.
Yapay Zekâ, Görüntü, Üretilen Görüntüler, Etik, Yasal.
The transition from natural to artificial intelligence marks a profound technological and cultural shift, with photography at its core. Rapid advances in AI, particularly in image generation, are challenging established notions of authorship and truth. Traditional photography, based on the capture of light, is being challenged by AI-generated images derived from data and algorithms. This shift undermines photography’s historical role as a bastion of credibility, replacing truth with probability. As AI-generated images proliferate, they foster both aesthetic and political kitsch, with significant implications for science and democratic society. Due to their immense complexity, AI systems function as “super black boxes,” complicating ethical and legal accountability. In this context, the authentic camera image takes on a new significance. Artists are responding with conceptual strategies that critically examine the new technologies, rather than simply adopting them as tools.
Artificially Intelligent, Image, Generated Images, Ethical, Legal.
The greatest transformation of our time is that from natural to artificial intelligence, an epochal process at the center of which is a medium as familiar as it is trustworthy: photography.
It was a stark warning with which the Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit research institution based in San Francisco, startled the public: The danger of “extinction from artificial intelligence” should be given the same global priority as pandemics or nuclear war. Hundreds of renowned experts signed the declaration, including Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of deep learning, who had recently ended his long-standing collaboration with Google in order to be able to speak freely about the existential dangers of artificial intelligence. That was in May 2023.
Admonishers and Appeasers
Hinton is one of the most prominent voices warning of the threats posed by a technology that comes in the guise of harmless text and image creations – and yet has the potential to turn upside down just about everything that makes up our Western value system. It is not even necessary to look into the distant future, it is enough to consider the dynamics of the present. And that is confusing enough. Here, the admonishers are confronted by the appeasers, who see it all as hype, a passing wave, or even just a burp of the digital revolution that happened more than three decades ago and should no longer frighten us.
Why should we fear it? Artificial intelligence is already present in almost every device, in every sophisticated software application, and it is hard to imagine any technologically relevant area of society without it. Whether in medical diagnostics, language processing, or industrial robotics, it helps us in our everyday and professional lives – but it is camouflaged, like a virus that spreads insidiously and does not rest until it has complete control of the infected body
The fact that artificial intelligence, whose history dates back to the middle of the last century, is only now coming at us with a vengeance has to do with three main factors: the availability of gigantic amounts of data (big data) as a product of social media, online commerce, and other areas; the rapid increase in hardware performance made possible by new graphics processors and storage technologies; and advances in machine learning, especially deep learning.
Super Black Box
We owe the current exponential development of artificial intelligence first and foremost to advances in self-learning systems – systems that can constantly improve their performance based on their experience and thus accelerate themselves, with incalculable consequences for the controllability of the processes set in motion.
The almost limitless complexity of neural networks and the escalating pace of research that drives them make artificial intelligence a black box of a new quality. Even its prototype, the photographic apparatus, was a camera obscura that could only be understood with technological knowledge. The computer, the next stage, obscured its inner workings in the shadow of codes, ruled solely by its programmers, that new class of literati and scribes. And artificial intelligence? It works, but even its creators no longer fully understand how or why: a super black box.
In many areas, this is irrelevant; in others, such as autonomous driving, it is existential. Decisions about life and death, made in the darkness of a black box – the idea rightly fills us with dread. And this is also the ethical crux of artificial intelligence: Without the penetration of its processes, without its plannability and traceability, effective rules and laws for our protection are unthinkable.
Such rules and laws are being hotly debated in photography, especially in applied photography, and are paradigmatic for a multitude of professions whose ground is being pulled out from under them by the new potentials of artificial intelligence. In the crosshairs is a profession whose expertise, the production of camera images, will foreseeably no longer be needed in many commercial applications, and whose capital, the image and author rights, will melt away in the blink of an eye.
Simulated Photography
Two worlds of images confront each other: on the one hand, photography by means of a camera, on the other, image generation by means of a computer; here the image of light, there the image of data. They are two of the most unequal siblings. For those data that are now being devoured and digested by the algorithms of artificial intelligence are the estimated more than twelve trillion photographs (plus all other types of images) that have accumulated in the memory of history and are available there as a sedimented mass of data.
The new, artificially intelligent image is so different that we can no longer call it “photography.” The photograph as we know it, whether analog or digital, whether taken with a camera or a smartphone, is the product of a captured light event, an optical imprint of the external world based on the sensory perception of a human actor and his or her direct, primary, authentic relationship to it. Photographs are two-dimensional slices of a four-dimensional space-time; they are per se analytical.
In contrast, the artificially intelligent image is the product of neural algorithms and statistically processed data. Its relationship to the external world is indirect, secondary, derivative. It can simulate but not embody photography: an image based on the mental input from a human actor and his or her staged relationship to the world. Artificially intelligent images are two-dimensional montages of data from other two-dimensional surfaces; they are per se synthetic.
A new vocabulary has not yet been established. Adding attributes such as intelligent, generated, or algorithmic to photography leads to a dead end, because even a correct attribute cannot save a false noun. “Synthography” and “promptography” have been suggested as alternatives; let us wait and see which one will prevail in the end.
The transition from the light image to the data image is accompanied by the abolition of the author – once again, and this time for good. For if every new image is a composite of already existing images, then every one of its creators becomes a potential author – even if only infinitesimally, even if homeopathically diluted like a drop of blood in the ocean.
Truth and Probability
The visual world of artificial intelligence marks a qualitatively new stage of digitization. From the very beginning of this process in the 1990s, it was clear that photography would play a key role.
The most far-reaching social consequence is the decline of truth, the bastion that photography once built eye to eye and hand in hand with the natural sciences. It was photography that, for more than a century and a half, conditioned us to trust the eye. All our skepticism, all our theoretical insights into the artificial, constructed, staged character of the photographic image have not been able to destroy the idea that the camera is a truth machine that provides us with reliable and trustworthy documents and evidence.
This naïve belief in truth was shattered with the digitization of photography. The analog threads that had once connected photography to the world out there were chopped up into bits and could now be reassembled, computed, at will. Truth was no longer an automatic, technically guaranteed feature of the image, but became a question of journalistic integrity – of certain media, agencies, and individuals with impeccable reputations.
From then on, a new social calculation was required, one that replaced truth with probability, and that today, in the face of artificial intelligence, confronts us with entirely new challenges. For once photography as we know it is eroded, once it is marginalized and pulverized, once our image of the world is distorted by more and more invented, fictitious, mendacious constructs, even liberal civilization comes under threat. Its cohesion is based on a double consensus: the credibility of images and the credibility of science. When the credibility of images fails, science suffers as well, as we are experiencing with the climate crisis: Only since the images of droughts, floods, and melting glaciers have come into existence, does it exist at all.
Artificially intelligent images are – to repeat – not photographs. They can pretend to be photographs, just as photographs once pretended to be reality. This is a qualitative leap that not only justifies but requires us to speak of something revolutionarily new.
Aesthetic and Political Kitsch
A look into the sites and channels of artificially intelligent images makes one shudder at times. It hisses and bubbles like in a witch’s kitchen. Creepy monster figures next to athletic super-bodies, horses running through living rooms, dogs as big as elephants . . . an endless stream of kitsch and nonsense, perfectly styled and yet so uniform and redundant that one wonders where exactly the much-vaunted expansion of photographic creativity is to be found. At the moment, you have to look for it like a needle in a haystack. For the kitschification of the image sphere results almost inevitably from the amalgamated nature of artificial intelligence, which – this seems to be its paradox – produces above all artificial stupidity with all its empty and used images.
The counterpart to aesthetic kitsch is political kitsch, which gelatinizes and reshapes social discourse, to be found in the ideological bunkers, the bubbles and echo chambers in which hallucinated, alternative, freely invented realities circulate. It may seem unrelated at first glance, but both forms of kitsch have a common – if not sole – cause: the decay of certainty and truth in their original and elementary sense as a correspondence between statement and reality, as established theoretically abstract by the sciences and sensually concrete by the technical image media.
Knowledge Regression
Aesthetic and political kitsch – that sounds harmless, and yet it is the swamp from which even the most liberal and democratic societies are threatened. A society without a compass, without an anchor, is easily lost. “Muddying the water” is the term for the strategy of undermining certainties, sowing doubt, and making lies acceptable. Artificially intelligent images that pretend to be photographs are the instrument of choice for this. For they are ideally suited to exploit and abuse our traditional trust in photography – and even more so in the moving image. And we are, it must be emphasized, only at the beginning of this process. The still prevailing imperfection of artificial images, be it the Pope in a down coat or Trump in a scuffle with policemen, will soon be a thing of the past. The great pictorial horror is yet to come.
A peculiar nostalgia is already spreading, a longing for the happy days when we believed we could trust the evidential value of the photograph. And indeed, for all the fascination with the artificial new intelligence, there is one thing worth defending: the authentic camera image, created in the light of reality. Technical approaches to this already exist, such as the Content Authenticity Initiative, which aims to provide photos, videos, and audio recordings with tamper-proof metadata about their origin and processing.
Yet it seems that the debate about photography and its relationship to reality, so fiercely fought over the past few decades, has been increasingly lost from view. Its ontological status, until recently classified as subjective and programmed, appears to have shifted back into a zone of seemingly objective authenticity in the face of the artificially intelligent image. Data can lie, light cannot? That would be a fatal conclusion. Let us be immune to such recursions, which throw us back into the debates of yesterday and the day before.
Artistic Strategies
The aesthetic history of photography can be seen as a reflection of its technological development: Technical innovations have always opened up new artistic creative spaces, and the more significant the innovation, the more powerful the subsequent creative expansion. It is still too early to sketch out an adequate scenario for the immense upheavals of artificial intelligence, but some approaches and strategies can be named for how artists are meeting the challenge today.
Above all, they resist the temptation to use it as a mere toy, to play naïvely with it instead of against it. To let it spew its kitsch unfiltered. Instead, they develop narratives and concepts in which reflection and critique resonate. Their perspective is a theoretical one, a meta-view.
The most promising approaches we see here often bear a striking resemblance to those of conceptual and appropriation art. For today’s digital avant-garde, everything is up for grabs again: history, the media, science and politics, philosophy and art. No dogma or knowledge, no matter how ironclad, remains untouched by them.
But the new artificial intelligence strategies will not only rewrite the past and illuminate the present, they will above all cut a swath into the future, providing forecasts, models, symbols for tomorrow’s life and survival. They will be integrated strategies in which the circles of art intersect with those of the natural sciences and humanities, architecture and urban planning, ecology and many other fields. A cross-media art, an art of interfaces, where the still image becomes a function of the moving one and an element of the expanded immersive space.
It will be up to us to counter the threatening potential of artificial intelligence and instead develop it into an instrument of cognition and sensibility. The intelligence we need for this is and will remain our own. For the artificially intelligent images of the future will only make sense if they remain human images.
© Andreas Müller-Pohle; Berlin, October 2023
Andreas Müller-Pohle is a Berlin-based media artist and publisher. He is the founder of European Photography, an independent art magazine for international contemporary photography, new media and artificial intelligence, which celebrates its 45th anniversary this year. He has edited the major works of media philosopher Vilém Flusser, including the seminal Philosophy of Photography. Andreas has published and exhibited extensively, and his photographic, video, and computer works are in numerous private and museum collections worldwide. He has been a visiting professor and lecturer at numerous institutions in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. His current theoretical and practical focus is on the intersection of photography and artificial intelligence. –
_muellerpohle.net, equivalence.com
Sanat Tarihçisi, Küratör / Art Historian, Curator
FRANSA / FRANCE
veronique.souben@ensp-arles.fr
Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Üniversitesi ve Almanya'nın Münster kentindeki Wilhelm Üniversitesinden dereceleri olan sanat tarihçisi Véronique Souben, 2003 yılında Almanya'daki MARTa Herford Çağdaş Sanat ve Tasarım Müzesi'nde sergilerden sorumlu küratör olmadan önce, Fransa ve Almanya'daki çeşitli kamu kurumlarında (Centre Pompidou, Berlin'deki Neue National Galerie, Centre d'art de Meymac gibi) çalıştı.
2011 Yılında, Fonds régional d'art contemporain Normandie Rouen'in direktörlüğünü üstlendi; burada, on yılı aşkın bir süre fotoğraf alanında aktif bir politika izleyerek Gilles Saussier ve Isabelle Le Minh gibi ulusal üne sahip sanatçıların monografik sergileri ile Geert Goiris, Anne Collier ve Darren Almond'un uluslararası sergilerini düzenledi. Ayrıca 2013'de “Fotoğraf Öğretimi” ve 2021'de “Fotoğraf ve Soyutlama Testi” gibi önemli tematik sergilerin yanı sıra, uluslararası konferanslar ve yayınlar tasarladı.
Ekim 2024'te, Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie d'Arles'ın başına atanarak, bir yandan okulu yeni teknolojilere açarken, bir yandan da temellerindeki mecranın özgüllüğünü yeniden teyit etti. Ayrıca daha açık bir şekilde deneysel, disiplinler arası ve merkezi olmayan yaklaşımlar geliştirmektedir.
1982'de kurulduğundan bu yana, Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d'Arles, mecradaki birçok değişikliğe sürekli olarak uyum sağlamıştır. 90'larda dijital fotoğrafçılığa geçiş, fotoğrafçılığa daha disiplinler arası bir yaklaşım getirirken, teknolojik devrim şimdi bizi hem görüntüleri nasıl ürettiğimiz hem de gerçeklikle nasıl ilişki kurduğumuz açısından mecra hakkında farklı düşünmeye zorluyor. Okulun direktörü olarak Véronique Souben bu değişiklikleri inceleyecek. Fotoğrafçılık alanındaki bu teknolojik değişimin ortaya çıkardığı yeni zorluklar karşısında okulun konumunu açıklayacak.
İletişim, Dijital Fotoğrafçılık, Teknolojik Devrim.
Since it was founded in 1982, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles has constantly adapted to the many changes in the medium. While the transition to digital photography in the 90s led to a more cross-disciplinary approach to photography, the technological revolution is now forcing us to think differently about the medium, both in terms of how we produce images and how we relate to reality. As director of the school, Véronique Souben will review these changes. She will explain the school's position in the face of the new challenges posed by this technological shift in the field of photography.
Communication, Digital Photography, Technological Revolution.
Art historian with degrees from the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Wilhelm-Universität in Münster in Germany, Véronique Souben worked in a number of public institutions in France and Germany (Centre Pompidou, Neue NationalGalerie in Berlin, Centre d'art de Meymac, etc.) before becoming curator in charge of exhibitions at the MARTa Herford Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Germany in 2003.
In 2011, she became director of the Fonds régional d'art contemporain Normandie Rouen, where, for over ten years, she has pursued an active policy in the field of photography, with monographic exhibitions by artists of national renown such as Gilles Saussier and Isabelle Le Minh, and international exhibitions by Geert Goiris, Anne Collier and Darren Almond. She has also designed major thematic exhibitions such as ‘Teaching Photography’ in 2013 and ‘Photography and the Test of Abstraction’ in 2021, as well as international conferences and publications.
Appointed head of the Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie d'Arles in October 2024, she reaffirmed the specificity of the medium in its foundations, while opening the school up to new technologies. She is also developing more openly experimental, cross-disciplinary and decentralised approaches.
Bağımsız Küratör, Sanatçı / Kültür Danışmanı, Fotoğraf Uzmanı / Independent Curator, Artist, Cultural Advisor, Photography Specialist
YUNANİSTAN / GREECE
LinkedIn
vangelisioakimidis@gmail.com
Vangelis Ioakimidis (d. 1962) küratör, kültür mühendisliği danışmanı ve fotoğraf uzmanıdır. Bugüne kadar 20'den fazla ülkede 300'den fazla sergi, yayın ve festival düzenlemiş, 100'den fazla kurum ve görsel sanatçıyla işbirliği yapmıştır.
Fotoğraf kitabı ödülleri, yarışmalar ve bienal komiteleri için jüri üyeliği; Yunanistan'daki Prix Pictet için koordinatörlük; portföy hakemliği; konferans, seminer ve yuvarlak masa tartışmalarında konuşmacı olmak üzere 200'den fazla etkinlikte çeşitli görevler üstlendi. Ayrıca ulusal fotoğraf komitelerinde görev yapmış ve altyapı, dijitalleştirme, yayıncılık, eğitim ve kültürel programlara odaklanan 25 Avrupa projesini yönetmiştir.
Skopelos Fotoğraf Merkezi'nin sanat direktörlüğü ve Atina 2004 Olimpiyat Oyunları fotoğraf küratörlüğü görevlerinin ardından, 2005-2015 yılları arasında Selanik Fotoğraf Müzesi ve PhotoBiennale'nin direktörlüğünü yürütmüştür. Ayrıca (1997-1998) Nice'deki Septembre de la Photographie'de Yunanistan Kültür Bakanlığı Genel Komiseri ve Toulouse'daki Château d'Eau Fotoğraf Merkezi'nde Yunan Yılı (1999-2000) küratörü olarak görevlendirildi.
1984-1996 yılları arasında Éditions Contrejour'da çalıştı ve Paris'te Camera International ve Photographies Magazine'e katkıda bulundu. BOZAR, Les Rencontres d'Arles, PhotoEspaña, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Benaki Müzesi, Kiklad Sanatı Müzesi ve Avrupa'daki diğer kültürel kuruluşlar gibi önemli kurumlarla işbirliği yaptı.
2022 yılında Fransız Kültür Bakanlığı tarafından Sanat ve Edebiyat Nişanı Şövalyesi unvanına layık görüldü.
Paris VIII Üniversitesi'nde Sinema ve Görsel-İşitsel Sanatlar eğitimi aldı ve Fotoğrafçılık dalında uzmanlaştı. Ayrıca; Nanterre Léonard de Vinci Üniversitesi'nde Kültür Ekonomisi ve Aegean Üniversitesi'nde Kültürel Bilgi Teknolojileri eğitimi aldı.
Bu sunumda, dünyamızın karmaşıklığı henüz yeterince anlaşılmamışken bile, her zaman farklı gerçeklikleri keşfetmek ve dolayısıyla görmek istediğimizi kısaca göstereceğim. Fotoğrafik araç, dünyayı ve dünyaları kavrayışımızı elbette şekillendiriyor, ancak her şeyden önce, icat etme ve yeniden şekillendirme arzumuzun bir taşıyıcısı.
Görmek istediğimiz gerçeklikler değerlerimiz, özlemlerimiz ve tüm karmaşıklığıyla dünyayla ilişki kurma isteğimiz tarafından şekillendirilir. Fotoğraf bu arzuları bize geri yansıtır, bizi sorgulamaya, empati kurmaya ve hayal etmeye davet eder. Fotoğrafın mekanik bir araçtan çok yönlü bir mecraya evrimi, gerçekliği anlama ve onunla ilişki kurma biçimimizdeki daha geniş değişimleri yansıtıyor. Yapay zeka tarafından üretilen görüntülerden aşırı görsel yüklemeye kadar dijital çağın zorluklarıyla boğuşurken, fotoğrafın yaratıcılık, bağlantı ve değişim için sunduğu fırsatların da farkına varmalıyız.
Yapay Zekâ (YZ), Aşırı Görsel Yük, Görsel Okuryazarlık, Hipergerçeklik.
In this presentation, I will briefly show that we have always wanted to explore and consequently see different realities, even when the complexity of our world was still understated. The photographic medium, by all means, shapes our understanding of the world and worlds, but foremost, it is a carrier of our desire to invent and reshape.
The realities we want to see are shaped by our values, our aspirations, and our willingness to engage with the world in all its complexity. Photography reflects these desires back to us, inviting us to question, to empathize, and to imagine.
Photography’s evolution from a mechanical tool to a multifaceted medium reflects broader shifts in how we understand and engage with reality. As we grapple with the challenges of the digital age-from AI-generated imagery to visual overload-we must also recognize the opportunities photography offers for creativity, connection, and change.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Visual Overload, Visual Literacy, Hyperreality.
Since its invention in the 19th century, photography has oscillated between truth and fiction, documentation and imagination. Initially celebrated for its ability to capture reality with mechanical precision, it has continuously evolved, redefining its relationship with painting, visual culture, and technology while also shaping our approach to the world—or rather, the worlds we live in. In this presentation, I will briefly show that we have always wanted to explore and consequently see different realities, even when the complexity of our world was still understated. The photographic medium, by all means, shapes our understanding of the world and worlds, but foremost, it is a carrier of our desire to invent and reshape.
As theorists such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag have argued, photography has never been a neutral reflection of reality but rather a constructed form of representation, shaped by framing, selection, and context. This is even more relevant in the digital age, where image manipulation and artificial intelligence (AI) have further advanced our relationship with the image. Photography, once seen as a tool for capturing objective truth, has become a medium for constructing subjective realities, blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
Before the advent of photography, painting was the dominant visual medium for capturing and interpreting the world. However, the invention of photography in the 19th century challenged painting’s role as a documentary tool, leading some artists to fear its replacement. The painter Paul Delaroche famously declared, “From today, painting is dead.” Instead of replacing painting, photography transformed it, inspiring movements like Impressionism, Surrealism, and Cubism—movements that embraced subjectivity and abstraction rather than mimetic representation. In that light, rather than embracing photography’s mechanical precision, the Pictorialist movement (late 19th to early 20th century) sought to elevate photography to the status of fine art. Figures like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen experimented with soft focus, alternative printing techniques, and staged compositions to create images that resembled paintings. This long-standing relationship between the two media, instead of just being interpreted as antagonistic in terms of resemblance, could also be understood as a competing relationship in terms of reshaping the eidolon.
This was followed by another approach a bit later, with French humanist photography of the mid-20th century, which focused on daily life, social interaction, and emotion.
Now the focus was on different time scales, reshaping the eidolon by swiftly reacting, as it were, to some of its aspects: Robert Doisneau (Le Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville, (1950) captured spontaneous, romanticized moments of Parisian life; Willy Ronis, with works such as Le Petit Parisien (1952), emphasized working-class dignity in post-war France, while Édouard Boubat sought timeless beauty, focusing on nostalgia and universal themes. But as stated above, there are many realities in different parts of the world forming our glance. While French humanists celebrated tenderness and optimism, Robert Frank, at the other end of the ocean, with The Americans (1958), took a harsher, more fragmented approach, rejecting aestheticized compositions in favor of raw, unfiltered social critique. His work exposed the contradictions of American life—poverty alongside wealth, alienation within modernity—and laid the foundation for a whole school of photography aspiring to make engaging images; realities that we inhabited but perhaps turned away from.
Yet our desire to see realities also comes from introducing different visual strategies heavily leaning on fiction and staged composition. There is Sophie Calle (Suite Vénitienne, 1980), who blurs the line between documentation and performance, questioning surveillance and voyeurism; Cindy Sherman (Untitled Film Stills, 1977-1980), constructing fictional female archetypes, exposing photography’s role in identity construction; Arthur Tress (Dream Collector, 1970-1974), translating children’s nightmares into surreal compositions, proving photography can document psychological states; Nan Goldin (The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, 1986), merging documentary and performance, capturing raw, intimate realities of love, addiction, and violence; and Duane Michals (The Spirit Leaves the Body, 1968), challenging the limitations of single-frame photography, using sequential storytelling to suggest metaphysical themes.
There is a lot, and there is even so much more. But what I am trying to underline is our desire to see realities and our understanding of how image makers intervene, manipulate, and construct this relationship with the image. And, of course, on the other end, how people receive it and how we might claim that we want to see different realities but, for various reasons, are unable to. In this framework, one cannot omit our changing position toward images that used to shape public opinion, often influencing political action.
For example Nick Ut’s seminal image of the Napalm Girl (1972) helped shift public opinion against the Vietnam War, demonstrating photography’s power to influence global sentiment. That was in the 1970s. And still, a couple of decades later, the world was struck by Kevin Carter’s The Vulture and the Little Girl (1993). The picture became a symbol of famine, raising ethical debates about whether photographers should document or intervene. But what happened when Alan Kurdi (2015) took a picture of the drowned Syrian child? Even though engraved in our memory as a tragic image, it has become one of a trillion tragic images circulating in the media, condemned to disappear through its duplication. It all becomes part of the information out there—a cold reality detached from us. The aura of the images is eroded.
Jean Baudrillard had foreseen this decades ago, but it seems that now his theory of simulacra and hyperreality provides a fitting framework for understanding photography’s transformation in the AI era. Baudrillard argued that in contemporary society, images no longer represent reality but rather simulations of reality, leading us to live in a state of hyperreality, where representations exist without a stable reference to an external truth.
AI systems like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion synthesize the world, drawing on vast datasets of past images to generate convincing yet entirely fictitious visuals. These images exist within Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality, where the line between authenticity and fabrication becomes increasingly blurred. As we move further into an era where images are increasingly autonomously generated, our relationship to visual culture, memory, and evidence must be critically examined. Photography is actively constructing new realities. As we stand at the intersection of technological advancement and artistic innovation, it is essential to reflect on the realities we choose to create, consume, and believe in. As the medium becomes more accessible through smartphones and social media, the line between creator and consumer has blurred. Everyone with a camera can now contribute to the visual narrative of our world, but this democratization comes with challenges. The sheer volume of images produced daily-estimated in the billions-has led to what some theorists call "visual overload." In this flood of imagery, meaningful photographs risk being drowned out by the noise of trivial or manipulated content. The ethical responsibility of photographers, therefore, extends beyond the act of capturing an image; it includes considering how that image will be received and interpreted in a world saturated with visuals. Visual literacy-the ability to critically analyze, contextualize, and question images-is now more crucial than ever.
This means questioning the motives behind a photograph, the context in which it was created, and the ways in which it is disseminated. It also means recognizing the power dynamics at play—who gets to represent whom, and whose stories are left untold. By engaging with photography critically, we can resist the allure of hyperreality and reclaim a sense of agency over the images we consume. At the same time, we must also embrace the imaginative potential of photography. The medium has always been a space for experimentation, for pushing the boundaries of what is possible. From the surreal compositions of Man Ray to the conceptual works of Hiroshi Sugimoto, photography has the power to transport us to alternate realities, challenging our perceptions and expanding our horizons. In the age of AI, this potential is amplified, offering new ways to explore the interplay between reality and fiction. Rather than fearing these developments, we can view them as an opportunity to reimagine the world and our place within it.
Ultimately, the realities we want to see are shaped by our values, our aspirations, and our willingness to engage with the world in all its complexity. Photography reflects these desires back to us, inviting us to question, to empathize, and to imagine. As we move forward, it is up to us to decide what kind of realities we want to create-and what kind of world we want to inhabit. Projects like Sebastião Salgado’s Genesis (2013) demonstrate the medium’s ability to highlight pressing global issues, from environmental degradation to human rights. Such work reminds us that photography, at its best, can bridge divides, foster empathy, and inspire action. However, this potential is contingent on the ethical use of the medium. Photographers must navigate complex moral terrain, balancing the desire to tell compelling stories with the need to respect their subjects’ dignity and agency. What realities do we, as a society, want to prioritize and preserve? This question is not just about photography but about the very essence of how we perceive and interact with the world. Photography, as a medium, will continue to evolve, but its power to shape our understanding of reality will remain as long as we continue to engage with it critically and creatively.
In conclusion, photography’s evolution from a mechanical tool to a multifaceted medium reflects broader shifts in how we understand and engage with reality. As we grapple with the challenges of the digital age-from AI-generated imagery to visual overload-we must also recognize the opportunities photography offers for creativity, connection, and change. By fostering visual literacy and ethical practices, we can ensure that photography continues to serve as a mirror to our world, reflecting both its beauty and its complexities. The realities we choose to see and create through photography will shape not only our understanding of the present but also our vision for the future.
Vangelis Ioakimidis (b. 1962) is a curator, cultural engineering consultant, and photography expert. He has organized more than 300 exhibitions, publications, and festivals in over 20 countries, collaborating with more than 100 institutions and visual artists.
He has held various roles in over 200 events, including jury member for photography book awards, contests, and biennale committees; coordinator for the Prix Pictet in Greece; portfolio reviewer; and speaker at conferences, seminars, and roundtable discussions. He has also served on national photography committees and managed 25 European subprojects focused on infrastructure, digitization, publishing, education, and cultural programs.
From 2005 to 2015, he was the Director of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography and PhotoBiennale, after serving as the Artistic Director of the Skopelos Photographic Center and Photography Curator for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. He was also appointed (1997-1998) General Commissioner for the Hellenic Ministry of Culture at the Septembre de la Photographie in Nice and curator for the Greek Year (1999–2000) at the Château d’Eau Photography Center in Toulouse.
From 1984 to 1996, he worked at Éditions Contrejour and contributed to Camera International and Photographies Magazine in Paris. He has collaborated with major institutions such as BOZAR, , Les Rencontres d’Arles, PhotoEspaña, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, the Benaki Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, and other cultural organizations across Europe.
In 2022, he was named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture.
He studied Cinema and Audiovisual Arts with a specialization in Photography at University Paris VIII, Cultural Economy at Université Léonard de Vinci Nanterre, and Cultural Information Technology at Aegean University.
Fotoğraf Küratörü, Yazar, Öğretim Görevlisi / Photography Curator, Writer, Lecturer
İSVİÇRE / SWITZERLAND
daniel.blochwitz@gmx.net
Daniel Blochwitz, İsviçre merkezli bir fotoğraf küratörü, yazar, öğretim görevlisi ve danışman olup, bu alandaki uzmanlığı ve yenilikçi yaklaşımıyla tanınmaktadır. Almanya'da doğdu (*1973), Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nde görsel sanatlar ve fotoğrafçılık eğitimi aldı ve 2003 yılında Florida Üniversitesi'nden Alman edebiyatı ve film dalında yüksek lisans derecesi aldı. Aynı yıl, uluslararası bir sanat kolektifinin parçası olarak 50. Venedik Bienali'ne (Utopia Station) katıldı. Daha sonra Whitney Müzesi'nin daveti üzerine Bağımsız Çalışma Programı'na katılmak üzere New York'a taşındı ve Martha Rosler'in sanatçı asistanı olarak çalıştı.
Bu formasyonun ardından, New York'un önde gelen çağdaş sanat galerilerinde on yılı aşkın bir süre geçirdikten sonra Edwynn Houk Gallery'yi yönetmek üzere Zürih'e taşındı. Blochwitz, 2015 yılından bu yana müzeler, galeriler, koleksiyonlar, festivaller ve kapalı mekânlar için kişisel ve karma sergiler düzenleyerek bağımsız küratörlük çalışmalarına odaklanmıştır. Ayrıca Almanca konuşulan dünyada fotoğraf temelli medyaya adanmış ilk ve tek sanat fuarı olan Photo Basel'in sanat direktörlüğünü ve Fotofestival Lenzburg'un son üç edisyonunun küratörlüğünü yaptı. Blochwitz ailesiyle birlikte Zürih'te yaşıyor.
Eğer camera obscura, fotoğrafik görüntüleme evreninin ortaya çıktığı ve 19. yüzyıl icadının genç ama dünyayı şekillendiren kozmosunu ortaya koyduğu Büyük Patlama ise, o zaman, şu anki durumundan ne anlam çıkarıyoruz? Fotoğraf sürekli genişleyen, büyüyen, değişen ve uzmanlaşan geniş bir evren midir?Ama aynı zamanda, ısrarla daha otomatik, yapay ve hesaplamalı hale geliyor –özünde, bir kara kutu. Genişletilmiş bir ortam kavramı, şu anda, içinde yer almayı talep eden her şeyi hala kapsayabilir mi? Günümüzdeki imajların çoğu, fotoğrafın önceki tanımlarına direniyorsa veya yalnızca öyleymiş gibi duruyorsa, farklı şekilde sınıflandırılmaları gerekmez mi?, farklı şekilde sınıflandırılmaları gerekmez mi? Bu gelişmeleri kendi koşullarında keşfetmek varken neden medyumun kabul edilmiş parametrelerini bir kırılma noktasına kadar esnetelim? Yanıt olarak, fotoğrafın sadece evrim geçirmediğini, iki farklı ve birbirinden uzaklaşan dala ayrıldığını öne sürüyorum: biri camera obscura'nın orijinal yörüngesini takip ederken, diğeri “kutuyu” başka bir şeye, artık iç işleyişini açığa vurmayan ama gizleyen ve biçim, anlam ve işlev bakımından aynaya daha çok benzeyen bir cihaza dönüştürüyor. Kayıt düğmesi olan bir ayna.
Kamera Obscura, Otomatik/Yapay/Hesaplamalı Fotoğraf, Genişletilmiş Ortam.
If the camera obscura was the Big Bang from which the universe of photographic imaging unfolded and within which the 19th-century invention manifested its young but worlds-shaping cosmos, then what do we make of its current state? Photography is an already vast universe that continues to expand, grow, change and specialize? But is also insistently becoming more automated, artificial, and computational - essentially a black box. Can an extended concept of the medium still encompass all that now claims a place within it? If many of today’s images resist previous definitions of the photographic or merely pose as such, ought they not be classified differently? Why stretch the medium’s accepted parameters to a breaking point when we could explore these developments on their own terms? By way of response, I propose that photography has not merely evolved but has split—into two distinct and diverging branches: one following the original trajectory of the camera obscura, while the other flattens the 'box' into something else, a device that no longer reveals but conceals its inner workings and—in form, meaning, and function—more closely resembles a mirror. A mirror with a record button.
Camera Obscura, Automated/Artificial/Computational Photography, Expended Medium.
Daniel Blochwitz is a Swiss-based photography curator, author, lecturer, and consultant known for his expertise and innovative approach to the medium. Born in Germany (*1973), he studied visual arts and photography in the United States, earning a Master’s degree from the University of Florida in 2003, with a minor in German Literature and Film. That same year, he participated in the 50th Venice Biennale (Utopia Station) as part of an international art collective. He then moved to New York at the invitation of the Whitney Museum to attend its Independent Study Program, while working as an artist assistant to Martha Rosler.
Following these formative years, he spent over a decade in leading contemporary art galleries in New York before relocating to Zurich to direct the Edwynn Houk Gallery. Since 2015, Blochwitz has focused primarily on independent curatorial work, organizing solo and group exhibitions for museums, galleries, collections, festivals, and off-spaces. He has also served as artistic director of Photo Basel, the first and only art fair in the German-speaking world dedicated to photo-based media, and as curator of the last three editions of Fotofestival Lenzburg. Blochwitz lives with his family in Zurich.