© AI: INFRAROUGE, Contains Multitudes, 2024

You wrote that "Since many photographic institutions now show AI but fail to emphasize what cannot be replaced in photography, I am closing this gap." Could you elaborate on the meaning of this assumption and why you believe it is urgent?

Boris Eldagsen (BE) Last summer, the oldest and most important photography festival in the world, the Rencontres Arles, showed several AI works without explicitly pointing this out. This suggested an equivalence that is false. Institutions like Foam or festivals like Noorderlicht showed AI-generated images that look as if they were photography. For what reason? We all know that image AIs have been trained with photographs and can imitate them deceptively realistically - but an exhibition concept should go deeper. I think that photo festivals and institutions have an obligation to photography and their audience of photo lovers to clarify the relationship between photography and promptography. Curators are not yet fulfilling this task. That's why I put together an exhibition that provides answers to these important questions: What is the strength of photography that AI cannot replace? What can AI do that photography can't? If curators are not able to address these important questions concerning the future of photography, museums and festivals should drop the photo from their names and rename themselves picture institutions.

© Photo: Klaus Elle, Erleuchtungen Nr.6, 1995

Can you explain how, and what are the criteria or substantial choices behind the selection of the 18 artists for the exhibition?

BS: The aim of the exhibition is to educate. The curatorial work therefore began with an exploration of the differences between photography and promptography. Once the individual categories had been defined, I selected artistic positions that represented them. Two thirds represent positions that I have known for some time and that have impressed me. I got to know many of the photographers through my membership of the Deutsche Fotografische Akademie (DFA). Founded in 1919, the DFA is Germany's oldest association of photographers who work artistically. A third of the works were selected from the programme of the two partner galleries, Photo Edition Berlin and Guleman & Unbekannt Berlin.

© Photo: Peter Truschner, She Stood Therea Loaded Gun, II, 2024

From a display and installative perspective, what are the characteristics and choices you’ve made for Guelman & Unbekannt Gallery?

BS: You enter the exhibition through a small room where there are two pictures: “PSEUDOMNESIA | The Electrician”, my AI picture with which I applied for the Sony World Photo Awards in 2023. I was selected as the winner of the “Creative” category, but declined the award to point out the problematic relationship between photography and AI. The second image is the photograph “Flamingone” by Miles Astray. Miles submitted a photo to an AI competition and was awarded, then disqualified.

© Photo: Miles Astray, Flamingone, 2023

These two stunts show that photography and AI-generated images can no longer be distinguished, and the difference between photography and promptography must be thought of not from the end, but from the process.

© AI: Boris Eldagsen, The Electrician, 2022

From this small room, you enter a large hall in which the photography is on one side and the promptography on the other, arranged by category and accompanied by short introductory texts.

What difficulties have you encountered in realizing this exhibition?

BS: None. The organizers of the European Month of Photography Berlin thought the concept was great, as did the participating photographers and Ki-artists. Because here, one medium is not played off against the other, or replaced. The exhibition proposes a grammar that we need to clarify the relationship between photography and AI.

What are your expectations, especially in terms of audience interaction?

BS: I see the exhibition as a toolbox that the photography community can use and develop - to further highlight what the strength of photography can be in a world where, apart from authentic documentary photos, all previous areas of photography can be (and are being) replaced by AI.

The debate on the use of AI in the art scene is very lively. I recently
visited the exhibition on Bennett Miller at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris. There are different perspectives on this issue. Writer Benjamín Labatut addresses Bennett Miller’s engagement with artificial intelligence:
dall·e 2 is an almost magical tool for so many people who—like Miller
himself—are endowed with a rare aesthetic sensibility that they hitherto could not manifest or fully express. By interacting with dall·e 2, these individuals are participating in a rare type of collaboration—because the AI does not have a mind of its own. Moreover, its creativity is (at least in part) derivative, because it arises from its training on many millions of images from the past, created by countless artists, photographers, and illustrators. And while this has given rise to criticism, the fact that, to create, dall·e feeds on the two things that humanity has developed, above all others, as vehicles to express our inner world—the word and the image—may prove a gift in itself; the head of a path that humanity and AI could walk down together, one where art and beauty become a common language, a shared form of communication that is desperately needed now that the future is so far behind us.

© Installation view, Bennett Miller at Gagosian Gallery, rue de Ponthieu, Paris, 2025

What are your thoughts?

BS: For me, AI is a tool. The creative process has three steps: since AI has no intentionality, it needs my prompt in order to generate at all. The more experience and knowledge I have, the more informed my prompt becomes and the better I can evaluate the generated images. The evaluation is used to fine-tune the prompt or the workflow. Since I can work fully from my imagination in crafting the prompt, the real potential of AI lies in becoming aware of myself. Which image do I want to generate and why? What are my references, what are my aesthetic ideas? AI can express inner realities much better than photography, because it doesn't have to struggle with transforming the material in front of the camera lens. I don’t know what Labatut means with “where art and beauty become a common language, a shared form of communication”. For me art is an expression of the human condition, stretched between the beautiful and the disturbing. Those who equate art and beauty usually only produce design and advertising.

© AI: Sabinevon Bassewitz, Multiple Sklerosis, 2024

As an experienced artist yourself, how have you found the role of curator? What have you learned from this experience?

BS: When I curated a group exhibition for the first time in 2018, I said to myself: never again. It's quite exhausting to run after fellow artists who forget deadlines and submit the required materials incompletely. I took this into account for the current exhibition so that there was a larger time buffer and several reminders for the artists. And it worked. Therefore, I will curate a third exhibition of AI-generated images this autumn – for Roger Ballen’s museum in Johannesburg.

How important do you believe the role of the curator is in cultivating dialogue and constructive debates on this topic, and what are the key qualities this professional figure should have?

BS: What I realized during the process is that an exhibition like the one I curated could probably only be realized by an artist. I don't know many curators now who really know how AI works and develops in depth. An exception would be Anika Meier in Berlin or Charlotte Kent in New York. Technical progress continues to accelerate exponentially. Only those who work with it can see the essential differences to photography. I was a jury member for several AI awards and found it very surprising that experts from the world of photography presumed to want to evaluate AI - with the same criticisms. That would be like a chef who specializes in steak rating vegan food.

Boris Eldagsen (website)

Boris Eldagsen on The Urbanaut Podcast

Boris Eldagsen. Augmented Intelligence (Urbanautica Journal, 2023)

Boris Eldagsen. The Poems (Urbanautica Journal, 2015)