Interview for the Soft Photography project at ECAl School, 2025
What emotions are you missing from contemporary images?
I consider exposure to knowledge a form of emotion, a feeling triggered by the discovery of new information, whether through excitement or disbelief. This emotion can be triggered not only by the content, aesthetics, and visuals of the image itself, but also by discovering how the image was made, for what reasons, and with what intentions. These qualities are usually found in fabricated or manipulative images. For example, I find an image emotionally striking when I discover that it was made using a particular tool owned by a fascist billionaire, rather than just considering it as violent or misleading content. Or, I find an image emotionally striking when I learn that it was censored by a particular institution, rather than focusing on its controversial content. These simple examples can be applied to other "contextual" qualities of images—things that cannot be seen at first sight, but are hidden in the social purpose and consequences of the image being shown.
How do you see the relationship between artists and their generative tools? Is it negotiation, co-creation, criticism, collaboration, competition, or hacking?
I have been studying art history and critique. I often write about aesthetics and ethics. I investigate the art market and institutions to uncover collusions among their actors. All of this makes me see art very differently than just in terms of concepts, visuals, and forms. When I see art, my first thought is often institutional criticism; I always look at where and how the art was made and for what intentions. In AI generative art, I think we have already reached a point of inflection where art criticism can be applied in an analytical and investigative way. I find this critical approach even more necessary in light of this new turning point in art-making, with AI as a particular tool and medium that is both accessible and powerful for everyone. Before asking whether anyone can be an artist and create great artworks, my first question is: Who will have the authority to judge the artistic quality of these artists and artworks?
What makes you afraid of generative images? And what makes you hopeful?
I am not too afraid of generative images; for me, they represent something like any other belief system. For instance, religions are full of fake images that have been driving deception, wars, and suffering for millennia. What makes me hopeful is that there will always be resistance against manufactured belief systems, in the form of iconoclastic or critical rejections of images created to mislead and manipulate people. The search for truth and its representation has always been a human drive, in which critical artists and intellectuals have been engaged for millennia as well. What makes me afraid is the institutional suppression of those who seek the truth and expose it. Soon, people may be killed for destroying or deleting AI-generated images, just as it has happened in human history with scientists, journalists, intellectuals, and artists who have demystified other icons of belief systems.
Do you see a change of medium/category between generative images and what we've previously experienced in the history of art/photography?
I recently reread the collection of essays by Susan Sontag in On Photography. I found some passages particularly close to today’s paradigm with AI image creation, as well as to the history of photography and its relationship to reality—introducing a new medium and the ways an author can use it. At the time, Sontag was arguing about the shift from painting to photography, yet similar thoughts can be applied between photography and AI generative art today. In other writings, Sontag discusses the aestheticization and normalization of violence and suffering in photography published by popular tabloids, which, at the time, were influential mass media. Similarly, today we are faced with AI politically charged and violent images circulating through mass media, especially on the internet. There are similarities, but the contemporary condition is more complex. AI images can be weaponized in more powerful ways, and even what doesn’t seem violent might conceal violent intentions. Aesthetic theory cannot be the only way to analyze AI images—there are several other “contextual” parameters to consider, not just in terms of how the images are made but also how they circulate and are perceived in context. This has to do with the systems of publishing and exposure, which today are found in the networks, the feeds, and the interfaces designed for a profiled target and context. It’s not just about the image itself.
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