The exhibition questions the limits and possibilities of conventional photography and AI-generated images.

Works by outstanding photographers and artists are on display. 

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS: 

 Jason M. Allen, Miles Astray, Jackie Baier, Kurt Buchwald, Patrik Budenz, Laurence Chaperon, Boris Eldagsen, Klaus Elle, Clint Enns, Gottfried Jäger, Pawel Jaszczuk, Ursula Kelm, Thomas Knoefel, Vitaly Komar, Emi Kusano, Matthias Leupold, Andreas Müller-Pohle, Peter Neusser, Wuh.ey, Jiří Šigut, Torsten Schumann, Vladimir Sorokin, Claus Stolz, Arik Weiszmann, Rosemberg, Merzmensch, Group ‘Plus, Minus, Comma’.

This exhibition invites you to reflect on photography and its role in contemporary image production and so called "truth of the moment" versus the AI generated images. Keep the illusion real!

Opening:

01.03.2025 6 pm

Until 30.03.2025

Location: Photo Edition Berlin c/o Galerie Guelman und Unbekannt

Mittelstrasse 53

10117 Berlin – Mitte

Opening times: 12PM — 8PM.

Entry through the courtyard via World Chess Club Berlin or by appointment

Free admission

The work Sun #292 shows the transformation of energy into concrete photography: for these heliographies, I point recording devices equipped with converging lenses up to one meter in diameter directly into the sun and expose photographic film or plate material directly to its radiation. This concentrated energy, the extreme but controlled and measured overexposure, with exposure times ranging from a few seconds to several hours, causes the layers of material on the focal surfaces to blister, burst, melt, crystallize, branch out, or sometimes even turn to ash. The material changes color, cracks, bursts, deforms, and forms complex, relief-like structures. Delicate cracks, lines, and branches develop in the photographic glass like drawings reduced to their essence.

For me, artistic activity is holistic cognitive work. I use various aesthetic strategies to approach the fascinating phenomena of our human existence and examine the questions that arise in connection with them.

Photography plays a central role for me in this quest for knowledge because we understand it in our learned cultural understanding as an objective representation of reality, and associate it with a clear idea of truth. However, I have always been interested in subjectivizing this truth-blinded surface with very different pictorial interventions.

One effective strategy for creating confusion in the photographic process is the calculated removal of light during exposure and the use of one's own lighting. The physics of imaging thus glides over into the mysterious realm of metaphysics when I myself determine the measure and duration of light. In this way, “objective reality” becomes the scene of my imagination and shapes fleeting memories between the here and now. The series “ERLEUCHTUNGEN” is based on this idea.

Long-term project in which the photographic material does not occur as a medium but as an object of appearance. The object is the photo process itself, its material as an ideological basis. This results in “concrete” photography in which a dialogical relationship forms between two seemingly opposite principals, bringing together reproduction and production: they interact with one another and override conventional material functions, excluding force.

Initially simple exposures were on B/W photographic paper, games and visualizations introduced terminology (grayscale; photo corners), followed by self-images of the photographic materials (under and over, between, through; a section), in addition to installations on the theme of picture presentation, as well as the minute exhibition series in US museums. Since 1999, several series with the title Melbourne Experience were created during a guest professorship on self-referential photo paper objects (Leaflets; images). The topic includes photo paper work, photo objects, photo assemblages, and spatial photo installations.  

Spermagram belongs to a larger series of unique Spermagrams that were created between 2004-10 when the author investigated the possibilities of making the "inner light" of one's own body visible through ultra-weak radiation accompanying the death of cells with the contribution and help of crystals of silver salts in the emulsion of photographic paper. This series is part of Šigut's long-term research in the field of an experimental approach to the medium of photography, where the author uses natural sources of day and night cosmic radiation, moonlight, fire, fireflies, etc., in direct interaction with the light-sensitive layer of photographic paper. The author’s unique and original approach to creation pushes the boundaries of the traditional way of perceiving the photogram. Through his uncommon and uncompromising inventiveness in exploring the very essence of things, Jiří Šigut has shown us that breaking free from ingrained ways of perceiving and creating the image can be a powerful experience that enables us to concentrate on the inner quality of the world all around us.

The installation “Initiation chair” uses scientific photographs from the micro- and macrocosm in the sense of a media reinterpretation, which are formally related to ritual cult objects. This enables a completely new approach to the mounted image mosaics and creates space for wonder and a sense of awe.

If we now look for connecting lines to the AI-generated imagery, then I see the following:

The creation of my analog reality surrogates requires me as a whole person, as a planner, thinker, craftsman, as a person who errs, as an emotional actor with irrational determination and a subjective cultural understanding of the world. Hand and head and space and blood and body circulate to the extent of my individual possibilities.

Taking promptographs is a cerebral act, a kind of silent sitting in the Platonic cave, and the digital world spirit willingly cooperates with my coded imagination, projecting synthetic images from the global visual archives. All this takes place in gloriously sterile, emotionally restrained interaction chambers, and in distant, sealed-off computer cathedrals, the algorithms quietly clatter and direct the data streams to mainstream power plants.

Perhaps the danger in the world of images generated by AI lies in the asymmetry between the powerful digital image storage and the small individual prompters that easily fall prey to fascination. In my opinion, he needs visual-spiritual retreats, a strategic defense against fascination with the quickly pixelated perfect mediocrity, coupled with a philosophically hardened imagination that cannot be seduced by the media instant soup. Perhaps only great minds can achieve something new, outstanding, visionary, something SUPERHUMAN.

As an artist and photographer, I always strive to find a style, tools, and techniques that correspond to the theme of each work. With my background in software engineering, it was a natural step to integrate the (creative) possibilities of AI into my work.

But my series Post Mortem aims to provide an artistically documentary insight into a sensitive area that is usually hidden from public view. This work is committed to an authentic portrayal of how we deal with death in our society, which (to me) prohibits any content manipulation of the images or the use of AI’s capabilities in this context.

Is this the latest Gucci campaign? No, but it could be. Businessmen, elegantly draped on the urban concrete, surrounded by casual accessories and cigarette butts. They could be models playing ‘fashionable deaths’ for the camera, but their posture is too unconscious. These Japanese gentlemen are in fact dead drunk, sleeping off their intoxication.

The Polish artist Pawel Jaszczuk has made it his mission to go out at night in Tokyo with his camera in search of such scenes – with fascinating results.Jaszczuk's fascination with sleeping people began six years ago when he moved to Japan. On an early train journey, he spotted about 25 Japanese people sleeping peacefully – an unusual sight for him. He soon began photographing these scenes: first, people sleeping on trains, then people waiting for their trains, and finally, over the last two years, those who, completely exhausted and drunk, had fallen asleep somewhere on the street. 

The Tokyo that Jaszczuk explores with his camera appears calm and peaceful – a stark contrast to the usual flashy, loud metropolis. He shows a culture that considers losing face a major taboo, from its human, vulnerable side. In Japan, he explains, it is socially acceptable to occasionally ‘fall down’; sleeping drunks are not condemned, but seen as part of life.

"Whenever I walked through the streets of Benin City or Lagos, people would call me Eboh, which means "white man" in the Edo language. Little children would run to their mothers in tears and fear, because they had never seen a white man before, or maybe only on television." (T. Knoefel)

HELL NIGERIA should be the original title of this book. But since the "place of eternal damnation" belongs to the Christian doctrine alone, it was later changed to NIGERIA TRANSFER - and yet: This land, says Thomas Knoefel, seems to be lost for the next thousand years. And there really would have to be a God to save what people can no longer save. Cities like Lagos or Benin City are urban cesspools of faeces, garbage, noise and stench. Neglected and in rags, street children lurk around; everywhere you see dilapidated houses, broken cars. The poverty of the people and the violence are within reach. In this publication, an unembellished, brief portrait of this conflict-torn country is vividly presented.

Thomas Knoefel originally travelled to Nigeria for an initiation: His head was to be "opened" to the voodoo god Ogun and his Xango was to be celebrated with gifts and invocations. 

The photo is an example of historical, classic photojournalism that I worked with as inspiration for later settings. It shows an archetypal still life of everyday life in the former GDR. It describes the ceremony of the last phase of the working population's lives.

The gift table of a future pensioner is installed in front of the framed portraits of smiling heads of government on a white wall. She is about to end her working life. The usual gift basket stands on a checkered tablecloth between bouquets of flowers, with four partially wrapped bottles of wine and champagne to the left. On the table are congratulatory folders - and certificates. In the foreground, a fabric cushion is placed on an upholstered chair. It bears the inscription "Rente gut alles gut" (“Pension good all good”).

The border and writing are made of braided cords and are probably intended to represent the proverbial "gentle resting cushion" in a supposedly original way. In this way, the entire scenery moves into the unreal - the ludicrous. For it describes the uniformly pre-planned biographies of its citizens in a concise, grotesque manner. The cracks in the white wall already seem like harbingers of the end of the workers' and peasants' state.  

Ursula Kelm's photographic work is characterised by a very personal, introspective approach. In contrast to the documentary realism that dominated at the time, which she rejected at the Werkstatt für Photographie in Berlin, she seeks expression and identity from within in her images.

Her photography revolves around themes such as the human body, the elements of nature and the search for the place of humans in the environment. She uses an associative, abstract visual language that is strongly influenced by her affinity to Greek culture and philosophy. 

Kelm sees photography not only as a technical craft, but also as a means of self-reflection and self-realisation. Her images arise from an intimate, almost meditative process in which she connects her own feelings and experiences with the elements and the body.

In this way, Ursula Kelm has become a pioneer of a new, subjective photography that turns away from documentary realism and instead explores the photographer's inner world. Her works bear witness to an independent, individualistic approach that rejects prevailing trends and doctrines.

On 16 November 1999, French photographer Laurence Chaperon took a picture of Joschka Fischer, then Germany's foreign minister, at the guest house of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. Fischer was in the middle of an interview, presumably for the German magazine Spiegel.

Chaperon, who has been working as a freelance photographer since 1994, managed to capture an intimate moment. Fischer's concentrated gaze and slightly furrowed brow testify to the sense of responsibility weighing on him. At the same time, the picture radiates a certain calm that underscores Fischer's authority.

Laurence Chaperon discovered her passion for photography after a ten-year career as a professional ballet dancer in Paris and Bonn. She has been based in Berlin since 1999 and works for numerous German and international magazines. In addition to her magazine work, she also devotes herself to projects in the PR and advertising sector, as well as to portrait photography of politicians.

With this portrait of Joschka Fischer, Laurence Chaperon has created an impressive image that captures the personality of the foreign minister. Her photographs are characterised by intimacy and authenticity, in that she is able to condense the complexity of her subjects into a single image.

The work, which consists of only one image, spans the arc between two borderline experiences. One is cancer, of which a visible scar remains. The other is the birth of twins, who can be seen in the picture as newborn babies.

These two extremes are united in the picture. They stand for beginning and end, for life and death. Two archaic, existential moments that affect everyone and recur again and again in a timeless way. They characterise the body that can be seen and symbolically refer to the past and the future.

The picture was created in collaboration with the costume designer Elke Rüss six weeks after the twins were born.

A moment of contemplation in realising the mirror image. The moment in which one's own gaze suddenly emerges from the incessant interactionist stream of anticipated foreign gazes, which constantly comment on and regulate behaviour, and with it, for a fraction of a second, astonishment.

Matthias Leupold is not a documentary photographer, as "realistic" as his pictures may appear. The reality of his pictures is always staged. Born in East Berlin in 1959, he lived there in the Prenzlauer Berg district until his emigration to the western part of the city in 1986. He has been working on images since 1983, staging counter-worlds to everyday life in East Germany with actors. His research and the confrontation with their norms and conventions led him to seek images of the "reality behind reality" and themes that lie outside the public and propagated self-assurance.

Leupold's artistic means of expression are scenic photography and documentary film. In his serial works, Leupold explores manifestations of image groups and their social references.

As a photographer, I explore unfamiliar details and situations in urban spaces of everyday life as found, regardless of topographical boundaries, while leaving their riddles untouched.

Photography helps me question the everyday. The more I do this, the more I see the world as an enigma.

Kurt Buchwald was one of the very great rarities in the former German Democratic Republic. After the fall of the Wall, he remains the norm breaker which he was. Kurt Buchwald does not stop questioning and photographing. He intervenes.

Kurt Buchwald deals with the photographic perspective for years. It all started on 10.12.1984 when he stepped in front of his camera and covered the image as a black half-size figure. The sight prevention is intended as “View intention”. In the new media culture the man is no longer object or subject, but the project, because at the last stage of this path is the designing or designability not only of imagery, but also of objects and bodies. One of the best known works – “Ein Tag in Ostberlin” (A Day in East Berlin) – produced in the year 1986th.

From 1990-2000 the photo artist Buchwald, a qualified engineer, focused on disturbances of the camera view. Disks of different geometric shapes, with holes, with columns, in black and in color are mounted in front of the camera. The artist invents a classification in terms of „Algorithmus der Blenden“ (algorithm of the aperture). So he finds new ideas for pictures, studied the photographic medium. The photographer uses the Dadaism model uncertainty and provocation. It represents a combination of photo technically mediated and supported action art. He is a border crosser and brings photography to talk about itself.

The series „She stood there a Loaded Gun“ (2017 – 2024) is the result of seven years of intensive work with the performer Anna Petzer and Emily Dickinson’s poetry. The performer is invited to find her own way through a meticulously prepared and constantly changing studio scape and to occupy the given pictorial space with her individual postures und movements. This makes the historical object of art a self-determined collaborator. At a certain point, the photographer no longer knows what the performer will do next – productive coincidence occurs.

We were not only experimenting with female nudity, but also with the social and historical situation of„artist and model“, which resulted in the publication „Die Maske abgenommen. Künstler und Modell im 21. Jahrhundert“, Klostermann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2021.

By going in this direction, I had the possibility to override traditional criteria of making and evaluating photographs: multiple or long-time exposure, selective sharpness or blur, Cartier-Bresson‘s "decisive moment" or Barthes’ "Punctum" – none of this plays a crucial role for this "All-over Photography" which is essentially not digitally prefabricated or reworked (no photoshop, no filter, no ai). 

The photographs by Peter Neusser are strict work of pausing on location, on the path, and insights into the urban communication, in which the mediating is blocking something. The horizon is accessible in the urban jungle, not as a promise or a longing in the distance, but rather as an accidental architectural clearing he moves through the images. If the game between sharpness and blur would promise contemplation a time for development or a path to take, so Neusser directs the perspective promise to the artificiality of the detail, or shall we say the shifted focus.

Not for the identity of a city Neusser portraits the city of Munich, also it is not a portrait, in vain we would seek a counterpart, but the viewer is gently inserted into the text of urbanity. In the picture our insight is built, and Peter Neusser gets a construction which irritates the usual central perspective view and leads midpoints to marginalia. These photographs are fine movements, deployments of an intuition that requires architectural space as a reference point for the development of time. The images compress the dizziness of movement and the rigidity of construction to a really daring insight into the Urban: We are distracted. If architecture is a coordination of inner and outer space and a coordination of atmosphere of both, then Peter Neusser photographs from inside into the inner city.

“We've all seen a flamingo, but have you ever seen a flamingone? Only an AI could make that up. Or did I just make that up?”

After winning two awards in the AI category of a prestigious photo competition, F L A M IN G O N E sparked a global public debate when it was revealed to be a real photograph.The idea was to demonstrate the continued relevance of a human touch in translatingthe real world into creative results, and to magnify the blurred line between photography and AI-imagery.

As curator of the exhibition ‘RIVALS - Photography vs. Promptography’, I would like to invite visitors to explore the boundaries of the photographic medium in the age of digitalisation and AI development. My image ‘The Electrician’, which I created using the AI image generator DALL-E 2, marks the transition to promptography for me – a new discipline in AI art. In promptography, new realities are created by AI that differ significantly from classic photography. I deliberately entered the picture in the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) 2023 to get the jury and the organisers to address the question of whether AI-generated images should be recognised as real photography. To my surprise, ‘The Electrician’ was indeed awarded the top prize in the ‘Creative’ category.

However, instead of accepting the award, I decided to decline it. My aim was to stimulate an open discussion about how to deal with AI images in photography. I wanted to find out whether the jury could distinguish between a classic photograph and an AI-generated image – which, in this case, they apparently could not.

In the exhibition ‘RIVALS - Photography vs. Promptography’, I present not only my work but also the work of outstanding photographers and artists, including members of the German Photographic Academy (DFA). The presentation is structured thematically and offers an exciting dialogue between traditional photography and the innovative possibilities of promptography. Ultimately, I am concerned with finding new terminology such as ‘promptography’ and creating separate categories for AI-generated images. Only in this way can we adequately reflect on and further develop the boundaries of the medium of photography in the digital era.

Vladimir Sorokin is one of the most famous Russian writers of our time, screenwriter, playwright, the brightest representative of Russian postmodernism. He has written ten novels, as well as many novels, short stories, plays and screenplays. None of his books has gone unnoticed by critics - not to mention millions of fans not only in Russia, but around the world.

For his novels he creates a series of graphic and pictorial works that complement and expand the literary context of his prose.

Within the framework of the project inspired by the novel “Blue Salo”, the key theme is playing with cultural codes, rethinking the classical heritage and its transformation in modern conditions. The images of the “Dostoevskys” from the novel find visual embodiment as metaphors for the endless replication of cultural archetypes.

The plasmatic, a term coined by Russian filmmaker and film theorist Sergei Eisenstein, is an idea about the mutability of forms that incorporates unlimited potentiality. While Eisenstein was thinking through ideas of the animated image, it is possible to find contemporary iterations of this type of malleability and infinite potential in AI-generated images, images that seemingly stretch, compress, and mutate representations of physical objects. Just like in animation, these distorted objects are often perceived as grotesque, humorous, or disorienting, producing images that lie somewhere between the horrific and the uncanny.  

We are in the early days of AI-image generation. Welcome to the valley.

Placentashake's ‘Untitled’ (2023) is not just a picture, but a manifesto. It represents an attempt to transcend the boundaries of the natural, an experiment in the construction of new physicality that defies the laws of biology. The seemingly organic forms, generated by an iterative process reminiscent of morphogenesis, are in fact artefacts of an algorithm, a digital phantom that raises the question of the essence of life and form in a new way.

The ‘Overcoming the Laws of Nature’ category is not a mere label here, but a precise description of the artistic approach: the AI is not used for mere imitation, but for the creation of something fundamentally new, a synthetic biology that unfolds in the digital sphere. The work's aesthetics are not an end in themselves, but an expression of the underlying algorithmic processes – a visual manifesto of the dissolution of boundaries between the organic and the artificial, the living and the programmed. The supposed beauty is a side effect, a seductive veil over a core of data and algorithms that raise fundamental questions about life, form and nature itself.

As an artist, I feel deeply moved by the impact of our actions on nature. In my work, I want to explore and visualise this topic in a powerful way. To do this, I have harnessed the power of artificial intelligence. Using complex AI algorithms, I have created digital images of mutated mussel shells. These species, native to the affected waters, serve as a symbol for the vulnerability of nature. Based on scientific data and environmental studies, I have the AI system develop scenarios in which the shells lose their natural form under the influence of pollution, temperature changes and physical destruction.

For me, AI is not only a creative tool, but also a means of research and reflection. By feeding the system with information about the effects of conflict on marine ecosystems, it can develop premonitions of a disturbing future. The resulting images are both fascinating and frightening – they are intended to encourage the audience to reflect on the consequences of our actions.

Through this work, I want to raise critical questions about the role of technology in relation to environmental problems. Can AI serve as a solution to prevent damage to nature? Or is it merely a tool to understand and visualise the consequences of our actions?

The disturbing yet fascinating images of the mutated mussel shells serve as symbols of warning and reflection. They challenge the audience to think about the irreversible effects of our actions on the environment and to look for ways to reconcile technology and nature. Ultimately, my work is a powerful appeal to rethink our relationship with nature and to look to the future responsibly.

"Contains Multitudes" explores the fragmentation of the self. Through a fractured embrace, identity and time dissolve, revealing an unsettling calm. The work captures the disintegration of the familiar—face, memory, certainties—allowing a raw, multifaceted, and connected truth to emerge. What appears as a collapse becomes a rebirth: in the silence, the ego dissolves, making way for a new, fragile, and radiant presence.

Most symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis can't be captured by a camera but can be visualized using AI — more precise than words and more honest than stock photos used in B2C pharma brochures. 

Ataxia disrupts muscle control in arms and legs. In my case, this means, that I suddenly seem to have forgotten how automatic activities such as writing or drawing work technically. The hand is still able to draw a simple line, but nothing more complex and feels disconnected. After ~1 hour, the episode passes.

MERZmory is Merzmensch’s personal art project that combines photography and artificial intelligence to explore human memories. The series was inspired by the vast photo archive inherited from the author's father, a professional writer and photojournalist who documented life and culture across the USSR, Russia, and later Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s. For MERZmory, the author used his own dataset on thousands of photographs for examining how AI can reinterpret and reimagine human experiences.

In this series, the author uses different AI models, such as StyleGAN and various diffusion models, to analyze and transform personal photographs. By training these models on Merzmensch’s images, the AI generates new visuals that blend elements of the original photos, offering a unique perspective on how machines can process and recreate human memories. This process not only showcases the capabilities of AI in creative fields but also raises questions about the nature of memory and the role of technology in preserving and interpreting our past.

Through MERZmory, the author invites viewers to reflect on the evolving relationship between human memory and artificial intelligence. The series serves as a testament to the potential of AI to enrich our understanding of personal histories, while also prompting contemplation on the authenticity and malleability of memories in the digital age.

MERZmory: Faces is the first part of MERZmody series. Initially, the selected StyleGAN Model was pretrained on countless photoportraits and the capacity of the model was just to create photorealistic portraits. Yet by training on Merzmensch Dataset, the model begins to forget the previous knowledge. This shift from its original scope to the Merzmensch oeuvre is evident in the vanishing faces, resembling fading memories overshadowed by new experiences.

. Read more here: 

Kevin Abosch's ‘Ethical Objects and Compositions’ is a fascinating exploration of the connection between artificial intelligence (AI) and ethics through the means of synthetic photography. Abosch addresses the question of how cultural and social narratives are shaped by data, which is often influenced by subjective human decisions. This raises fundamental questions about who takes responsibility for such art – the human being who writes the algorithms or the AI itself that produces results?

The works in this series are remarkable for their ability to expose deeply entrenched prejudices and systemic inequalities. They open up a discourse on the power structures that shape our notion of creativity and technology. Abosch draws attention to the subtle and often unnoticed ways in which data and algorithms influence social realities.

The work is not only visually stunning but also intellectually challenging. It prompts viewers to ask questions about responsibility, transparency, and authenticity in the context of AI. Particularly interesting is the tension between human control and the apparent autonomy of AI. Abosch suggests that these forces cannot be easily pitted against each other but are closely intertwined.

*Ethical Objects and Compositions* acts as a mirror, encouraging us to question our own ethical and moral beliefs. At the same time, the project offers the opportunity to redefine the use of technology in creative processes. The works provoke discussion and encourage us to reflect on the future role of technology in our society. Abosch succeeds in impressively blurring the boundaries between art, ethics and science.

Emi Kusano is a border crosser between past and future. Born in Tokyo in 1990, she grew up with arcade games, anime intros and the magic of the early digital world. She transforms collective and individual memories into hyper-realistic works of art - created with the power of artificial intelligence.

Her works? Cover star at WWD Japan , celebrated at Christie's and Gucci auctions, exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa and the Grand Palais Immersif. In short: international stages love her!

But Emi is more than just an AI visionary - she is also the voice and creative force behind Satellite Young , the band that fuses 80s J-pop with sci-fi aesthetics and even wowed the SXSW audience. Nostalgia meets the future - that is their artistic credo.

Techno-Animism : Children’s Guardian: Techno-animism is the belief that everything from ancient machines to digital networks carries a spirit within them. Japan's strong optimism towards new technologies could be seen as a kind of response to how we might live together in an AI-driven age. Continuing Kusano's long-standing exploration of this theme, this series taps into the childlike belief that invisible spirits live among the trees. In these images, beings that appear to be part robot and part supernatural watch over children, offering a glimpse of a gentle, otherworldly presence and inviting us to imagine a more harmonious connection with technology.

‘Niépce Recoded’ is a tribute to the original image of photography, Nicéphore Niépce's “View from the Window” of 1827, and its interpretation by artificial intelligence. Based on the digital translations of the image created by Andreas Müller-Pohle in the 1990s under the title ‘Digital Scores’, the project comprises thirty-two machine-generated images – a journey from the analogue beginnings of photography to its digital coding and the metamorphoses of artificial intelligence.

‘I lived half my life in Soviet Russia and almost as long in America. I have worked not only individually but also in collaboration with Alik Melamid, with composer Dave Soldier, with Fluxus musician Charlot Mourman, with Andy Warhol, with Mickey the chimpanzee, with Renee the elephant, with opinion polling organisations and with the masses of people in different countries. By the end of this year (2024), in co-authorship with AI and a group of artists who are masters of this new method for me: Ev Gelman, Ruslan Solopeev, Boban Markovich, we have completed a series of works within the framework of the project ‘Ruins of Museums. Visions from the Future.’ These paintings can be seen as ‘museum ruins under the sky of the future’ - as their concepts and images are focused not only on visions of future ruins of museums known today, but also on the sky! These ruins may be the result not only of wars and socio-political catastrophes, but also the consequence of natural catastrophes.’

Mikhail Epstein on the project:

‘If social art addressed the ruins of ideologies, dissected the decaying symbols of totalitarian culture, neuro-art looks at the very heart of institutional art - the museum. As an institution, the museum represents perhaps the most enduring of all cultural utopias: a conservative utopia of eternity, an attempt to create a timeless space. In the works on view, this utopia is radically reinterpreted. Thirteen large-scale paintings, created using the Stable Diffusion neural network with a team of programmers, present post-apocalyptic visions of key museums around the world. We don't know what turned these museums into ruins. The death of civilisation? Nuclear war? Environmental catastrophe? A planetary pandemic? The triumph of archaic over progress? Nature's revenge on man? The embodiment of the greenies' dream of saving the planet from the overpowering influence of technology? We see not just destroyed buildings, but a metaphor for the collapse of the very idea of cultural immortality. The museum, conceived as a sarcophagus of time, becomes its own victim. Perhaps the most tragic of all possible spectacles in the field of art is unfolding before us: the death not of an individual artist or work, but the death of immortality itself - a frightening oxymoron embodied in the destruction of a comprehensive form of cultural heritage preservation. It is not just art that perishes here, but the very possibility of its eternal existence, encapsulated in the institution of the museum.’ 

This artwork reinterprets traditional funerary practices through the lens of consumer culture. By transforming a solemn ritual into a playful and absurd toy it deliberately trivializes societal norms and invites reflection on how deeply symbolic practices are reshaped in the process..

Marat Guelman, born in Leningrad in 1960, is a central figure in the Russian resistance to Vladimir Putin and at the same time an internationally recognised art dealer. His biography is closely interwoven with the transformation of Russia and the tireless fight for freedom of expression. His career began in the Russian art scene, where he founded galleries and curated exhibitions that were often provocative and politically explosive. These galleries became important gathering places for artists, intellectuals and activists who opposed Putin's increasingly repressive policies. Guelman promoted young artists and enabled them to present their often critical works to a wider audience – a daring act that required courage and determination. His galleries were more than just exhibition spaces; they were centres of resistance, places for dialogue and for engaging with Russia's political reality.

Guelman's commitment to freedom was not limited to the art world. His open criticism of the Putin government led to reprisals: interrogations, the closure of his galleries and fines were the result of his tireless commitment to human rights and freedom of expression. The annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in Ukraine intensified his commitment. He became an even more prominent voice of resistance, vehemently condemning Putin's aggressive policies and using his international network to bring the human rights violations in Russia to the international stage.

Today, Guelman lives in exile, but his fight for democracy and freedom in Russia continues unabated. He has redirected his expertise in the art world and taken a pioneering role in dealing with AI art by founding the Guelman & Unbekannt gallery in Berlin. This gallery is the first of its kind in Berlin and is dedicated entirely to the medium of artificial intelligence, exploring its creative possibilities and limitations. His partnership in the exhibition ‘RIVALS - Photography vs. Promptography’ during EMOP Berlin underscores his interest in new technologies and their influence on the art world. The exhibition highlights the exciting parallels and differences between traditional photography and AI-generated promptography and demonstrates Guelman's ability to adapt to the changing currents of the art world without betraying his political convictions. Marat Guelman embodies an unwavering belief in freedom and justice, even in the most challenging of circumstances. 

In August 2022, Jason M. Allen's work ‘Théâtre D'opéra Spatial’ won first prize in the ‘digital art’ category at the Colorado State Fair. The image, an impressive, detailed scene reminiscent of a baroque opera house, was not created with a brush and paint, but with the AI software Midjourney. This victory sparked a heated debate that reached far beyond the art world and raised questions about the definition of art, copyright and the role of artificial intelligence in creative processes.

Allen's approach was to send precise prompts – text-based instructions – to Midjourney, which the AI then implemented in an image. This iterative process, in which Allen repeatedly refined the results, eventually led to ‘Théâtre D'opéra Spatial’. The quality of the image is remarkably high and, at first glance, belies its origin. It looks like a traditionally painted work, full of opulent details and imaginative staging.

The controversy surrounding the award win centred on several key points. Critics argued that Allen did not create the image himself, but merely used the AI as a tool. The actual artistic achievement lies with the software, not with the user. This raises questions about copyright: Who owns the intellectual property of an AI-generated work? The person who formulates the prompts or the developer of the AI? The legal clarification of this question is still pending.

Furthermore, the fundamental question of the definition of art arises. Does art have to be created by human hands to be recognised as such? Or can a work generated by AI, initiated and guided by human creativity in the prompt formulation, also be considered art?

Allen's victory at the Colorado State Fair marked a milestone in this debate. It highlights the challenges posed by the increasing prevalence of AI art. ‘Théâtre D'opéra Spatial’ is not only a striking image, but also a symbol of the transformation of the art world and the urgent need for a social and legal examination of the new possibilities and ethical questions raised by AI-based creativity. The exhibition offers the opportunity to view this work in the context of this important debate.

Wuh.ey, a French artist of West African origin, presents a fascinating fusion of traditional African aesthetics and futuristic fashion. His works, which are created at the interface between folklore, avant-garde and digital art, are characterised by a unique visual language. Using artificial intelligence, he creates surreal scenarios in which traditional African patterns and symbols are mixed with futuristic elements and digital textures. Familiar fabrics and forms are reinterpreted and placed in unexpected contexts. The results are dynamic, often contrasting images that immerse the viewer in an exciting dialogue between past and future.

Wuh.ey uses AI not as a mere stylistic device, but as a tool for exploring new forms of artistic expression and reflecting on cultural identity in a globalised world. His works are proof that technological progress and cultural traditions can enrich each other rather than exclude each other. His artworks were produced entirely digitally; no humans or animals were harmed in the process.

My ‘Untitled’ series explores the intersection between analogue aesthetics and digital creation. Inspired by #lomography and #filmphotography, I use AI tools like #midjourney, #stablediffusion and #comfyui to create synthetic physicalities. The result: images reminiscent of #35mm and #120mm shots, but #ai-generated. The #portraitphotography and #fashionphotography elements merge with an #albumart-like style, emphasised by targeted light (#flashphotography). The #editorial nature of the series gives it a special depth. The images are both beautiful and disturbing, familiar and alien at the same time. My credo ‘TRANSGRESSION WITHOUT ABUSE’ is essential to me: I use innovative technology (#Kodak-inspired colouring) to push the boundaries of photography without harming living things. #filmisnotdead – this statement also applies to my work, because it combines the soul of analogue film with the possibilities of digital art. The series invites us to reflect on the definition of beauty and reality in an increasingly digital world.