“People take photos of each other to prove that they really exist” sang the Goldene Zitronen (German Punk band) in 1994. Today we know that photos prove nothing because they can be manipulated very easily.
And yet – our relationship to our own image is ambivalent: Selfies bear witness to the fact that we were at grandma’s birthday or on the Eiffel Tower, and at the same time we can manipulate our portrait photo beyond recognition with just one click. The technical possibilities are endless and are becoming more and more perfect thanks to Deep Learning and thus AI-supported applications.
In this work, we are confronted with an old photograph that has been manipulated with the help of artificial intelligence. The girl in the photograph seems very much alive and authentic. Do we feel closer to her? Is the illusion convincing?
What becomes of our faulty memories when it gives way to an artificial liveliness? Doesn’t this illusion rather contribute to forgetting the last bit of the real human being? And would “Paula” have liked what we do with her memory?
Music: AI-generated
A survey is part of this work:
Would you consider bringing a photo of a deceased loved one to “life” using an AI application? Yes? / No?
“Paula’s” real portrait photo can be found in the work Below the Surface (Book Object).
