I was flattered to be asked to collaborate with artist Maria Ahmed earlier this year. We are both fans of Vilém Flusser and Maria suggested we use one of his texts as a starting point. For now, we’re aiming for a humble zine (kinda one of my favourite things to make, I think).
Working this way is different for me but I think I’m finally finding something worth holding on to.
After a lot of experimenting with various images, accidental collage at times but then more deliberate, I am currently focusing on some simple pairings between AI generations prompted by Flusser’s words and images from an old book about photographic mistakes. (This harks back to a mini project I did using old rejected family images, valuing all the mistakes. I think I originally called it Stet).
For now, I have shared just one of these pairings while I let the rest ‘percolate’ for a little while.
It felt a little dangerous putting this very obvious AI aesthetic on the front page of my website. This is not abstract or vague like my usual stuff. It’s full on AI!
Paired with the evident photograph (negative at that, hinting at the once latent state — see Rubinstein 2023 — chapter 5), both AI and photograph point to the anachronistic state of ‘photography’ today. The very word sounds like something from a Steampunk comic …
Here is the first pairing I’ve shared for this project.
More details soon