KEYNOTE
Professor of Art Photography
Dr. Silke Helmerdig
Pforzheim University, School of Design
FROM IMAGING REALITY TO IMAGINING REALITY TO IMAGINARY REALITY
I am certain, we all have an idea what reality is. Often the concept of reality is linked to what we as human beings see. The determined focus on the visible that produces images as well as imagination or even an imaginary, strongly influences what we call reality.
Lacan spoke about a scopic regime, by which he meant that we can only be certain of our own existence when we recognize that we are looked at by an Other, person or thing.
For a long time images have mimicked what was believed to be there, in a way that made us trust in the visual appearance of the world, we had invented for ourselves. While photography and similar technologies worked through a chemical reaction to light, with the beginning of digital imaging technologies images were not created anymore by the chemical imprint of light but by meter readings that were than interpreted by algorithms producing an image simulating what was known aesthetically from photographs. The next step were computer generated images fully simulating realities. From there the imagination of realities by the machine like in AI image generators was only a small step. And as we still create reality from what we see and sometimes from what is recorded by a machine, following our scopic regime we are now confronted with difficulties to trust the depictions of reality in images resembling photographs. But in the end all of these technologies just produce realities in form of images that are objects
forming a new reality in and by themselves. And thus I wonder, does it make a difference if a photograph records light reflections that must have existed or if AI generators imagine realities that become more and more perfect simulations that, applying Baudrillard, could «threaten the difference the “real” and the “imaginary.”» 1
BIO
Silke Helmerdig (PhD) is Professor of Art Photography at Pforzheim University. As an artist and researcher her interest in theory and practice is in photography and time. She is co-author of Ein Pixel, Zwei Korn — Grundlagen analoger und digitaler Fotografien und ihrer Gestaltung (Anabas,
2006) and author of Fragments, Futures, Absence and the Past (Transcript, 2016). She also published two artist books, Pavement Drawings (ex pose, 2012) and Berlin by Numbers/London from A-Z (Peperoni Books, 2018). Her art is exhibited internationally.
ARTWORK [1]
Fragments
1 Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 1994. P. 3
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Professor of Art Photography
Dr. Silke Helmerdig
Pforzheim University, School of Design
FROM IMAGING REALITY TO IMAGINING REALITY TO IMAGINARY REALITY
I am certain, we all have an idea what reality is. Often the concept of reality is linked to what we as human beings see. The determined focus on the visible that produces images as well as imagination or even an imaginary, strongly influences what we call reality.
Lacan spoke about a scopic regime, by which he meant that we can only be certain of our own existence when we recognize that we are looked at by an Other, person or thing.
For a long time images have mimicked what was believed to be there, in a way that made us trust in the visual appearance of the world, we had invented for ourselves. While photography and similar technologies worked through a chemical reaction to light, with the beginning of digital imaging technologies images were not created anymore by the chemical imprint of light but by meter readings that were than interpreted by algorithms producing an image simulating what was known aesthetically from photographs. The next step were computer generated images fully simulating realities. From there the imagination of realities by the machine like in AI image generators was only a small step. And as we still create reality from what we see and sometimes from what is recorded by a machine, following our scopic regime we are now confronted with difficulties to trust the depictions of reality in images resembling photographs. But in the end all of these technologies just produce realities in form of images that are objects
forming a new reality in and by themselves. And thus I wonder, does it make a difference if a photograph records light reflections that must have existed or if AI generators imagine realities that become more and more perfect simulations that, applying Baudrillard, could «threaten the difference the “real” and the “imaginary.”» 1
BIO
Silke Helmerdig (PhD) is Professor of Art Photography at Pforzheim University. As an artist and researcher her interest in theory and practice is in photography and time. She is co-author of Ein Pixel, Zwei Korn — Grundlagen analoger und digitaler Fotografien und ihrer Gestaltung (Anabas,
2006) and author of Fragments, Futures, Absence and the Past (Transcript, 2016). She also published two artist books, Pavement Drawings (ex pose, 2012) and Berlin by Numbers/London from A-Z (Peperoni Books, 2018). Her art is exhibited internationally.
ARTWORK [1]
Fragments
1 Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 1994. P. 3
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