The Computer is the Camera

What we call a photograph and what it has become over the last two centuries is interesting. The first photograph was a photogram, drawn with light without a camera or lens. Today a photograph can be an image of the gamma ray distribution of the Milky Way. It can even be something drawn with a certain kind of camera without light or a lens. With these “synthetic” images the computer is the camera.

Here I present an assessment of my artwork that deals with generative AI as opposed to the various other techniques of machine algorithms I have used in the past. I should note that here, I elucidate contemporary ideas of artistic function. Indeed, the artist is still intricately involved with volumes of decisions in the creative process of working with a generative AI program such as Midjourney (It’s not all about the prompt). It is still very much a creative process. Here I speak of the artist as not only creator but also the artist as observer, curator, and collaborator. The artist is the one conducting a unique discovery of art and presenting to the world his “discoveries” and then rightfully stakes claim to the unique instance of work that he or she is sharing with the world.

This is exactly what I have always done as an artist using the camera to make photographic art. I don’t create the scene, necessarily, that is in front of me. I creatively involve myself with a physical reality that is presented to me or that I encountered and discovered, through the lens, captured on film or IC chip, then applying creative processes I present a finished work of art.

Here are two of my favorite quotes about photography which apply in a similar fashion to the above discussion. For me, the computer is the camera.

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” - Dorothea Lange

“The camera is much more than a recording apparatus; it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.” - Orson Welles