Alternative Images of AI

Explore how artists Farah Al Qasimi, Charlie Engman, and Max Pinckers imagine potential futures with artificial intelligence in different communities around the world.

Each of these three artists uses distinct visual vocabularies to describe what AI means, how it makes people feel, and the ways society might expect to experience it within the next decade.

The work is on view at the International Center of Photography in the ICP Café between December 12 2024 - January 6 2025.

Artist Portrait (2024) by Farah Al QasimiInternational Center of Photography

Farah Al Qasimi

Farah is a photographer from the United Arab Emirates, living in Brooklyn, New York. She makes photographs, films and music that use fictional elements to amplify everyday lived experiences.

Aquarium (2024) by Farah Al QasimiInternational Center of Photography

Photographed in Abu Dhabi, Farah's series imagines “the ways in which our understanding of the natural world—and of each other—might surpass language or description, and instead take the form of a feeling, or a knowing.”

Eye Shadow (2024) by Farah Al QasimiInternational Center of Photography

Her photographs prompt questions around how AI shifts our notions of personal identity and beauty by using collage as a means to try on different versions of ourselves.

Body Shop Mask, Body Shop Hand (2024) by Farah Al QasimiInternational Center of Photography

In the Body Shop diptych, a mismatched mannequin hand and face boards for make-up practice react against the stereotypical images of AI physically represented as amorphous, silver, sexless robots.

Two Sisters (2024) by Farah Al QasimiInternational Center of Photography

In Two Sisters, Farah manipulates an image of two women reclining to re-imagine how AI devices might perceive their users during everyday moments.

Landfill (2024) by Farah Al QasimiInternational Center of Photography

In Landfill, Farah considers how people might navigate their environment in a future world with virtual entities or extensions of themselves. Together, Farah's semi-fictional photographs, suggest ways of relating to AI that extend beyond the limitations of a screen.

Artist Portrait (2024) by Charlie EngmanInternational Center of Photography

Charlie Engman

Charlie Engman is a fine art photographer based in New York, who also stages, styles, and photographs people and objects for fashion magazines and brands. 

Available Material (2024) by Charlie EngmanInternational Center of Photography

Engman traveled to Accra, Ghana to meet and discuss the potential of AI in daily lives and communities with local artisans and garment workers associated with The OR Foundation, a non-profit focused on addressing the impact of fashion industry overproduction and overconsumption.

Algorithmic Altruism (2024) by Charlie EngmanInternational Center of Photography

Drawing on these conversations as a starting point, Charlie used original documentary photography and Midjourney, an AI image generator, to create "artworked images" that depict fictional Ghanaians interacting with AI technologies in the near-future.

Extended Producer Responsibility (2024) by Charlie EngmanInternational Center of Photography

In Extended Producer Responsibility, Charlie imagines "a garment that can describe where all its constituent parts are from, what labor went into constructing it, what its carbon footprint is, when and how it needs to be maintained or repaired, and how to manage its disposal."

Kantamanto Registry (2024) by Charlie EngmanInternational Center of Photography

In Kantamanto Registry, viewers are invited to consider how a physicalized AI system might organize and match goods with customers for more equitable and fair distribution.

Projection Mapping (2024) by Charlie EngmanInternational Center of Photography

By exploring how AI might be interacted with physically across different materials, not just screens, Charlie's series poses the potential of "AI systems that can manage and adapt to context-specificities, making use of indigenous methodologies and available materials."

Artist Portrait (2024) by Max PinckersInternational Center of Photography

Max Pinckers

Max is a Belgian artist based in Barcelona, who blends research, technical preparation, and improvisation to push the boundaries of documentary photography.

Double-take (2024) by Max PinckersInternational Center of Photography

Photographed in Belgium, his images are “an attempt to visualize the many different possible realities depending on which perspective you look at them from,” explains Pinckers.

Virtual Assistant (2024) by Max PinckersInternational Center of Photography

In Virtual Assistant, an artificial personal assistant is revealed only in a reflection, representing how AI may help humans with their needs and desires from different points of view.

Hollow-mask (2024) by Max PinckersInternational Center of Photography

Drawing parallels between how AI models can collect intricate data about people and the process of mask moulding, Hollow-mask imagines the doubling of personal identity "to be removed, swapped, adapted or appropriated".

Accidental Convergence (2024) by Max PinckersInternational Center of Photography

In Accidental Convergence, a staged scene with real couriers comments on the relationship between human labor and AI, where a glitch in an AI system results in a meeting of delivery workers upon a single location.

Glitch (2024) by Max PinckersInternational Center of Photography

Throughout Max's series, we are invited to reflect on technology's potential to shape the way we see and interact with the realities around us, which are already in large part framed by the ideas and the experiences that we get from a virtual space. 

Credits: Story

The artwork was commissioned by Google Technology & Society in 2024 as part of a research project that set out to expand ways of visualizing AI via images that focus on human relationships and societal outcomes, rather than depicting specific technologies.

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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