Furthermore, to use a camera effectively requires far more than the slop generator.
However, to give a through line to comrades who do not wish to lose themselves in two great essays: The thing that photography and mechanical reproduction have is a connection to a history – to a material process of production that eventually returns us to the real world – even if digital capture of an image involves a translation of that moment of reality into data.
The Gen AI slop machines, however, do not retain a real trace to our world in the way a camera can – instead, they actively efface that trace back to reality (hence the lack of citation, credit, etc).
“The Ontology of the Photographic Image” and “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” allow us to distinguish these two forms.
Furthermore, to use a camera effectively requires far more than the slop generator.
However, to give a through line to comrades who do not wish to lose themselves in two great essays: The thing that photography and mechanical reproduction have is a connection to a history – to a material process of production that eventually returns us to the real world – even if digital capture of an image involves a translation of that moment of reality into data.
The Gen AI slop machines, however, do not retain a real trace to our world in the way a camera can – instead, they actively efface that trace back to reality (hence the lack of citation, credit, etc).