Camera Phantasma: Reframing virtual photographies in the age of AI

Yıl 2024, , 127 - 158, 28.06.2024

Michael Peter Schofield Çevirmen: Merve Bozkurt

https://doi.org/10.29228/sanat.42

Öz

The recent advent of virtual photography and artificial intelligence (specifically AI photography and diffusion models), presents a major challenge to both photographers and photography theory. All our common-sense assumptions about the ontology of the image now seem to be falling apart. Are these interlopers really photography? Can we hear the final death knell for the erstwhile medium in this era of ever-increasing media convergence and virtualisation? This practice-led investigation of these new media forms draws on the author’s recent creative work in virtual photographies, and similar interventions by other photographers and new media artists, seeking to augment and expand their practice using these new tools, whilst querying what photography really means today. From in-game photography to virtual exploration using Google Street View, to AI photography using the latest denoising diffusion models (such as Midjourney), there are surprising commonalities to explore between them, linking these new practices of image-making firmly back to traditions of lens-based photography. Rather than seeking a detailed map of this difficult new terrain, or a definitive ontology of emerging virtual photographies, the author reframes the discourse around practice, examining both photography as an evolving set of practices and also notions of media hauntology – specifically the spectral ways in which new media technologies are always haunted by prior practices and modes of communication. The importance of the frame to both traditional photography and new practices of virtual photography, is suggested as a vital and persistent dimension in photographic authorship. With that authorship increasingly contested by new generative methods, easy appropriation and AI image-making, the act of framing may become the best litmus test we have, for whether or not a photograph should be considered ‘real’ or valued.

Anahtar Kelimeler

AI art, artificial intelligence, framing, game photography, Google Street View, hauntology, ontology, photography theory, practice research, remediation, virtual photography, virtualization

Etik Beyan

This article is licensed under Common Creatives and permission was obtained from the author, Michael Peter Schofield, before it was translated into Turkish.

Kamera Fantazması: Yapay Zekâ Çağında Sanal Fotoğrafları Yeniden Kadraja Almak

Öz

Sanal fotoğrafçılığın ve yapay zekânın (özellikle yapay zekâ fotoğrafçılığı ve yayılma modellerinin) yakın zamanda ortaya çıkışı hem fotoğrafçılar hem de fotoğraf teorisi için büyük bir zorluk teşkil etmektedir. Görüntünün ontolojisi hakkında var olan tüm sağduyulu varsayımlar şimdilerde çöküyor gibi görülmektedir. Bu araya girenler gerçekten fotoğrafçılık mıdır? Sürekli artan medya yakınsaması ve sanallaştırma çağında, eski medyanın son ölüm çanını duyabilecek miyiz? Yeni medya biçimlerine ilişkin uygulama odaklı bu çalışma, yazarın sanal fotoğraflar alanındaki son yaratıcı çalışmalarına ve bu yeni araçları kullanarak uygulamalarını artırmayı ve genişletmeyi amaçlayan diğer fotoğrafçılar ve yeni medya sanatçılarının benzer müdahalelerine dayanarak, fotoğrafın bugün ne anlama geldiğini sorgulamaktadır. Oyun içi fotoğrafçılıktan Google Street View kullanarak sanal keşfe, Midjourney gibi en son gürültü azaltma difüzyon modellerini kullanan yapay zekâ fotoğrafçılığına kadar, bunlar arasında keşfedilecek şaşırtıcı ortak yönler bulunmaktadır. Bu yeni görüntü oluşturma uygulamalarını lens tabanlı fotoğrafçılık geleneğine sıkı sıkıya bağlayan ortak noktaları incelemek ilginç olacaktır. Yazar, bu zorlu yeni alanın ayrıntılı bir haritasını veya ortaya çıkan sanal fotoğrafların kesin bir ontolojisini araştırmak yerine, söylemi pratik etrafında yeniden çerçevelemektedir. Bunu yaparken hem gelişen bir pratikler dizisi olarak fotoğrafçılığı hem de medya hayaleti kavramını, özellikle de yeni medya teknolojilerinin her zaman önceki uygulamalar ve iletişim tarzları tarafından rahatsız edildiği sprektral yolları inceleyerek gerçekleştirmektedir. Kadrajın hem geleneksel fotoğrafçılık hem de yeni sanal fotoğrafçılık uygulamaları açısından önemi, fotoğraf yazarlığında hayati ve kalıcı bir boyut olarak öne sürülmektedir. Bu yazarlığın yeni üretken yöntemler, kolay sahiplenme ve yapay zekâyla görüntü oluşturma konularında giderek daha fazla tartışıldığı bir ortamda, kadraja alma eylemi, bir fotoğrafın ‘gerçek’ veya değerli olarak kabul edilip edilmeyeceği konusunda elimizdeki en iyi turnusol testi hâline gelebilir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

yapay zekâ sanatı, yapay zekâ, kadraj, oyun fotoğrafçılığı, Google Street View, hauntoloji, ontoloji, fotoğraf teorisi, uygulamalı araştırma, iyileştirme, sanal fotoğrafçılık, sanallaştırma

Etik Beyan

Common Creatives ile lisanslanan bu makale Türkçeye çevrilmeden önce, yazarı Michael Peter Schofield’dan izin alınmıştır.

Kaynakça

• A Brief History of Google’s Street View Cameras (2019) Trek view. Erişim: https://www.trekview.org/ blog/2019/history-of-google-street-view-cameras/
• Alkaissi H and McFarlane SI (2023) Artificial hallucinations in ChatGPT: implications in scientific writing. Cureus 15(2): e35179.
• Anguelov D, Dulong C, Filip D, vd. (2010) Google street view: capturing the world at street level. Computer 43(6): 32–38.
• Atkinson DP ve Barker DR (2023) AI and the Social Construction of Creativity. Convergence.
• Baker G (2005) Photography’s Expanded Field, vol. 114, ss. 121–140.
• Balbi G (2017) Deconstructing “Media Convergence”: A Cultural History of the Buzzword, 1980s–2010s. Media convergence and deconvergence, ss. 35–51.
• Barnes M (2018) Cameraless Photography. Thames and Hudson.
• Barthes R (1993) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. London: Vintage.
• Batchen G (1994) Phantasm: digital imaging and the death of photography. Aperture 46(136).
• Batchen G (2002) Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
• Batchen G (2016) Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph. Prestel Verlag.
• Baudrillard J (1983) The Precession of Simulacra. New York.
• Bazin A (1945) ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, What is Cinema? vol. I. Berkley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, Ltd.
• Becher B ve Becher H (2004) Typologies of Industrial Buildings. MIT Press.
• Benjamin W (1935) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Jahsonic.com.
• Bolter JD ve Grusin R (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media. Mit Press.
• Bromley M (2021) An Introduction to virtual photography: red bull. Erişim: https://www.redbull.com/usen/virtual-photography-intro-fourth-focus-capture-point
• Bucher M (2010) Virtual Photography with Google street view: Google sightseeing. Erişim: https://www.googlesightseeing.com/2010/05/virtual-photography-with-google-street-view/
• Burchill L (2014) ‘Jacques Derrida’, Film, Theory and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers. Routledge.
• Cartier-Bresson H ve Tériade E (1952) The decisive moment. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Coldwell MC (2020) Travelling without moving. Erişim: https://www.michaelcoldwell.co.uk/work/ travelling-without-moving.
• Coldwell MC (2022) Visitations. Erişim: https://www.michaelcoldwell.co.uk/work/visitations.
• Coldwell MC (2023a) All that is soild melts into Al.
• Coldwell MC (2023b) Anarchaetypologies. Erişim: https://www.michaelcoldwell.co.uk/work/anarchae.
• Coldwell MC (2023c) Is anything real? Erişim: https://www.michaelcoldwell.co.uk/work/Sanythingreal.
• Composition in Landscape Photography (2019). Erişim: https://thelandscapephotoguy.com/compositionin-landscape-photography/
• del Campo M ve Leach N (2022) Machine Hallucinations: Architecture and Artificial Intelligence. John Wiley & Sons.
• Derrida J (1973) Speech and Phenomena: Introduction to the Problem of Signs in Husserl’s Phenomenology, ss. 17–104.
• Derrida J (1987) The Truth in Painting. University of Chicago Press.
• Derrida J (1994) Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. New York; London: Routledge.
• Derrida J (1998) Right of Inspection. New York, NY: Monacelli Press.
• Derrida J (2011) Living on border lines. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, ss. 103–191.
• Derrida J, Amelunxen H, Wetzel M, et al. (2010) Copy, Archive, Signature: A Conversation on Photography. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Flusser V (1984) Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Berlin: European Photography.
• Flusser V (2011) Into the Universe of Technical Images. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
• Fowler H (2020) Third-person shooter: in-game photography is becoming an avant-garde art form: digital Trends. Erişim: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/in-game-photography-art
• Gere C (2016) The hauntology of the digital image. In: C Paul (ed), A Companion to Digital Art. John Wiley & Sons.
• Gerling W (2018) Photography in the digital: screenshot and in-game photography. Photographies 11(2–3): 149–167.
• Gombrich EH (1982) The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Oxford: Phaidon.
• Gómez Cruz E (2017) Immersive reflexivity: Using 360 cameras in ethnographic fieldwork. Refiguring techniques in digital visual research, 25–38.
• Gottschalk M (2017) This agoraphobic photographer uses Google street View to Travel the world: Artsy.net. Erişim: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-agoraphobic-photographer-google-street-viewtravel
• Greco P (2021) Place(s). Chambre Noire.
• Growcoot M (2023) Photojournalist controversially Turns to AI to illustrate ‘inaccessible’ stories: PetaPixel. Erişim: https://petapixel.com/2023/05/15/photojournalist-controversially-turns-to-ai-to-illustrateinaccessible-stories/
• Gunning T (2004) What’s the point of an Index? Or, faking photographs. Nordicom Review 25(1/2): 39–49.
• Gunning T (2007) To scan a ghost: the ontology of mediated vision. Grey Room 26(26): 94–127.
• Haigney S (2021) The pandemic-induced popularity of Google street view. The New Yorker. Erişim: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-pandemic-induced-popularity-of-google-streetview
• Ho J, Jain A, and Abbeel P (2020) Denoising diffusion probabilistic models. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 33.
• Hobbs T (2021) Are these stunning photos of imaginary worlds a new artform? BBC Culture. Erişim: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210521-are-these-stunning-photos-of-imaginary-worlds-a-newartform.
• Jenkins H and Deuze M (2008) Editorial: convergence culture. Convergence: The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies 14(1): 5–12.
• Kenny J (2016) Jacqui Kenny ‘the agoraphobic traveller. Erişim: https://www.theagoraphobictraveller.com/about-the-agoraphobic-traveller
• Kenny J (2017) The agoraphobic Traveller shares her street View portraits: Google. Erişim: https://blog.google/products/maps/agoraphobic-traveller-shares-her-street-view-portraits/
• Khan I (2004) Saatchi gallery. Erişim: https://www.saatchigallery.com/artist/idris_khan.
• King M (2022) Harmful biases in artificial intelligence. The Lancet Psychiatry 9(11): e48.
• Kozlovic AK (2016) Cinematic Ghosts: Haunting and Spectrality from Silent Cinema to the Digital Era, edited by L Murray, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, (12), ss. 116–122.
• Kuo KY (2021) From IRL (in-real-life) to URL: capturing the art biennial amid COVID-19. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 8: 291–311.
• Longeray P (2021) His Holiday Got Cancelled, So He Went on Vacation in a Video Game Instead. Vice France.
• Merzmensch (2020) Pareidolia of AI. Towards data science: medium. Erişim: https://towardsdatascience.com/pareidolia-of-ai-dba7cf44bfde
• Mineault P (2023) Denoising diffusion models for neuroscience. xcorr: AI & neuro. Erişim: https://xcorr.net/2023/02/06/denoising-diffusion-models-for-neuroscience/
• Mitchell WJ (1992) The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-photographic Era. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Möring S and Mutiis M (2019) Camera ludica: re¨ flections on photography in video games. In: M Fuchs and J Thoss (eds), Intermedia Games-Games Inter Media: Video Games and Intermediality: Bloomsbury.
• Mulvey L (2006) Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image. Reaktion Books.
• Odell J (2009) Re-enactments. Erişim: https://www.jennyodell.com/reenactments-series.html.
• Olivier M (2015) Glitch Gothic. In: M Leader (ed), Cinematic Ghosts: Haunting and Spectrality from Silent Cinema to the Digital Era. New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 253–270.
• Phillips JW (2017) The end of ontology and the future of media theory. Media Theory 1(1): 122–136.
• Ritchin F (2013) Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen. New York: Aperture.
• Salge JH, Pollmann S, and Reeder RR (2021) Anomalous visual experience is linked to perceptual uncertainty and visual imagery vividness. Psychological research 85: 1848–1865.
• Schofield MP (2018) Aura and Trace: The Hauntology of the Rephotographic Image. Leeds, UK: Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds. Erişim: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/22615 Sontag S (2002) On Photography. London: Penguin.
• Stone P (2013) Dark tourism scholarship: a critical review. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 7: 307–318.
• Tagg J (1988) The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education.
• The Agoraphobic Traveller Men in green 360° (2017) YouTube. Erişim: https://youtu.be/o97oKp0y2TM
• The street views Google wasn’t expecting you to see – in pictures (2012) The Guardian (Mon 20Feb2012edn). Erişim: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/feb/20/google-streetview-nine-eyes-in-pictures
• Timby K (2018) The invention of the myth of total photography. International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media 2(1): 4–21.
• Uricchio W (2012) The Algorithmic Turn: Photosynth, Augmented Reality and the Changing Implications of the Image. Cultural Technologies.
• Ward P (2002) Picture Composition. Taylor & Francis.
• Wells L (2022) Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity. Routledge.
• Williams JM and Blagrove M (2022) Paranormal experiences, sensory-processing sensitivity, and the priming of pareidolia. PLoS One 17(9): e0274595.
• Wolfreys J (2015) Spectrality. In: W Hughes, D Punter, and A Smith (eds), The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. John Wiley & Sons.
• Xiang C (2023) Artists are suing over stable diffusion stealing their work for AI art. Motherboard: Vice. Erişim: https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7b5y/artists-are-suing-over-stable-diffusion-stealingtheir-work-for-ai-art
• Zhang H, Liu J, Huber DE vd. (2018) Detecting faces in pure noise images: A functional MRI study on topdown perception. Neuroreport 19(2): 229–233.