Exhibiting Artists
Aurora Wilder (Jennifer Pritchard, Patrick Corrigan and Dall-E), Dana Bell, Adam Chin, Ann Cutting, Hillerbrand+Magsamen, Liron Kroll, Lev Manovich, Osceola Refetoff
Curator
Dr. Rotem Rozental, Los Angeles Center of Photography Executive Director and Chief Curator.
Opening Reception (In-Person)
Thursday, June 12, 2025, 6-8 pm RSVP Below
Exhibition Run Dates (In-Person)
June 12, 2025 – August 9, 2025
About
Expand and Contract: AI and Alternative Processes posits that generative AI technologies could be considered as the most recent addition to the world of photographic alternative processes, alongside cyanotypes, daguerreotypes, or albumen prints. Perhaps we can think about it as our era’s version of cameraless photography. This international group exhibition features artists who turn to AI as part of their production process, and, at times, as a creative generator that expands the scope of conceptual experimentations.
Technological developments hasten pronouncements regarding the death of photography every few decades, with the most recent trigger being digital innovations, such as digital cameras and image editing software. And yet, photography persists. In fact, it continues to re-define how we engage with one another, imagine ourselves and our place in the world. Most recently, AI caused an uproar among visual practitioners, as machines have been trained to create images using images produced by humans who were not paid for services unknowingly provided. Moreover, AI seems to pose a threat to human agency.
As we wait for governments to sort the legal implication, perhaps we can focus on the human agency part: What if we flip that narrative? What if we think of AI as a tool, rather than a threat?
The participating artists have been exploring its capabilities from a variety of perspectives. AI allowed Liron Kroll to address gaps she identified in her childhood family album. Working with the likeness and voice of her children, she not only completed the past, but she also created unexpected documentation of the future. Media theorist and visual artist Lev Manovich uses AI to imagine what the past could never provide him: A model for an idea Soviet city in the 1960s, or a library of writings that were never created. For both, AI is a pathway to a past that could never be, but should have existed.
-Dr. Rotem Rozental
