In an era where technology and artificial intelligence are nearly inseparable from our daily lives, the new exhibition “Imaging after Photography” at the Moody Center for the Arts explores the relationship between AI and photography.
“Imaging after Photography” opened to the public on Jan. 23. From AI’s presence in the academic world to the artistic realm, the exhibition’s curators, Alison Weaver and Noor Alé, examine its impact and potential to reshape our understanding of the world around us.
Rather than offering a definitive framework for understanding AI’s controversial role in the visual culture, Weaver, the executive director of the Moody Center, said the exhibition prompts discussion about the burgeoning technologies that are increasingly integrated into people’s realities.
“[The exhibition] isn’t intended to be a definitive take on AI and photography, or to outline a new set of parameters for this relationship,” Weaver said. “Instead, it asks open-ended questions about the current moment.”
Weaver and Alé also said they considered AI’s influence on Rice’s campus, where it has been a helpful resource and tool for higher education. Following Rice’s recent push toward responsible AI use in the Momentous strategic plan, “Imaging after Photography” echoes this goal from an artistic perspective.
“It has become increasingly difficult to discern if images are created in three-dimensional space or if they have been digitally generated with AI,” Alé said. “This moment of uncertainty is exactly when we turn to artists, as well as to scientists, to help us explore what’s possible and what is at stake.”
For Weaver and Alé, this uncertainty is not a problem to solve. Instead, they said it is a starting point. The photography works included in “Imaging after Photography” challenge the idea of photography itself.
“Although we often believe images to be the objective records of the moments they represent, photography isn’t a true index or representation of reality,” Alé said.
Weaver and Alé said there were no internal debates about whether certain works could still be considered photography.
“Photography as a medium is an expanded field, and it engages with various disciplines and discourses,” Alé said.
Alé pointed to a sculptural work by artist Trevor Paglen, “The Standard Head,” which she said “clearly isn’t a photograph, nor is it manipulated by AI.”
However, Alé said the work’s concepts and source material are rooted in photography and machine learning, particularly their use for surveillance.
Paglen’s work references the “standard head,” developed in the 1960s by mathematician Woodrow Bledsoe using a large database of photographs to establish basic measurements for facial recognition systems, Alé said.
In Paglen’s interactive video work “Faces of ImageNet,” viewers stand before a camera as the AI generates classification labels based solely on their appearance. The tags, often stereotypical, demonstrate how facial recognition systems rely on vast image datasets to sort individuals into predefined categories.
Other works in the exhibition displays AI’s ability to produce hyper-realistic images that blur the line between machine-generated output and lived reality.
In the age of AI and growing controversies regarding authorship, artistic labor and creativity within the field of art, many artists have developed their own methods of interacting and cooperating with technological tools.
“Artists are building their own AI algorithms and models,” Weaver said. “This opens collaborations between technologists, machine intelligence and the arts.”
Architect and exhibition designer Alejandro Stein mapped the layout of “Imaging after Photography,” collaborating with the presenting artists to shape how the works occupy the gallery space.
Alé said the design was inspired by French philosopher Roland Barthes and his ideas around the dual essence of photography involving the “studium and punctum,” Barthes’ framework of balancing cultural and intellectual context with emotional impact.
“We came to select the works through a process of conducting studio visits with artists, meeting with curators who have curated exhibitions exploring similar topics and reading essays, artist features and exhibition catalogues on art and AI,” Alé said.
Rather than steering viewers toward a single conclusion, Weaver said “Imaging after Photography” encourages reflection.
“With the advent of any technology, there is a natural response to be apprehensive, but there are also possibilities to reimagine the future, and to have a sense of agency,” Weaver said.
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