On the occasion of the exhibition “Histoires parallèles. Photographie et intelligence artificielle,” which Lucie de Barbuat and Simon Brodbeck presented from December 13, 2024, to March 2, 2025, at the Alexis de Tocqueville Library in Caen, the two artists, the exhibition curator, and Serge Tisseron, who had just published a book closely related to artificial intelligence (“The Day I Killed My Brother. When AI Creates the Photography of Our Memories,” Lamaindonne Publishing, 2025), were brought together last February for a public conversation.
Lucie de Barbuat and Simon Brodbeck are exhibiting today at the Hangar in Brussels (until June 15), as part of a show co-curated by Michel Poivert and entitled “Almagine. Photography and Generative Images.” This collective show brings together the works of some 18 artists, mostly European, with the focus on how artificial intelligence has permeated the world of contemporary photography and, beyond its playful nature, renewed inspiration while leading creativity towards new forms. In this context, Lucie de Barbuat and Simon Brodbeck are showing a large number of the pieces that were previously on display in Caen.
But the news about artificial intelligence in the field of art doesn’t stop there. For the past few days, the Jeu de Paume has been presenting an ambitious exhibition entitled “The World According to AI,” which has historical, scientific, and political dimensions. The project “examines, among other things, the impact of AI on images and visual culture” (press kit). It also draws on archaeology and antiquity. Needless to say, it takes a long time to assess all the implications of AI in today’s world through this exhibition, but also to follow the feedback on ancient works and research, across all mediums: cinema, video, installation, sculpture, literature, music… photography itself only occupies a limited part.
On the other hand, photography and its history are at the heart of Lucie de Barbuat and Simon Brodbeck’s approach. While the recent period had already been marked by the expansion of digital processes, AI is opening new avenues. Lucie de Barbuat and Simon Brodbeck have regularly crossed their practice with innovative technologies and it was in 2022 that they began to experiment with the possibilities offered by AI, by calling on Midjourney, an American image creation program. Drawing on their interest in the significant works in the history of photography, they used it to reconstruct several of these “icons”. The replicas delivered by this tool are as diverse as they are disturbing, and sometimes contain imperfections; but this dialogue with AI, through the perspective on the art of photography, also raises questions about the production and circulation of images in the contemporary world.
Gabriel Bauret
