Photographer Boris Eldagsen refused the winning prize of one of the most prestigious photography competitions in the world after revealing to Sony that it was AI-generated. Eldagsen never expected to win but instead wanted to open up a discussion about the future of photography.
Berlin-based artist Eldagsen entered the image The Electrician from a series called Pseudomnesia, meaning false memory. The image won in the creative open category of the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards. He described the image as:
“a haunting black-and-white portrait of two women from different generations, reminiscent of the visual language of 1940s family portraits.”
The Electrician was created using OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. Writing on his website, Eldagsen said, “Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it?” Perhaps this should have been a clue to the Sony judges who failed to spot the warped fingers and the haunting gaze from the two women in the black-and-white image from a bygone era.