New Topographies - Images of an Algorithmic Landscape

All the images in this experimental survey were created using an artificial intelligence (AI) text-to-image generator. The AI was 'prompted' by inputting the titles of the photographs featured in the original 1975 catalogue from the seminal exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape; the groundbreaking exhibition that surveyed the vernacular landscape and the highly influential documentary approaches employed in its photographic rendering. Presently, most commercially available AI image generators are trained on vast data sets of images ‘scraped’ from the internet. Given the scale of data mining, these scrapes possibly include elements of the online digital archives or reproductions of the works featured in the original exhibition, as well as the myriad topographical photographs they have inspired. Closely resembling the form and structure of the original exhibition catalogue, New Topographies: Images of an Algorithmic Landscape explores this rapidly evolving realm. As AI capabilities improve (which is happening at pace), and as they become more mainstream in their adoption, many ethical concerns are likely to become apparent, with divisive issues around authorship and copyright, creative enterprise and artistic merit and environmental sustainability already starting to loom large. In the meantime, a growing number of people are using these powerful imaging tools and beginning the process of mapping out this new, unchartered terrain.