AI-Generated “Photography” Exhibition Leaves Visitors Questioning If They Even Exist
Brussels – Art lovers who bravely entered the Photo Brussels 2025 festival expecting to see, you know, actual photos were instead bombarded with images birthed from the cold, unfeeling void of artificial intelligence. Apparently, the days of waiting in the cold for the “perfect shot” or adjusting camera settings like an over-caffeinated lunatic are behind us, replaced instead by typing sentence fragments into a machine that has seen more strange internet requests than a Google search historian.
Curator Michel Poivert, who presumably still owns an actual camera, pulled together 17 projects showcasing the mind-bendingly eerie and sometimes, *gasp*, “optimistic” possibilities of what they’re now calling “promptography.” Because apparently, putting “-ography” at the end of a word is all it takes to make something legitimate.
“We’re entering an exciting age where art is no longer shackled by human effort, skill, or physical experience,” said Poivert, waving vaguely at a wall adorned with AI-generated images featuring immaculate lighting and zero sign of shaky hands. “Now anyone with internet access and an existential crisis can be a photographer.”
Festival attendees spent much of their time squinting at hauntingly perfect AI-generated scenes, wondering if they, too, were just strings of code processing in a digital consciousness simulator. “I used to think photography was about capturing real moments,” said one visibly shaken visitor. “But now I’m wondering if I even had a childhood or if some algorithm just inserted memories into my head for aesthetic cohesion.”
The Cherry Airlines series was one of the festival’s standouts – a fake airline brand rendered in stunning digital quality, raising important questions such as: Could AI soon fake an entire vacation so convincingly that you wouldn’t even bother booking a real trip? And more importantly, can we finally skip the TSA line and just have our holographic versions enjoy the beach for us?
Despite AI having approximately zero lived experience or real emotions, defenders of the so-called medium insist that it’s just another tool for human creativity – much like how a microwave helps “cook” an entire meal by removing all actual labor and skill.
As AI-manipulated visuals continue to flood galleries and social media feeds, professional photographers are reportedly rethinking their career choices, many of them seen staring into the distance, clutching their DSLRs like relics from a lost civilization. “I just wanted to take pictures,” muttered one despondent artist, holding a camera as if it were an ancient artifact dug up from the ruins of a bygone era.
In response to growing concerns, festival organizers assured purists that the AI uprising in photography is still in its infancy and that human photographers have nothing to worry about – for now. “In the end, there will always be room for real photography,” Poivert reassured attendees. “But if you need me, I’ll be tweaking my AI prompts because it turns out automated creativity pays better and requires far fewer rainy mornings in the middle of a field.”
