Blind Photographer’s Viewfinder 2023
Part One
Visual space has long dominated our perception of the world, with other senses yielding to vision. Language is replaced by visual symbols, touch is enticed by clear textures of images. We effortlessly access vast amounts of utopian visual information on screens, believing in its authenticity, especially in the era where generative technology can create convincing illusions.
Inspired by the film “Proof,” directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, I designed a device called the “Blind Photographer’s Viewfinder.” It utilizes image recognition and artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) to transform the captured world into diverse and rich expressions in real-time. When wearing the viewfinder, the surrounding scenes lose their visual center, transforming into poetry, natural sounds, subtle sensations, and emerging associations. Through AI, it becomes both real and surreal, offering a new mode of interpretation.
Part Two
The second part of the project extracts a series of real-world images and location information captured by the blind photographer’s viewfinder. Using this authentic data, a series of AI-generated scenes corresponding to these locations are created. I deliberately blend the real images with the AI-generated information, collaging and constructing an indistinguishable world that exists between reality and fantasy.
The emergence of AIGC brings both technological dependency and anxiety of belief. In rebellious fashion, we organize such an experience—a questioning of visually dominant spaces, a deception of trust, and perhaps, a journey into a new multidimensional world akin to dreaming butterflies in Zhouzhuang.
Exhibition and award
NeurIPS 2023 Creative AI Track 08/2023
link: https://neurips.cc/virtual/2023/session/75889