Carola Lampe
Tell Me What To See
AI, algorithms, and digital technologies already shape a large part of everyday life – mostly without us noticing. Photographer and artist Carola Lampe has been exploring this development in her work for years. Her project Tell Me What To See presses reality and artificiality so close together that the line between them blurs.
“I wanted to put reality and artificiality in direct tension and show how these shifts happen: in perception, in the social fabric, in the cityscape, in working life, perhaps in cognitive processes as well.''
Her working process was as hands-on as it was conceptual: First, she went out into the streets to capture images in the style of classic street photography that visually support the project's theoretical foundation. In the second step, she staged carefully composed scenes in her studio that deliberately pose the question: Is this still photographed reality or already computer-generated fiction? The third layer of her process was experimental in nature: She created AI-generated images, screenshots of 3D environments, as well as image manipulations using Photoshop and other AI tools. As a software developer, she consciously used the camera – a traditional, almost analog tool – to create images that appear machine-made. This ambiguity is no coincidence, but rather a central part of her artistic strategy.
“Our relationship to truth is already shifting. Images, voices and videos can no longer be taken at face value. And Digital media are fundamentally reshaping our perception of reality.“
The exhibition invites you to engage in a game with your own perception. While some images can be recognized as computer-generated upon closer inspection, it is not so obvious with others. And that is entirely intentional:
“And that's by design: you're standing in front of something, simply not knowing what you're looking at.“
CREDITS
The exhibition was curated by Marie-Luise Mayer (Exhibitions Manager at Fotografiska Berlin), in collaboration with the artist, and produced in partnership with IFA Berlin and Volkswagen R, with the kind cooperation of our photography print partner WhiteWall.
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Emerging Berlin is an Open Call hosted on the Fotografiska Emerging platform dedicated to supporting and showcasing upcoming image-makers with a distinctive visual language, whose photographic practice embodies, represents, and shapes a part of Berlin. Selected artists receive a solo exhibition in Fotografiska Berlin’s graffiti hall.
