The revolution caused by artificial intelligence in terms of what a photograph can and cannot do is profound. This book looks at photography’s strengths, what it has meant for individuals and for society, its massive transformations caused by a variety of factors in the digital age, and the newer possibilities for image making. These include old and new media, with an emphasis on synthetic imaging as both a positive and terrifying development.
In 1840, a year after photography’s invention, the painter Paul Delaroche exclaimed, “From now on, painting is dead.” Photography was quicker and cheaper as a representational medium and more realistic, its invention also liberated painters to become much more adventurous, embracing approaches that included impressionism, cubism, minimalism, and abstract expressionism. So too photographers are being challenged today. Many have responded with new strategies, but more innovation is needed. Can photographers be as radically expansive and revolutionary as painters were? Can they preserve or even expand the photograph’s role in society as a credible witness? Can the photographic image morph into forms previously unimagined?
The Synthetic Eye is about this transformative revolution. How can synthetic imagery be utilized to amplify our understanding of ourselves and our worlds? Can an alternative photography deepen and expand the medium’s previous reach? What are the pitfalls? How will our senses of the real, the possible, and the actual be affected?
Reviews
In this smart and searching book, [Fred Ritchin] explores the interaction between digital photography and artificial intelligence systems, which he sees as both positive and terrifying… Ritchin accepts that being skeptical of all images is an obvious response to this creative fakery, but he also sees the potential for photography to reclaim and expand its role as an artform… A thought-provoking study.
— Kirkus Reviews
Ritchin’s goal with The Synthetic Eye leans toward exploration of the new possibilities AI presents for photography rather than bemoaning what it closes off. The book includes substantial portfolios of the results of his queries to DALL-E, DreamStudio, and other AI tools, and some of them are delightful and provocative, art in themselves… He points to his own concept of Four Corners, where an image online provides information about an image’s backstory, authorship, links, and related imagery.
— Mark Athitakis, On the Seawall
An essential primer for mass visual literacy in the age of artificial intelligence.
— Art in America
I recommend that anyone interested in AI get a hold of [this book] and think hard about the examples, the analyses, the implications, and especially about what all this might mean for the future of photography and for artistic illustration in general.
— Gerhard Clausing PhotoBook Journal
[Ritchin's] attention has recently turned to the vast implications of artificial intelligence on the photographer’s role as credible witness—the subject of his new book, The Synthetic Eye.
— Aperture
The advent of generative AI has made a big impact on Ritchin’s areas of expertise, and his latest book grapples with the aesthetic and epistemological questions this new technology raises.
— Inside Hook
The history of photography through the hindsight and coinages of our DALL-E age … [A] diplomatic, tongue-biting elegy to the art form.
— The New York Times Book Review
An urgent and clarifying reflection on the fate of the photographic image in the age of artificial intelligence. The book explores how algorithmic image synthesis is not only transforming how photographs are made, but also redefining their cultural, social, and political functions… But The Synthetic Eye is no nostalgic lament. Rather, it is a guide to exploring the new possibilities opened up by AI. Ritchin invites photographers and visual artists to radically reinvent the medium, just as painters once did in the wake of photography’s invention in the 19th century…A bold and timely call to restore transparency and accountability to our increasingly synthetic visual culture.
— Domus
Contributors
Fred Ritchin
Author
Fred Ritchin is a writer, educator, and photography critic. Currently the dean emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP) School, Ritchin was also the founding director of the documentary photography and photojournalism program at the ICP. Prior to joining ICP, Ritchin was professor of photography and imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and codirector of the NYU/Magnum Foundation photography and human rights educational program.
