In a short period of time, AI-generated images have become commonplace in our visual culture, while their production remains largely opaque. Prompts, training, sampling, compression, and ecological and infrastructural costs usually disappear from view as soon as these images are displayed and interpreted. This creates a structural mismatch between a computational medium and forms of presentation inherited from light-based media such as photography, film, and video. That mismatch is not merely an aesthetic issue. It touches on questions of credibility, authorship, responsibility, and criticism, at a time when images can be persuasive without a traceable connection to a camera, an event, or a witness. What happens when the surface on which an image appears disregards its own medium-specific logic?
My dear image, what will become of you? proposes a practice-oriented method to investigate this mismatch materially and spatially. The project develops a hybrid setup in which generative systems are linked to analog reproduction processes, making intermediate steps, artifacts, and translation visible and tangible. The generated material is tested iteratively in workshops with students, where it is positioned, combined, and evaluated as a presentation rather than as a final image. Over multiple cycles, the project explores alternative media and forms of presentation for generated images beyond screens, prints, and projections.
