Abstract

'The Waters of Thera' (2023) by Craig Ames won the international Open Call for photographic AI storytelling and environmentalism.

"Photobook Week Aarhus launches a world-wide call for artists who use artificial intelligence for storytelling in a photographic context. We are looking for series, books, dummies, and projects with a minimum of 20 images and a narrative structure based on the power of visual literacy.

The theme of the Call (which is connected to this year’s festival) is “Our World is Beautiful”, a celebration of what is worth saving in times of trouble. We do not deny that our planet is suffering from our actions and things are getting worse every day. Still, we propose a fresh look and encourage artists to use the photographic language and the new possibilities of artificial intelligence to motivate us for radical change. Please send us a body of work that has been created using AI tools to showcase the beauty of our environment, revisit landscape photography, and reframe the depiction of nature. We are not interested in technical details but will ask the creators to explain which techniques they have used and why. The title of the call is a reference to the seminal photobook by Albert Renger-Patzsch published 95 years ago and aimed to inspire a constructive dialogue around nature and technology.

We believe that the heated discussions around both Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change will benefit from a new wave of optimism therefore want to encourage artists to shape this new discourse.
An international jury will select a shortlist and a winner, to be showcased at Photobook Week Aarhus 2023."

https://photobookweek.org/updates/ai-open-call-contest-winners/