Exhibition // Craig Ames – Photographs of British Algae – AI Impressions

Using one of the cutting-edge imaging technologies of the day, the English botanist and photographer, Anna Atkins, created the world’s first photobook and photographic-based record of botanical specimens. Celebrated for its historic significance and artistic merits, her ‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions’ (1843-1853), has gone on to inspire generations of artists and image-makers.

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) image generation is perhaps the most transformational imaging technology currently being developed and employed. Adopting Atkin’s philosophical approach to image-making, Ames utilises this rapidly evolving technology in order to create specimen exemplars of ‘AI impressions’.

Working from a broad sample of the organic specimens Atkins originally illustrated, Ames repurposed their Latin names and processed them through an AI image generator to create new visual forms. The resulting ‘photographic’ fabrications were labelled and catalogued to create a new visual taxonomy of simulated algae. The synthesized specimens intentionally distort the boundaries between the real and the artificial, highlighting the growing disconnect between the natural world and the simulated hyperreality that increasingly subsumes it.

Opening hours

Thursday – Sunday: 12:00 – 17:00