In his new body of work 49/23, artist Gregory Eddi Jones combines a vintage 1949 edition of Popular Photography magazine with AI-generated images. Through his collage process, he questions the evolving nature of photography and its impact on our perception of the world.
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The series playfully draws on the historical importance of the American publication in the medium’s lifespan, bringing photography’s past into conversation with its present. The resulting images are built from text-based prompts that we’ll never see, pointing to the boundaries of interpretation and inviting us to consider the profound implications of a rapidly advancing technology.
Gregory Eddi Jones says, I combined pages from vintage 1949 issues of Popular Photography magazine with AI-generated images inspired by those same pages. AI image making tools are beginning to drastically change what photography is, and I wanted to find a way to form a conversation between new and old photography.
I believe there’s a fascinating link between AI and the more traditional photographic technology represented in the magazine.
The title works as a timestamp marking the years of creation for both the source material and the images I made to collage them with.
Untitled, 2023, from the series “49/23” © Gregory Eddi Jones