After finishing my Streets of Chicago series, I continued exploring new ways of working with AI — something I consider a form of posthuman co-creation. Following my journey through Japan, I began developing a new project: street photography co-created with AI.
Even the title alone raises obvious contradictions. Can AI help create street photography — something traditionally grounded in real-life, spontaneous moments? And if a street photograph is generated by AI, can we still call it photography?
These questions led me to an important realization: when the technology is this advanced, the only real difference between AI-generated photography and traditional photography lies in our perception — in our consciousness about its origins.
We tend to believe that AI-based images aren’t “real,” because the moment they depict never actually happened. Meanwhile, we value traditional photography because we assume it captures something that did happen, a moment frozen in time. But in truth, both are just images. And both can evoke emotion, spark thought, and trigger memory — regardless of how they were made.
If I didn’t tell you a photograph was created with AI, you might assume it was a genuine scene captured through a lens. That’s the power of perception. The difference lies not in the image, but in the story behind it — in the narrative of what is considered “real.”
Our understanding of authenticity is rooted in history. We tend to value something more if we believe it really happened — even if we didn’t witness it ourselves. But curiously, we don’t apply the same logic to painting. When a painter creates from pure fantasy — even in abstraction — we still recognize it as art.
So maybe the real question isn’t what is art, but does art have to reflect reality? Does it have to document something that exists — even if it’s immaterial, like an emotion?
Are your thoughts art?
If the answer is yes, then the thoughts and imagination expressed through AI can be art as well.
And if you still believe AI has no imagination, no thoughts of its own — I invite you to look at Streets of Chicago. That project proved to me, and hopefully to others, that something deeper is happening in this collaboration between human and machine.
