Gniees si gniveileb, bniveileb si gnisnes is a series of photographic works which utilise images generated using #artificialintelligence, namely @openaidalle. While not strictly #photography (actually maybe not #photography at all), these images are generated using other images which are experimentally photographic, and could be seen as photography if you think about it long enough.
A recurring theme in the images are #gateways, imagined or suggested. A focus of Archontides’ recent research has been portal fantasies in imaginative fiction, with #portals being structures that the hero travels through, leaving one’s world behind for unknown places. While #escapism from reality brings with it a series of negative connotations from a #Freudian and #Marxist perspective, when viewed from a literary standpoint, it allows one to view imaginary worlds as spaces that offer #newperspectives (and perhaps even solutions) to ongoing issues.
The elements of the original images come from Adonis’ #archive — an archive for which the artist has been systematically documenting his surroundings. Through a method similar to collage, he composes these virtual worlds, which are then fed to DALL-E 2 and modified. #Virtual worlds occupy a strange ontological status located in the liminal space between the #actual and #imaginary — they are visible and appear to be material, yet their materiality is merely an illusion, requiring a leap of faith on the viewer’s part in order to become fully actualised.
Through this process, the works negotiate both the process as a medium for photography, but also the SimNation landscape as a place that remains in many ways virtual.
