AI as a Catalyst for New Techniques

When I began working with AI at the Fotoacademie, I was primarily exploring the nature of reality in images: what happens when you distort or extend reality? AI proved to be an interesting tool in that process because it offers new and unexpected perspectives. Recently, I’ve noticed that some images give me the feeling that they want to move beyond two dimensions, and that a physical translation could strengthen the work.
I’m happy to talk more about that development.

AI as a Catalyst, Not the Maker

Images generated with AI show me what might be possible, but not yet what I want to express. That difference is important. AI merely offers suggestions; the final artistic choices and direction remain mine. That is where the essence of being an artist lies.

Sometimes it takes a month and a half before an image truly feels right. It begins with my own photograph; models, makeup, styling, and develops through digital editing and sometimes a physical translation. AI is one of the tools in that process, not the starting point.

What’s interesting is that AI also raises new questions for me. It forces me to think about what I want to make tangible, what I want to preserve, and what can only exist in the digital realm. Perhaps that is the real impact: not that AI determines my work, but that it continues to challenge me to look beyond the surface.

From Image to Object

AI often generates layered images, and they frequently contain small imperfections. That fascinates me, and this sense of layering has always been present in my work. Yet that very layering also creates a desire to make the work tangible. What happens when you bring a digitally constructed reality back into matter?

That question led me toward glass and sculpture. Glass because of its transparency and its interaction with light, which can create new perspectives, something I’m constantly searching for in my work, whether through AI or other media. Sculpture because of its physical presence and the constant conscious decisions it requires in the making process. A work gains weight. Shadow. Space.

The Need for Slowness

Working with AI is a constant negotiation with control; you never know what the program will give you.

When sculpting, you are also dealing with control. You must decide on every millimeter. You cannot endlessly correct without consequences. It demands attention and intention. But while the struggle for control with AI largely involves responding to the unexpected outcomes the system produces, sculpting is about gradually refining the results of your own decisions throughout the process.

That slowness is important for my creative process and keeps me continuously aware of the intention behind the work. For me, that is a crucial aspect of creating and maintaining a personal signature. It forces me to really look. AI opens possibilities, but when making a sculpture you constantly pause to consider your next decision.

Limits of the System

Earlier on, working with AI had already led me to search for creative solutions in the physical world. One thing I noticed is that AI is not as neutral as it seems. The system is surprisingly prudish and censored. For example, it is difficult to input a photograph of a (partially) nude body. The female body cannot simply be used as a prompt. Even words like “skin” are filtered. This confronted me with the bias embedded in the technology and led to results very different from what I had envisioned.

Instead of letting that limit me, I looked for another approach. I sculpted a small abstract figure of a body, a simplified form, and used that as input. The system recognized it as a pose or structure without blocking it. From those results I could continue building toward an image of a realistic human figure.

That detour was not only practical but conceptually interesting. The digital system literally forced me to return to a physical object.

From Digital to Tangible — and Back Again

What became increasingly clear to me is that the digital process not only produces new images but also sets me physically in motion. This already began when the system blocked certain forms and I had to sculpt a small abstract figure in order to continue. The digital process pushed me back toward an object.

In this way, the process becomes circular. An image begins with photography, is transformed through AI, encounters technical or conceptual limits, or new perspectives, finds a physical translation in clay, glass, or sculpture, and can then be used again as an image. Each step influences the next.

This circular movement also shifts my understanding of what is real. The digital image is not less real than the object. Both media offer their own perspectives on reality. Meaning emerges precisely in the movement between the two. Not because one medium is more authentic than the other, but because in both cases I must make choices. The work is not determined by the system, but by the way I engage with it.