The Subjectivity of Reality: How AI Opens New Perspectives
What we see is often experienced as reality. But do we ever truly look objectively? Every perception is filtered through emotions and the mental framework we have built over the course of our lives. What feels self-evident to one person may feel alien to another. This subjectivity of reality lies at the core of my work.
Reality as Interpretation
I am fascinated by the idea that multiple realities can exist side by side. Two people can look at the same image and see something entirely different. Who is right? Perhaps no one, or perhaps both. You can even observe this in something as seemingly simple as choosing a photograph of yourself. Everyone selects a different image as the “most real.” Apparently, we do not recognize ourselves through facts, but through feeling. What we experience as truth is deeply connected to our emotional state at that moment.
In my work, I make this multiplicity visible. By combining fragmentation and overlapping forms within a single image, I avoid a singular reading. A figure can appear strong and vulnerable at the same time. Open and closed. A work becomes more compelling when it raises questions rather than providing answers.
Space for Interpretation
Because meaning emerges in the encounter between the work and the viewer, I do not give my works titles. A title directs the gaze. I prefer to leave space. What someone sees reveals as much about the viewer as about the image itself. Sometimes, only after prolonged looking do additional postures or forms reveal themselves.
AI as Creative Dialogue and Struggle
Within my practice, AI functions as a tool, not as the maker. It is just one of the tools in my toolbox, like my camera or pencil. Yet working with AI is far from controllable. In the studio, I am accustomed to carefully directing light and composition. AI, by contrast, often feels like a system that follows its own internal logic. You input something with a clear intention and receive a result that may be far removed from it.
That can be frustrating. AI generates unexpected combinations and sometimes obvious errors. Those errors intrigue me, but they also require constant recalibration. What AI produces is a proposal that can sometimes be interesting. This element of randomness creates a tension in which I always remain responsible for the direction. It demands continuous evaluation of what aligns with my vision. In that sense, AI changes the process and can even slow it down, because you keep searching for the moment when an element not only works technically, but resonates conceptually.
The Power of Imperfection
At a time when images are becoming increasingly polished and perfected, I am drawn to friction. To moments where something resists easy interpretation. AI can amplify such moments. The system carries its own biases and aesthetic tendencies. Sometimes it unconsciously steers toward clichés. Then I have to intervene. That friction is part of the process.
For me, a work becomes stronger when it cannot be fully explained. When it leaves room for doubt and allows multiple realities to coexist. But that openness does not arise automatically; it requires selection and intention.
What Is Reality?
Perhaps reality is not a fixed fact, but an ongoing process of interpretation. What we see is always colored by our inner world. Rather than making this process artificial, AI makes it visible. It reveals how images emerge from choices and assumptions. At the same time, it confronts us with the question of how much control we truly have over what we create and perceive.
For me, AI is neither a threat to art nor a neutral instrument. It is a tool that challenges me. It puts my sense of control under pressure. It forces me to continuously articulate and refine my vision. I always begin from my own intuition and intention. At the end of my creative process the result is an image that is never a single truth, but an invitation to enter into dialogue about what we see.
