The World Is Beautiful Again invites the audience to submit photographs that depict something that they consider should be changed, repaired or removed: from problems of a personal nature to global issues that are affecting the planet. Submitted photos are “fixed” by the artists using AI tools to manipulate the image. This happens weekly during "repair sessions" that are livestreamed on Twitch.
A project by Sebastian Schmieg and Lina Schwarzenberg, 2023
Commissioned by Fotomuseum Winterthur in the framework of [permanent.beta]
The World Is Beautiful Again takes its playful starting point in the 1928 photobook Die Welt ist schön (The World Is Beautiful) by German photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch. The highly acclaimed photobook uncovers the inherent beauty and clarity of the world through a sober yet appealing depiction of everyday scenes and objects and is an iconic instance of the New Objectivity movement.
The project by Sebastian Schmieg and Lina Schwarzenberg invites the audience to submit photographs that depict something that they consider should be changed, repaired or removed: from problems of a personal nature to global issues that are affecting the planet. Submitted photos are “fixed” by the artists using AI tools to manipulate the image. The newly created photographs show the world beautiful again – what was once broken is now repaired and newly imagined. By showcasing the performative process of their AI-generated repair work, the artists playfully question the efficiency-driven and solutionist ideas behind the narratives of artificial intelligence and make the viewer aware of the image’s potential to create simplified models of the world.
At the same time, The World Is Beautiful Again explores whether AI-generated images, because of their easy malleability, could be seen as expressions of possibility spaces that prompt us to question ourselves and our environment: Why are things the way they are and not otherwise? What alternatives are there? And what might forms of repair look like?
—Marco De Mutiis, Digital Curator at Fotomuseum Winterthur
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