Winner Refuses Award After AI Image Wins Top Prize
Making Sense Of AI In The World Of Photography
Boris Eldagsen, a photo-media artist from Berlin, was a contestant in this year’s Sony World Photography Awards hosted by the World Photography Organization.
It’s considered a very prestigious annual photography contest.
Eldagsen submitted an image called “The Electrician” to the Creative category of the Open competition. Here is what it looks like…
And Eldagsen’s image won 1st prize.
However, there’s a problem… Eldagsen’s image was AI-generated. So in February, when Eldagsen got a congratulatory email stating that he won, he responded by saying it is not a photograph and that the image was created using AI.
The Sony contact continued to offer him the award even after he insisted it should be given to someone else.
And the official press release announcing the 2023 SWPA winners was made public with Eldagsen’s image included as the winner.
So in March, when Eldagsen went on stage to receive the award, he publicly refused the award.
“AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.” - Boris Eldagsen
His “photo” was quietly taken down from the exhibition in London’s Somerset House without any communication or explanations.
Why did Eldagsen submit his image if he didn’t want to compete?
AI And The World Of Photography
Eldagsen’s purpose for entering the contest and ultimately refusing the award was to make a statement.
He wants to initiate a broader discussion about the role of AI-generated art in the field of photography and the necessity of establishing distinct awards for AI-generated images.
Eldagsen doesn’t believe AI images should compete with photography, or be considered photos.
I call my images “images”. They are synthetically produced, using “the photographic” as a visual language. They are not “photographs”. - Boris Eldagsen
I agree with Eldagsen.
I love creating photo-realistic images with Midjourney, and I love using photography methods, but AI-generated images are not photos. Photography is a very specific craft.
Just like AI art is not the same as hand-crafted illustrations or paintings, and AI music is not the same as music played by musicians.
AI-generated content does not fit within our current language descriptions. It is a new type of art form consisting of an entirely new process. And it’s important we make the distinction, and not treat all art as the same.
Although it is reasonable to have a distinct classification for AI-generated artwork in art competitions, the main challenge lies in how society perceives and categorizes such works.
Our cultural perception of AI as art is still underdeveloped, and we are yet to determine how it fits within our conventional notions of creativity.
I like Eldagsen’s response on his role as an artist via AI-created imagery, he states it well here…
The work that SWPA [Sony World Photography Awards] has chosen is the result of a complex interplay of prompt engineering, inpainting, and outpainting that draws on my wealth of photographic knowledge.
For me, working with AI image generators is a co-creation, in which I am the director. It is not about pressing a button — and done it is. It is about exploring the complexity of this process, starting with refining text prompts, then developing a complex workflow, and mixing various platforms and techniques.
The more you create such a workflow and define parameters, the higher your creative part becomes.
Final Thoughts
Make no mistake, AI-generated content will be a part of our world in all forms of media, it will become infused into our culture and integrated into everything we produce and consume.
How art is perceived in the future remains to be seen, but ‘AI-generated’ and ‘human-crafted’ art are different domains and should be categorized as such.
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