Almost Real. From Trace to Simulation explores the relationship between photography and simulation in the era of AI image generators.
The photographic image of the new millennium is converted from a trace of the real into mere simulation operated by new technological tools, whose images seem to “make themselves”.
The exhibition aims to problematize precisely this transition through the works of three artists with extremely heterogeneous practices.
Alan Butler’s Virtual Botany Cyanotypes series creates a catalog of imaginary vegetation from the world of video games that fuses digital information with physical material through the medium of cyanotype photography.
Nora Al-Badri’s “techno-reperts” made from Mesopotamian, Neo-Sumerian and Assyrian artifacts from the photographic archives of museum institutions, offer critical and historical perspectives on the relationship between cultural heritage and colonial thinking, so to shape a new collective memory and challenge existing museological narratives.
Lawrence Lek’s work Empty Rider (2024) features a self-driving car on trial for the attempted murder of their own creator. This CGI science fiction investigates identity, agency and emotions in the age of artificial intelligence, offering an important opportunity to reflect on the limits and potential of an ethics constructed by nonhuman systems.