<aside> 🐕 It's all fun and games with labradors playing on a computer or having a picnic in the mountains until it begins to cause real harm. Indeed, seeing is no longer believing.
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⚠️ The video is by no means an end product, merely thoughts in progress visualized so I can blurb about them here. Photographs are courtesy of Vojenský historický ústav (VHÚ) - Vojenský historický archív, Bratislava and Slovak National Archive and you can find more of them here>>
When the photos of Slovak State were brought to my attention as a possibly interesting subject to explore, I was indeed curious to see what could possibly happen beyond the frame of a 35mm camera and how we can interpret those blind maps of datasets projected onto something as specific and controversial as political propaganda. So I outpainted and here we are. This process though only brought more questions upon me rather than answers.
Can we use AI to explore the potential past(s) of GLAM archives and look into the areas that are missing? How we can interpret those blind maps of data projected onto something as specific and controversial as political propaganda. What might we discover by focusing on the parts omitted? Can we actually learn something new or is it just the dataset speaking and if so, what stories is it telling about the nature of our existence? Did I just generate propaganda of propaganda, and how will AI influence the future and also our shared histories?
The (First) Slovak Republic, otherwise known as the Slovak State, was a partially-recognized client state of Nazi Germany which existed between 1939 and 1945 after abandoning Czechoslovakia to be annexed by Germany. This period is considered one of the most complicated periods of Slovak history.
Official photographs of the Slovak State were a relatively unknown entity in the history of Slovak photography. These photographs gained broader recognition through "In the Shadow of the Third Reich, Official Photographs of the Slovak State" by Bohunka Koklesová - the first professional publication of its kind focused on the art-historical analysis and interpretation of photographs representing the political, historical and social situations of the Slovak state.
Official photographs of the Slovak State were a relatively unknown entity in the history of Slovak photography. These photographs gained broader recognition through "In the Shadow of the Third Reich, Official Photographs of the Slovak State" - the first professional publication of its kind focused on the art-historical analysis and interpretation of photographs representing the political, historical and social situations of the Slovak state.
Outpainting is a technique in image processing that involves generating content outside the boundaries of an existing image. My fascination with outpainting probably stems from the AI images' probabilistic nature, echoing Eryk Salvaggio's one of many wonderful newsletters which describes AI images as data patterns inscribed into pictures, that tell us stories about that dataset and the human decisions behind it.
<aside> ⚠️ 2023 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) underlines the significant challenge posed by the "fake content industry," which includes massive disinformation or propaganda campaigns often or systematically orchestrated by political actors in many countries. The report points out the exacerbating effects of artificial intelligence on this already dire situation, with AI being used to produce and disseminate manipulative content on an unprecedented scale. — Reporters Without Borders on Propaganda
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While my generated histories are still quite distinguishable from reality, we've already witnessed the significant progress that AI-generated images have made over the past few years. This might also improve, and we will probably soon reach a point where they are indistinguishable, even to the trained human eye.
It is somewhat scary in terms of historical misconceptions that still have an impact today and are still subjects of public debate. For instance, countries that have different views of the past or those that deny past misdeeds, using AI-generated images to support their claims or labeling genuine evidence of atrocities as fake and AI-produced. This misuse of technology could intensify existing conflicts, underscoring the urgency for effective regulation or clear labeling of such images as AI-generated to mitigate misinformation.