POSTREALISM AS A NEW SURREALISM
1. AI as new material in the history of photography
In my various series artificial intelligence (AI) is used not only as a technical tool, but as a new creative material in the history of photography. Traditionally, every technological innovation in photography, from the daguerreotype to digital photography, has made it possible to capture and retranscribe reality in an increasingly precise way. However, with AI, the dynamic changes: instead of simply reproducing reality, it generates images from a vast database of visual data accumulated over decades on the Internet. This informational material is immaterial, but it enables us to recreate the world by drawing on thousands of visual fragments from digital culture.
AI doesn't capture moments like a camera; it reconstructs reality from existing data. These images are no longer simply witnesses to reality, but visual hypotheses, representations that emerge from the analysis of millions of images, texts and videos shared online. This process of interpretation and algorithmic generation creates algorithmic matter, which becomes malleable and transformable at will. Unlike traditional photographic techniques, AI offers an infinite range of possibilities by modifying parameters, generating results that are sometimes unpredictable, offering unbridled expression of the imagination. This ability to transcend observable reality gives AI a creative role that is unprecedented in the history of photography. We no longer document reality, but reinvent it, giving rise to a new form of amplified realism, where each image is a synthesis of hundreds of points of view and digital moments.
2. The concept of Collective Unconsciousness
My “Inconscience Collective” projects are based on a fusion of the concepts of collective consciousness (Émile Durkheim) and the collective unconscious (Carl Jung), applied to our digital age. Today, the Internet, social networks and modern technologies constantly connect individuals to a mass of information and ideas, creating a form of collective hyperconsciousness. Yet far from enlightening us, this overabundance of information contributes to a dissociation between individuals and major global crises, particularly ecological and social ones. We are both informed and disconnected from reality, absorbed by digital distractions.
The term “collective unconsciousness” refers to this paradoxical situation where, despite access to an infinite amount of knowledge, humanity often seems detached, passive or even indifferent to the catastrophes unfolding before our eyes. This state of cognitive dissonance, where individuals know but choose not to act, is reinforced by digital tools that amplify both collective awareness and its fragmentation. Social networking algorithms, in particular, create echo chambers that isolate individuals in filtered realities, cutting them off from real global issues. Collective unconsciousness 2.0 is therefore the expression of a humanity that is globally aware of the challenges it faces, but incapable of adopting a coherent collective response.
This concept lies at the heart of my project, where AI-generated images reflect this contemporary alienation. The archetypes and symbols that emerge from the algorithms, drawn from billions of human experiences, form a kind of new collective unconscious shaped by decades of digital exchanges. The images I create, in collaboration with AI, reveal this fragmented collective consciousness, marked by absorption in entertainment and inaction in the face of global crises.
3. My post-realist approach: towards a new surrealism in the post-truth era
The post-realism I propose lies at the crossroads of surrealism and algorithmic post-truth. Where traditional surrealism sought to liberate the imaginary through psychic automatism, the “post-realism” I propose is built through a confrontation between the artist's psychic automatism and the algorithmic automatism of artificial intelligence. This fusion produces a new kind of realism, distorted and amplified by masses of digital information, generating images that are both phantasmatic and fragmented.
In this context, AI acts as a creative force, operating according to rules that sometimes escape human intentionality. The prompts I submit to the AI to generate images are like fragments of an exquisite cadaver, where chance and the unexpected play a fundamental role. The algorithm produces unpredictable visions, visual jellies where symbols merge into one another, blurring the boundary between the real and the imaginary. Post-realism” is thus a distorting mirror of our times: it captures and amplifies the signs of post-truth, where facts merge with illusions, and images, though hyper-realistic, reveal a hybrid reality, both true and fictional.
This new surrealism takes a critical look at how technology influences our perception of reality. It captures the multiplicity of realities in the digital age, integrating visual fragments from billions of individual experiences to produce alternative realities. This post-realism is not a simple imitation of reality, but a representation of reality as it is reconstructed by algorithms and collective data.
4. Collective unconsciousness as a quest for contemporary mythology
Beyond its aesthetic implications, the "post-realism" I develop is profoundly political. Like post-war Surrealism, which used art to denounce the oppressions and alienation of modern societies, my project seeks to reveal the archetypes and symbols that define our age, which is in crisis in the face of global challenges such as climate change, technological alienation and over-consumption.
In this context, artificial intelligence plays a key role: it becomes the mirror of our hyper-mediatized and alienated society. The images generated by AI, fed by masses of collective information, resurrect contemporary mythologies, underlying narratives that unite humanity in the face of an uncertain future. My project seeks not only to reflect these narratives, but to reinvent them by creating a new algorithmic material that reveals the crises of our time.
The post-realism I propose acts as a tool for critiquing and reflecting on major contemporary issues. It uses the symbols and archetypes of collective consciousness 2.0 to propose a hybrid mythology, where reality and fiction, human and machine, action and inaction, are intertwined. This post-realist art questions the crisis of collective consciousness in the face of ecological catastrophes, technological drift, and the collapse of social and political systems. Through the images I generate, I express a committed mythology that reveals the collective unconscious of our humanity in decline, and calls for a new form of awareness in the face of the challenges we face.
5. In search of a claiming monstrosity
In my “Inconscience Collective” project, artificial intelligence becomes a fundamental tool for exploring and revealing a queer, hybrid and monstrous imaginary. My milieu, imbued with gender fluidity and physical metamorphoses, is at the forefront of a rebellion against fixed social norms that attempt to limit bodies and identities. The hybrid beings I come into contact with, whose appearances are in constant transformation, inspire a quest for monstrosity with a claim, echoing the reflections of Paul B. Preciado. He speaks of “monstrosity” as a powerful statement of rebellion against oppressive social structures, a way of assuming and celebrating transformation, indeterminacy and fluidity.
AI, in this context, becomes a mirror of this perpetual metamorphosis. As a tool that functions through the infinite succession of hybridizations, it possesses a unique capacity to generate new forms, from visual archives and algorithms that are not subject to binary or normative logics. AI, like the queer and gender fluid movements, deconstructs fixed categories, encouraging the emergence of hybrid, strange and unsettling visual beings that are constantly transforming themselves.
This process of algorithmic generation allows me to plunge into an imaginary world where the monster takes on a philosophical dimension, a being at once freed from biological and social structures, and capable of reconfiguring reality. AI becomes an extension of queer research, a tool for creating a world where monstrosity is synonymous with freedom and reclamation. It is precisely this world of contemporary mythological monsters that I seek to unveil in “Inconscience Collective”. Here, monsters are metaphors for resistance, liberating figures who refuse to accept fixed definitions of gender, body and identity.
By using AI to generate images, I am part of a quest for reinvention, where bodies and identities become malleable, merging, fragmenting and recomposing in an infinite process. Paul B. Preciado sees monstrosity not as an anomaly, but as a political power: the power to transform reality by confronting it with its own contradictions and limits. In the same way, through AI, I seek to unveil forms that, far from being “abnormal”, express the diversity and multiplicity of human possibilities, a space where the queer body becomes a work in perpetual transformation.
In this way, “Inconscience Collective” is not just an artistic project; it is a philosophical exploration of the potential that AI and the queer imaginary have to offer. By generating images that reveal these digital monsters, I propose a reflection on how AI can be a catalyst for new visual and political narratives, where monstrosity is revalued and celebrated, just as Preciado does in his work. This project then becomes a space where otherness and deviance are not only possible, but essential to redefining the contours of identity and reality in the digital age.