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photo_talks: What Moves You?
Fred Ritchin: The Synthetic Eye: Photography Transformed in the Age of AI
Fred Ritchin — one of the world’s leading authorities on the ethical issues within digital image-making — discusses his new book, The Synthetic Eye: Photography Transformed in the Age of AI, with journalist and artist Brian Palmer. The book is an essential investigation into the murky ethics of AI that calls into question the future of photography and explores how Artificial Intelligence has fundamentally transformed our sense of the real, the possible, and the actual. How can we believe or trust the images we are being shown? What role do photographers, the media, and technology companies have in upholding the authenticity of photographs? Can synthetic imagery be utilized to enhance our understanding of our world? The Synthetic Eye interrogates AI’s engagement with history, how it has changed our understanding of reality, and the positive opportunities and dystopian scenarios that lurk beneath the surface of artificially generated images. The Synthetic Eye: Photography Transformed in the Age of AI was published in the UK in February and will be released in the US on March 25.
Brian Palmer leads the conversation and the Q&A after the presentation.
Admission to this series is by donation, with all proceeds going to The Migrant Kitchen Initiative who provides thousands of healthy meals to people in need.
Fred Ritchin is a writer, educator and photography critic who is one of the world’s leading authorities on the ethical issues within digital image-making. Currently the Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP) School, Ritchin was also the founding director of the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism Program at the School of ICP. Prior to joining ICP, Ritchin was professor of photography and imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and co-director of the NYU/Magnum Foundation Photography and Human Rights educational program. He has worked as the picture editor of The New York Times Magazine (1978–1982) and executive editor of Camera Arts magazine (1982–1983). Ritchin’s previous publications include Bending The Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary and the Citizen and After Photography.
Brian Palmer is a visual journalist, writer, and artist based in Richmond, Virginia. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Richmond Free Press, and other publications; and on PBS, BBC, and Reveal. Palmer has exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, 1708 Gallery (a collaboration with Erin Hollaway Palmer), and other venues. His photographs are in the collections of the VMFA and Library of Congress. His current show at the VMFA with Susan Worsham, “Home/Grown,” features more than a decade’s worth of photographs from his time in the American South.
Palmer has taught at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Baruch College, Hampton University, and the School of Visual Arts (SVA), where he is a member of the Board of Directors. He is currently a visiting assistant professor of journalism at the University of Richmond.
Palmer has received several honors: a Peabody Award with fellow journalist Seth Wessler for their Reveal investigation into government funding of Confederate sites (2018), a George Gund Foundation photography commission (2020), Cassilhaus Artist Residency (2020), Persimmon Creek Artist Residency (2024), and Ford Foundation grant for Full Disclosure, his documentary about US Marines in Iraq (2008).