The Negotiated Image: AI, Art, and the Unsettling of Photography

Abstract

This thesis examines how relevant social groups negotiate the artistic legitimacy of photorealistic AI-generated imagery within contemporary photographic practice. Guided by the central research question, How do the intersecting views of artists, photographers, curators, and critics contribute to legitimating photorealistic AI-generated imagery as an authentic art form?, the study employed a qualitative design consisting of eleven semi-structured interviews with traditional photographers, producers of photorealistic AI-generated imagery, curators, and a critic. Interpreted through a Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) lens, the findings suggest that artistic legitimacy is negotiated through overlapping understandings of photography, authorship, artistic labour, intentionality, institutional recognition, and broader ethical concerns, rather than any singular technical, aesthetic, or ontological criterion. By focusing on photorealistic AI-generated imagery, this study advances ongoing debates concerning the place of such imagery within photography and contemporary artistic practice by demonstrating how these images complicate conventional distinctions between photography, digital image-making, and computational media.