Third place in the jury vote and even first in the public vote at the 1839 Awards. It was then the author of the shot himself who revealed the deception: “I wanted to demonstrate that human content has not lost importance”
If Charlie Chaplin’s third place in a race involving his look-alikes is nothing more than an old urban legend, the same placing of a real photography to a award for images created with artificial intelligence vice versa, it is current news. At the center of the singular story is a shot nominated by its author, a real photographer known by the pseudonym of Miles Astrayin the «AI» category of 1839 Awards, an international competition launched just this year by an American organization called Creative Resource Collective. Titled «Flamingone», the snapshot immortalizes from the side a flamingo apparently without both a neck and a head, as if it were a funny ball of pink feathers with two very thin webbed legs.
Successful hoax
It goes without saying that at the time of the click the animal was just scratching its belly with its beak, but the undoubted bizarreness of the image ended up deceiving the members of the jurymade up of experts coming for example from New York Timesfrom Getty Images and the Christie’s auction house, as well as several art galleries. Result: bronze medal in the vote of the jury itself and even gold in that of the public. At that point Astray could have pretended nothing had happened and enjoyed the spotlight, but instead he wanted to make the truth known directly on his official website: «I entered this photo in the “AI” category of the 1839 Awards for demonstrate that human-made content has not lost its importance – he wrote –, that Mother Nature and her human interpreters can still beat machines and that Creativity and emotions mean more than just a string of digits».
The reply from the competition director
As expected, the revelation immediately led to the disqualification of the shot and to revocation of the two prizes. However, this did not stop the director of the 1839 Awards Lily Fierman to express appreciation for Astray’s message. In fact, the latter also said that he had received an email in which the woman hoped that the incident would lead to «awareness (and a sign of hope) to many photographers worried about artificial intelligence». Final comment from the interested party: «His words and his point of view on the issue have cheered me up more than all the press articles published since the news broke. I couldn’t have been more thrilled to know that we are on the same wavelength.”
The previous one (opposite)
Curiously, a episode of the opposite sign it occurred just last year at the Sony World Photography Awards, when the German artist Boris Eldagsen had won the «Creativity» category of the Open section only to then declare that his image had been created with the help of digital: «It is the first generated by artificial intelligence to win in a prestigious photography competition international – he announced –. How many of you knew or suspected? Something doesn’t add up, right? AI imagery and photography shouldn’t compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. Artificial intelligence is not photography. Therefore you will not accept the prize.” It cannot be ruled out that Astray took inspiration from him.
June 15, 2024 (changed June 15, 2024 | 1:52 pm)
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