CECI TUERA CELA – Chimères du Réel, solo exhibition at La Chapelle de Clairefontaine

Solo exhibition from 3 June to 3 September 2023

• inauguration from 2 – 6 pm on June 3rd

• round table discussion on AI at 5 pm with Gaspard Koenig, Helga Rouyer and Baudoin Lebon

La Chapelle – centre d’art contemporain
12 Impasse de l’Abbaye
78120 Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines

Ceci Tuera Cela – Chimères du réel
(This Will Kill That – Hallucinations of Veracity)

Can photography still bear witness to reality in the age of AI? How are relentless waves of technology impacting our lives and our relationship to the photographic image? How have automation, hyper-connectivity and artificial intelligence altered our perception of reality and veracity?

In 1832, in a chapter titled “This Will Kill That” of his novel Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo wrote about technological upheaval and how the printed book had replaced the monument. A century later, the photographer revives this line of questioning. What are we gaining and what have we lost as we plunge headlong into the digital revolution?

The show features a retrospective of more than a decade of Tomas van Houtryve’s work that examines the changing place of photography in our lives, from drone surveillance to social networks to Artificial Intelligence.

Read the review of the show by Beaux Arts.