Photorealistic images generated by Generative Artificial Intelligence challenge established paradigms within visual culture and media studies. Although there is a plausible theoretical basis for evaluating such images through traditional theories of photographic representation, owing to formal pictorial resemblances and functional uses (Wasielewski, 2024, demonstrates), this perspective risks overlooking the opaque algorithmic processes and user-mediated refinements that co-produce AI imagery. Consequently, it fails to account for the critical interplay between algorithmic models and human agency. This paper addresses this theoretical limitation by outlining a process-oriented ontological framework for AI-generated photorealistic imagery, defining the boundaries of the medium not through static material components, but via the temporal event of its creation. The paper’s central claim is that AI photorealistic images constitute a distinct medium – named in this study “photo-promptography” – which operates through an algorithmic form of image reproduction: computational prediction arising from human interaction with a probabilistic model. Algorithmic reproduction departs from traditional pictorial reproduction since its images have no discrete prior source, but are generated through the probabilistic interactions between random noise, potentialities learned from training datasets, and the prompt of a human user. Under this framework, the photo-promptograph is conceptualized not as a static, stored file, but as an occurrence actualized within human-algorithmic interaction, exhibiting an ontology fundamentally distinct from that of photography. By demonstrating that the ontological anchor of the photo-promptograph is ultimately probabilistic and co-constituted through human-algorithmic interaction, the paper shifts the theoretical locus from the discrete media object to the process of its actualization.

Authors:
Alexandra Danzig, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

About the Presenter(s)
Alexandra Danzig is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on issues related to photography and visual culture. She is also an active artist and photographer.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-danzig-458a01219/

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