Fig. 1. 2044 (Series) by Jeremy Sandel. Image courtesy of the artist.
The breaking dawn and neon glow of skyscrapers cast a kaleidoscope of colors on Maharlika Manila. Hover taxis zip past, their drivers effortlessly navigating the skylanes with the aid of a copilot maneuvering system. Despite the invention of the floating cars (by United States President Elon Musk’s almighty Tesla), there is still the dominant rumble of jeepneys, their sides cleverly fitted with LED advertisements and political slogans. The colorful and classic workhorses, championed by a powerful drivers’ union and perpetuated by the government’s on-and-off stance on modernization, persist on the megacity’s chaotic streets as a symbol of resilience and the human spirit’s refusal to be entirely digitized.
In this ultra-urban sprawl lives Mikha, a photographer with a shock of red and blue hair that rival the appeal of the Philippine flag. Gone are the days of dusty frames and bulky albums filled with fading prints. Mikha’s area of specialization, in the digital age of hyper-realistic AI imagery, is being the guardian of authenticity. XiaoBao, the Chinese state-sponsored media company that now owns Adobe, has unleashed an all-out revolution with the launch of its Photoshop Nirvana software. The line between real and fabricated has been blurred more than ever. Social media, currently under the virtual reality realm of NVIDIA’s Metaspace, is flooded with AI masterpieces : breathtaking landscapes, hauntingly flawless portraits, uncannily decisive street photos – all churned out by algorithms with ridiculous ease.
Prime Minister Sandro Marcos, fresh off a controversial parliamentary victory over then-rural development minister Alice Guo-Duterte, had even used Nirvana-generated photos to bolster his campaign, much to the chagrin of artists but defended by contemporary content producers. Perhaps as a way to appease the public and repair his image, the third-generation Marcos head-of-state has made art authentication a national priority. As a short-term result, the value of real, human-crafted work has skyrocketed, a stark contrast to the devaluation of AI-manufactured pieces.
Mikha’s day job is with the Philippine Veritas Authority, a recently-established agency tasked with certifying works of art as authentic or computer-made. Working in the high-tech environment nestled among the chrome and glass buildings of Ayala Quadrangle, she sorts through the digital deluge of images as a government-accredited Photorealist, separating the genuine from the generated. Scrutinizing every detail, from the way light falls on a subject to the graininess of an image, is a meticulous process that she tackles with her sharp skills and unwavering integrity. She utilizes a combination of her trained eye and a sophisticated software jointly-developed by the unlikeliest of partners : Kyojin, a merger of camera giants Canon and Nikon, and the very reason they combined to stay relevant against, the fast-rising Indian imaging company Aasha. Waiting on her workstation, Mikha’s first assignment of the day is to dissect a series of landscape photographs that an advertising agency is planning to serialize for a tourism campaign. Are the photos of the renowned Banaue rice terraces, supposedly captured in Ifugao, the product of a camera lens or an algorithm?
Fig. 2. 2044 (Series) by Jeremy Sandel. Image courtesy of the artist.
Her next appointment takes her to the National Museum of Arts and Media. Here, amidst the masterpieces of Luna, Amorsolo, Brocka, and Librodo, Mikha conducts a workshop for aspiring photorealists. Tucked away in a renovated Intramuros building, she teaches students how to become so-called “pixel seers”. They learn to discern the subtle inconsistencies that betray AI’s brushstrokes - the unnatural bend of a palm tree, the impossible stillness of a waterfall, the odd perfection of a sunset or human skin. Mikha’s classroom buzzed with the energy of young artists yearning for creative veracity. The teacher flashed an image on the holographic projector - a breathtaking Taal sunset, its fiery colors mirrored by a school of flying fish. She declared, “This, class, is a fabrication. See the unnatural uniformity of the fishes? As they swim, real schools swirl and shimmer, each fish with a unique reflection of the light, not at the exact same spot in all of them. Nature is messy and unpredictable, but beautiful in its imperfections.” A murmur of understanding rippled through the class. These students, raised on a diet of AI-provided perfection, craved the rawness of a real sunset, the tide-tousled disarray of a nature scene. Mikha’s lessons aren’t just about authentication; they are about preserving the experience of human existence. Real photographs, captured with an artist’s eye and the play of light and shadow, are now coveted treasures. Her students, the future artists of the digital world, have started to wield their cameras like brushes. They have ventured into the bustling streets of Neo-Binondo, capturing the vibrant chaos of street food vendors and the quiet dignity of an old woman selling incense and flowers. They have learned to see the beauty in the real, to feel the fleeting moments that AI could never replicate.
A young girl named Dani lingered after class, her brow furrowed in deep thought. “Miss Mikha,” she approaches, “what if the computers get so good that even you can’t tell?” Mikha smiled, the warmth and surprise of an introspective question reaching her eyes. “Then, Dani,” she replies, “the burden falls on us, the artists. We capture the life of a moment. The soul that shines through a genuine photograph is something no algorithm can ever forge.”
Fig. 3. 2044 (Series) by Jeremy Sandel. Image courtesy of the artist.
As the day waned, Mikha finds herself back in her cramped condominium, reviewing photos submitted for certification. A stab of envy strikes her - a photo of pastel skies in a pristine beach, so perfect it could have been ripped from a fantasy. Yet a closer look reveals the telltale signs of the algorithm. With a heavy heart, she marks it as “AI”. The fight for authenticity is a constant struggle, but Mikha knows it is worth it. In a digital domain saturated with art and artifice, the ability to discern is a superpower. In a world overflowing with pixels, the human touch remains a priceless treasure. And as Maya drifts off to sleep, the faint glow of the Manila sunset, a testament to the enduring beauty of the real, casts a warm light on her dreams.
June 2024
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