The Automation of Style: Seeing Photographically in Generative AI

In histories of photography, the notion of ‘seeing photographically’ is associated with so-called ‘straight’ photographers such as Edward Weston. It means to train the human-camera eye – to ‘previsualise’ – by conforming to the conditions of what Vilém Flusser calls the “photographic program”. At the same time, seeing photographically is a constant dynamic between a protean technical practice and aesthetic conventions or styles. This paper revisits the notion of seeing photographically to contextualise how notions of photographic style operate in generative imaging practices and AI discourse. We argue that since not only photorealism but the look of photographs from any period or style can be generated with the right combination of prompts and parameters, it has become possible to ‘previsualise’ and ‘see photographically’ by treating the history of photography as a style market. The concept of ‘style’, outdated in art history, becomes newly important and photography becomes a memory to be evoked in ahistorical stylistic evocations.