TIPTOEING AROUND THE VOID – 42 Francis Bacons vs. 8 Ais

In this five-minute chapter of the video series AI ART RANTS, Boris Eldagsen stages a confrontation between the existential brutality of Francis Bacon and the frictionless logic of contemporary AI image generation.

For Bacon, art is mortality made visible—flesh aware of its end. For the machine, distortion is effect without risk.

Forty-two Bacons collide with eight AIs in a hall of mirrors where authorship dissolves: script, images, animation, and sound are all co-produced with AI. The critique of the machine is written by the machine.

The film asks: What becomes of art when mortality is removed? And what happens to the artist when even the scream is co-authored by code?

Boris Eldagsen (*1970) studied Fine Arts and Philosophy in Cologne, Mainz, Prague, and Hyderabad.

Since 2000, his photographic and media art has been exhibited and awarded at international institutions and festivals, including Deichtorhallen Hamburg, CCP Melbourne, ACP Sydney, EMAF Osnabrück, Edinburgh Art Festival, FORMAT Festival Derby, Noorderlicht Groningen, Chobi Mela Dhaka, Singapore International Photography Festival, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Biennale Le Havre and Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth. Boris has been awarded at ‘Voies Off’ Arles and ‘FORMAT’ Festival Derby.

Since 2023 his AI-generated work was shown by international galleries such as Ravestijn Gallery Amsterdam, SETAREH Gallery Berlin, Marion Gallery Panama, Palmer Gallery London, Expanded-Art Berlin, festivals like AI Biennale Essen, Pingyao International Photography Festival, IPMA Kaunas, PHOTO 2024 Melbourne, ELEKTRA Digital Art Biennal Montréal –  and in museums such as California Museum of Photography, BACC Bangkok, Jupiter Art Museum Shenzhen.

Since 2004, he has been teaching the theory of ideas and creativity at international art academies such as the Victorian College of the Arts / Melbourne University, Kunsthochschule Mainz, Filmakademie Ludwigsburg, and Pathshala Media Institute Dhaka. In addition, he has held workshops and presentations for 40 universities and art schools worldwide, as well as nearly a dozen Goethe-Institutes.

As one of the first, he began offering workshops on AI-generated images at the end of 2022 and has since taught hundreds of art directors, designers, photographers, artists, image editors, and professors the essential AI knowledge. He is currently teaching the master “AI for Creatives” at LABASAD – Barcelona School of Art & Design.

Boris is one of the few internationally recognized experts in AI-generated images and videos and is a regular guest at panel discussions and events such as TEDx, re:publica, Handelsblatt Centillion Summit, Medientage München, FAZ AI Conference, World AI Conference Shanghai and C2 Montréal.

His refusal of the Sony World Photo Awards in April 2023 triggered a global debate on the relationship between photography and AI-generated images (“promptography”). He was called the “poster boy of the AI debate” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), “the man who lifted the lid on Pandora’s box” (The Age), and his image “PSEUDOMNESIA | The Electrician” was described as “the picture that stopped the world” (The Guardian), becoming a symbol of a new era.

He is an appointed member of Germany’s two oldest photography associations, DFA and DGPh, and a founding member of the AI working group of the German Photographic Council, the umbrella organization of over 40 photography associations and institutions in Germany. For the Council, he produces a monthly AI podcast. Additionally, he has been a guest on nearly 50 podcasts.

In 2025, he was a jury member for the Ars Electronica Award in Linz and TEZOS Photography Award.

He also curated two exhibitions on the difference between photography and promptography: “RIVALS” for the European Month of Photography Berlin and “PSYCHOPOMP!” for the inauguration of the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography in Johannesburg / South Africa.

Boris lives and works in Berlin.