Paula Gortázar presented her paper ´Generative Photographic Spaces: A Pixel-perfect Thrill’ at the conference How Humans and Machines See the World, organised by the Digital Humanities Department at King’s College London. Participating speakers discussed the cultural and technical interlacing between human perception and machine vision.

Paula’s presentation explored the intriguing parallels between gaming and photography, a connection born from a mutual sense of adventure rooted in perceptual experiences. The essay delves into the historical link between photography and human adventure, emphasising the role of the camera in encouraging exploration and risk-taking. The use of generative image systems and their unexpected outcomes becomes a focal point, examining the intersection of human imagination and machine-generated visuals. Drawing inspiration from early text-based video games, the study highlights the interactive nature of generative-image platforms and their resemblance to gaming interfaces. The latter part of the paper anticipates the potential convergence of generative AI and gaming, envisioning a future where users can create their own generative photographic spaces.