Echoes

Echoes is a photographic project that interrogates the boundaries of authorship, perception, and representation in the digital age. In his trilogy of reportages on Havana, Tangier, and Hong Kong, the fictitious photographer Fidel Suftibonas presents images that are not recordings of reality, but algorithmic creations based on generative models.

The truth of photography, like that of places, is mystified through the processing of artificial intelligence. Each chapter dissolves the distinction between experience and mediation, blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction. The process yields a simulacrum—a statistical synthesis of the most recurrent visual traits in the collective imaginary of each city.

The project explores how the creation of images has detached from the physical act of photography, taking the form of a system of signs within an entirely simulated space.

By introducing a fictitious author into an AI-driven process, Echoes challenges the role of the photographer, the necessity of their presence to bear witness, and the bond of the image with its referent beyond its self-contained illusion.