FUTURE MANIFESTOS – Konferanse
DIGS, Krambugata 2 / 10. & 11. APRIL, 10:00 – 14:30
Gratis inngang.
Kurator: Zane Cerpina
Style Is Easy. Meaning Is Not. – The Future of Creativity as Collaboration Between Humans & AI
Numerous studies claim that AI now rivals humans in creativity. What they rarely clarify is what creativity actually means. Without a definition, such claims collapse into marketing slogans.
In this talk, Boris Eldagsen reframes the debate by treating AI not as a tool or an autonomous creator, but as a team member with a radically different cognitive profile. Creativity, he argues, does not disappear in collaboration with AI—it mutates. And with it, roles, responsibilities, and authorship must be renegotiated.
Drawing on established creativity theories, Eldagsen shows how creative labor can be meaningfully distributed between humans and AI: who explores, who decides, who carries responsibility, who takes the risk, and who merely simulates it. AI excels at structural variation, pattern recombination, and speed; humans remain indispensable where judgment, intention, ethical weight, and cultural accountability are required.
The focus is not on replacing artists, but on designing workflows: how teams can integrate AI as a collaborator without surrendering agency, how friction can be used productively, and why “prompting” is closer to mixology than authorship. Like bartenders, AI artists don’t invent ingredients—they combine, balance, and serve. The difference is that the drink still needs someone willing to stand behind it.
The talk concludes with concrete implications for art education and creative professions: if AI becomes a permanent member of the team, then training must shift from producing images to orchestrating processes, from mastering tools to mastering decisions.
Boris Eldagsen [DE]
Boris Eldagsen (1970) studied Fine Arts and Philosophy in Cologne, Mainz, Prague, and Hyderabad. Since 2000, his photographic and media-based work has been exhibited and awarded internationally at institutions and festivals, including ACP Sydney, EMAF Osnabrück, New Media Scotland, Kochi–Muziris Biennale, Biennale Le Havre, and the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth. He received awards at Voies Off Arles and FORMAT Festival Derby.
Since 2023, Eldagsen’s AI-generated work has been presented by international galleries such as Ravestijn Amsterdam, SETAREH Berlin, and Expanded.Art (Berlin) – as well as festivals including the AI Biennale Essen, Pingyao International Photography Festival, IPMA Kaunas, PHOTO 2024 Melbourne, and the ELEKTRA Digital Art Biennale Montréal. His work has also been shown in museums, including the California Museum of Photography, BACC Bangkok, and Jupiter Art Museum Shenzhen.
Since 2004, Eldagsen has taught the theory of ideas and creativity at international art academies, including the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne), Kunsthochschule Mainz, Filmakademie Ludwigsburg, and Pathshala Media Institute Dhaka. He has additionally held workshops and lectures at more than 40 universities and art schools worldwide, as well as at numerous Goethe-Institutes. At the end of 2022, he was among the first artists to offer professional workshops on AI-generated images and has since trained hundreds of art directors, designers, photographers, artists, editors, and professors. He currently teaches the Master program “AI for Creatives” at LABASAD – Barcelona School of Art & Design.
In April 2023, his refusal of the Sony World Photography Awards triggered a global debate on the relationship between photography and AI-generated images, which he terms “promptography.” He was described as 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 called “the picture that stopped the world” (The Guardian). Eldagsen is a regular speaker at international conferences and events, including TEDx, re:publica, Medientage München, FAZ AI Conference, the World AI Conference Shanghai, and C2 Montréal.
In 2025, he served as a jury member for the Ars Electronica Award and the Tezos Photography Award.
He has curated exhibitions on the distinction between photography and promptography, including RIVALS (European Month of Photography Berlin) and PSYCHOPOMP! for the inauguration of the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography in Johannesburg.
Boris lives and works in Berlin.
