Artists in thematic section: Refik Anadol, Natalie Bookchin, Elisa Giardina Papa, Jennifer Lopez, Sheila Pinkel, Andrew Norman Wilson, Selections from the Keystone-Mast Collection

The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed the convergence of digital images and the internet as broadband connections proliferated and personal computers became increasingly affordable. As digital cameras gradually became integrated into everything “smart,” from handheld gaming devices to cell phones to cars, the result was an explosion of image making, image collecting, and image archiving. While images were collected and sorted into archives long before the digital age, contemporary image archives are home to billions of pictures and their corresponding metadata. These repositories have become training grounds for emerging artificial intelligence. Much like the early digital-imagery practitioners who laid the groundwork for the conventions, techniques, and complications of today’s media arts, artists working at the cusp of imaging technologies today are becoming conversant with the promises and perils of AI.