These artists are rebranding AI image generation with a new name

Almost two years ago, the Berlin-based artist Boris Eldagsen made the headlines after winning the prestigious Sony World Photography Award with an AI-generated image, then rejecting the award. “AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award,” he wrote on his website. In a separate statement made a week later, he added an important question: “But what is it?”

When AI image-generation programs like Midjourney and DALL-E went mainstream, people making images using AI jumped to the closest associations they had: “AI photography” or “AI-generated art.” But making an image using AI is a different process that deserves a different word. Eldagsen’s suggestion? “Promptography.”

Over the past few years, the word “promptography” has been slowly gaining traction. The hashtag #promptography has been used more than 80,000 times on Instagram. An increasing number of artists are now using it to tag images they make using AI. Some, like Montreal-based artist Stefanie Lefebvre or the Swedish artist Annika Nordenskiöld are even calling themselves “promptographers” on their Instagram bios. Here, we unpack the growing trend.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Peruvian photographer Christian Vince first coined the word “promptography” in a Facebook post following Eldagsen’s resignation from the Sony Award. As Vince recalls it, Eldagsen then reached out and asked him for permission to borrow the term. “I think it’s an appropriate term to define photorealistic images created with prompts,” says Vince.

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