Elena Efeoglou

HE, VH, NJ, AR: To start our conversation, we would like to ask what significance do archives have for your artistic practice?

EE: Nowadays, with artificial intelligence, digital art, social media, and multimedia art, everything seems to be going back to the core of the image, information, and truth. Archives therefore often become special sources of creative expression in contemporary art, and the program Artist Meets Archive works as a model of communication between archives and the public through artistic practices.

I began working with archives during my PhD, focusing on photography from the Greek Civil War. My research concentrated on photography produced by amateur and professional photographers in that period. My aim was to detect the relationships between the opposing forces of the civil war that shaped the photographic production, implementing a cross-check process based on equal research techniques that involve iconography, iconology, and discourse analysis.

Working with archives and institutions in general is not always easy. Institutions use a combination of factors to determine what is worth preserving in the archives, including the significance or variety of the material and its cultural relevance within the given time or society it is placed in. And these decisions often reflect broader societal values and biases. Certain topics or perspectives might be prioritized over others, and some voices or images may be overlooked or missing entirely.

I believe that archives and institutions in general can also benefit from an artistic perspective. We, as artists, can improve our work by incorporating research methods, while on the other hand, archival researchers can benefit from an artist’s creative perspective to uncover new interpretations and connections. This can lead to a strengthening of the bridge between historical understanding and artistic expression. With a richer understanding of the subject, material, and the artist, we can uncover hidden meanings and alternative interpretations within archival material.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: As part of the residency program Artists Meet Archive of Internationale Photoszene Köln you have worked with the holdings of Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur. To what extent did this collection influence or inspire your work?

EE: During the open call for Artist Meets Archive #4, you could submit a specific proposal to one institution. You had to choose the institution from the beginning. This was quite a challenge for me because at that time, not all the participating institutions had their collections available online. But when I visited the website of Die Photographische Sammlung, it was in the blink of an eye that I said: This is the institution that I want to work with. I was very excited about the idea that this institution picked me as a collaborator, as an artist.

While doing research in the archive, I was very impressed by the glass negatives of August Sander’s photographs. Especially the handmade interventions into the negatives that are quite visible. I actually wanted to focus on the fragile negatives, but I realized it was very difficult to handle them. So, I focused on the printed material.
I remember one thing: When I studied Sander’s People of the 20th Century, I recalled seeing this book in the movie Wings of Desire [Der Himmel über Berlin] by Wim Wenders. There was a scene with a man reading that book in a big library [Staatsbibliothek Berlin on Potsdamer Platz], and a voice-over was saying: “If mankind once loses its storyteller, then it will lose its childhood”. And this was something I felt very deeply when I sat in Die Photographische Sammlung, holding the same book in my hands.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: Speaking of August Sander, we would like to know why did you choose him and what is your relation to him? Can you elaborate on this decision?

EE: August Sander's work was already familiar to me during my studies in art history and photography. I admired his portraits and wanted to explore them further. I conducted extensive research, looked at nearly all the images from his People of the 20th Century series, and read numerous articles on his work.

What fascinated me most was the connection between photography and storytelling. Sander was a visual storyteller, portraying society through a structured typology – from farmers and craftsmen to artists and intellectuals. His classification was not about exclusion but about providing a comprehensive representation of society. While people today are often categorized based on economic factors and ethnicity, Sander focused on professions rather than ethnic backgrounds.

A key aspect for me is that his portraits do not emphasize individual identity but rather the image itself. Names are rarely included; instead, the photographer’s gaze takes precedence over personal identity. Philosophically, Sander leans more toward nominalism than realism – depicting people as representatives of social groups and highlighting the power of categorization and labels.

His photographs are not just historical documents but also open a space for new narratives. By engaging with his archive, I explore new perspectives through storytelling and AI. I am not repeating a historical narrative; I am inventing fiction. Thus, my texts and images do not establish a historical reality, but rather a "generated past." This allows for the creation of subjective memories that go beyond the archive, encouraging critical reflection on representation and truth.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: How did you come up with the idea of using AI as a tool for creating new images in your artwork?

EE: AI was the final step. The first step was to envision the narratives surrounding these depicted individuals and to create imaginary stories about their lives. While exploring the archive, I found myself wondering what a day in their lives might have been like. I was curious to know if there were other photographs of them. I wondered how they might appear in different images, considering they have gained fame through Sanders’s photographs. I was intrigued to see how they would look in other contexts. Using AI, I try to create these other photographs that place these individuals in different contexts and backgrounds. By creating narratives around the lives of those portrayed, using fictional stories and AI-generated images, I trace the impact of these historical photographs.

I try to fill the archive with new visions and observations and at the same time to reflect on the narrative potential of the photographs and Artificial Intelligence across different media. I am applying AI to propose innovative methods of completing, rewriting and reinterpreting historical data. Using images generated by AI, the exhibition seeks to provoke questions about the gaps in historical records and in archives in general.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: Were the results of the AI surprising or satisfying for you?

EE: There were certainly challenges along the way, and I admit that some of the results were absurd and, at times, quite funny. The process wasn't simple, as I wanted to explore how Sander composed his portraits and how I could bring a similar approach to my work. I aimed for the images to embody a particular aesthetic, evoking the atmosphere of that era, while also relating to the objects of that time.

For me, what happened during the process of producing images with AI remained hidden. This 'black box' operates with a set of parameters and employs algorithms that learn from extensive image data to generate new images. Of course, there have been many unexpected results, as AI often generates stereotypical and idealized images.

What intrigues me, though, is how these outputs challenge conventional ideas of artistry. The AI, while trained on data, doesn't inherently understand context or nuance like a human would; this creates a fascinating tension between the artist's intentions and the machine's interpretation. I'm approaching this process as an artist, so the entire journey has been quite surprising for me.

Any criticism we discuss today should focus on the ‘black box’ – the AI's output and the processes happening inside that box. Throughout this process, AI will continue to generate increasingly perfect images. In the future we will probably struggle to distinguish between what is real and what is generated by artificial intelligence. In this context, archives and archival institutions may become the only places where we could find the truth, we could find true images. This, perhaps, is the value of archives and institutions.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: Is your personal style and creative process affected or even displaced by AI?

EE: I am not an AI artist. I work with multimedia tools, with text, video and archival material. I have an artistic and research background in painting, in photography, in documentary, and in visual anthropology. Fortunately, I don't have to rely creatively on artificial intelligence. I certainly don't feel that AI displaced me.

Let ‘s wonder: Has photography displaced painting? When photography first emerged, Baudelaire said that it was art's most mortal enemy. But painting is a very unique creative process. Has digital photography displaced analog photography? No. And today, during this AI boom, we are going back to analog processes. We work with all the media.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: What do you think about the role of the author when working with AI?

EE: Creating content today, within the history of contemporary art, involves recombining and reinterpreting existing elements. There has been a long-standing debate about authorship, raising questions about the nature of originality and authorship. This phenomenon is further complicated by the emergence of AI technologies that can generate music, images, and text, blurring the lines between human and machine creativity. A complex picture emerges when it comes to copyright and authorship. Some countries already have copyright laws addressing AI, others are working on it.

There is always someone – a real person – behind artificial intelligence, who provides it with some data and collaborates with algorithms. But what will happen when artificial intelligence no longer needs any human to create art in general or to write books in general? If an artwork is produced by a computer without a human creator behind the work, then we cannot truly talk about authorship any longer. Maybe now we are actually training the algorithms to create art without us, without human innovation. This is something we should question more thoroughly, because the crucial moment will come when AI no longer needs us to create. Of course, how the art spaces, galleries, museums, and artists will react to this remains to be seen. So, everything is not very clear, but maybe it's too early to talk about these things.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: What are you most excited about regarding your exhibition?

EE: I hope to see you all at the exhibition – it will be a great opportunity to discuss these ideas further. My goal is to bring the photographs from the archive to life by integrating fictional elements and offering new ways to interpret them. By moving beyond mere categorization and engaging with the imagined stories behind these portraits, I want to give the people in the archive a more personal presence. My aim is to highlight the human condition through a dynamic interplay of images and text.

Ultimately, I hope this fictional approach will inspire researchers and visitors alike to explore the real stories behind these individuals. And if no one uncovers them, perhaps AI will do so in the end.

HE, VH, NJ, AR: Thank you for the fascinating insights into your work! We truly appreciate the opportunity to learn more about it. Attending the exhibition will be a pleasure, and we wish you great success with it.

The interview was conducted online in English on 20 February 2025.

Elena Efeoglou's exhibition "Blurring Reality and Fiction – August Sander meets AI" at Photoszene-Festival 2025