Engine for the imagination? Visual generative media and the issue of representation

Abstract

Visual generative media represent a novel technology with the potential to mediate public perceptions of political events, conflicts, and wars. Seeking to understand a visual culture in which algorithms become integrated into human processes of memory mediatization, this study addresses representation in AI-generated war imagery. It frames AI image generation as a socio-technical practice at the nexus of humans, machines, and visual culture, challenging Silicon Valley’s prevailing narrative of visual AI as “an engine for the imagination.” Through a case study of AI images generated in response to verbal prompts about Russia’s war against Ukraine, I examine the representational capabilities and limitations of the text-to-image generator Midjourney. The findings suggest homogeneity of visual themes that foreground destruction and fighters, while overlooking broader contextual and cultural aspects of the Russia-Ukraine war, thus generalizing the depiction of this war to that of any war. This study advances the research agenda on critical machine vision as a transdisciplinary challenge situated at the interface of media and cultural studies, computer science, and discourse-analytic approaches to visual communication.