Copy of a Copy

(Contact Sheets)

„Copy of a Copy” is a series of large contact sheets. Each one looks like an old-fashioned proof sheet which was used in the film-photography analog times — black, with perforations and numbers, showing 42 small images arranged neatly in a grid.

But these images were not taken with a camera. They were created entirely by artificial intelligence (AI).

The AI started with just one carefully written text prompt. This prompt searched through a huge collection of images and produced hundreds of very similar versions of the same scene. Each contact sheet is made from that single prompt.

The pictures repeat over and over again. They look almost identical, but none of them is exactly the same. This constant, obsessive repetition is the real subject of the work. It shows how something can look like variety, even though it’s really the same thing copying itself again and again. Just as in propaganda, where the constant repetition of a message makes people believe it is true — regardless of its relation to reality — these images slowly seduce the viewer into accepting them. You feel drawn in, even as your eyes get tired.

Even when you know it’s all made up and fake, your mind still fights over the fact that none of the pictures are real or grounded in any actual reality. Your brain keeps trying to believe in them, to find truth or substance where there is none, creating a strange internal struggle between knowledge and perception.

Synthography (AI-generated images) is already a copy of photography. Traditional analog photography was once seen as a direct copy of reality. And on a contact sheet, every photo is a copy of the one next to it. Here, we have 42 versions of a moment that never actually happened. None of the people in the images ever existed. Nothing shown ever took place. It is all pure imitation — a perfect illusion.

Each contact sheet also includes a short poetic text. This text doesn’t explain the pictures. Instead, it adds a dreamy, emotional layer that deepens the feeling of the images.

The result is an unsettling but beautiful tension: the warm, nostalgic feel of old analog contact sheets meets the smooth, flawless perfection of AI images. In that gap between the two, you feel desire, doubt, and a quiet sadness for something that has been lost.

It is a tribute to the original. A beautiful fake. A reflection on repetition, emptiness, and our deep longing for something real. And maybe — hidden somewhere in all these endless copies — there is still a small trace of soul.

Medium: Digital Collage / Synthography, 2026

Edition of 1 (Each image is a unique, one-of-a-kind work).

Size: 165 × 132 cm / 65x52in

Hand-signed and dated by the artist.

Ongoing project.