This presumption plays, for example, a significant role in the broader landscape of fake news in contemporary society. Similarly, it remains a fundamental element in the assessment of photography within documentary practices.

When we consider images created or altered by artificial intelligence in the context of fake news, their falsehood lies in a form of forgery that presents itself as if it were the Real and the Truth, aiming to deceive, manipulate, and confuse. The impact of these falsification practices plays a crucial role in analyses of contemporary electoral systems and climate denialism, characterized by alternating between denying the existence of the crisis and discrediting potential solutions.

In photography, the use of AI-generated images for street and documentary photography has sparked significant controversy, particularly around the notion that AI could never truly produce these types of photographs, as they rely on the spontaneous emergence of scenes in the world. I agree that AI-generated images do not belong to this genre and that their use should always be explicitly disclosed. However, the defense of documentary photography often leans on a notion of "purity," which reinforces the idea of photography as an "objective" practice capable of revealing "how things really are." By separating documentary practice from any creative dimension, this perspective overlooks the complexity of the relations and choices that the act of making an image involves.

Bringing Forth Machine

Since its inception, photography has been associated with the idea of offering unequivocal and objective proof of reality. As Susan Sontag [2] observes, unlike other handmade visual forms such as painting or drawing, photographic images are seen not as acts of creation but as miniaturized fragments of the world. This perception stems from the belief that the camera autonomously records objects and people, capturing their contours through the incidence of light, and from the resemblance between the photograph and its referent. In this way, photographs are regarded as testimonies—indisputable evidence that something existed in a world prior to their "capture."

The immediate link between photography and reality—viewing it as 'transparent' or as a 'mirror' of the real—has been increasingly challenged, both in photographic practice and theoretical and conceptual discussions. Even so, the assumption of truthfulness that lends authority to photographic images [3] continues to be a central element in many contemporary contexts.

In this context, the epistemological and political risk lies in the consequences of deceptive practices: false news presented as Truth and artificially generated photography that is not disclosed as such. However, in documentary practices, the risk also extends to the call for a return to a Truth-of-the-real - a rigid notion of reality as fixed and unchanging. As Eco [4] noted in another context of falsification, this could lead to a "very puritanical ethics of truth," where an army of "truth fanatics" might emerge, treating even the use of figurative language with suspicion.

That said, I emphasize that the rupture I propose with notions of the Real and Truth neither denies the reality of things nor reduces the world to a mere parade of simulacra [5]. It is essential here to distinguish between the photographic "realism" I critique—the belief that photography reveals "the truth of things" [6]—and the recognition of the material reality of photographed bodies, which enact their existences with and through the photographic image, generating "truths" in this process .

The Platonic idea of Truth as something timeless and immutable has profoundly shaped art, philosophy, and science, steering the pursuit of foundations, universal essences, and permanent structures. This conception of "Truth" has also underpinned regimes of power, legitimizing themselves by presenting as fixed and unquestionable forms. My critique of the idea of Truth neither denies the existence of truths nor implies that any content could be considered true. Instead, following Deleuze [7], I focus on the very form of Truth itself. For Deleuze, Truth is not something to be discovered or attained; it is always created as part of a process unfolding in time. This holds even for what, in Western society, is perceived as given, such as nature. If it is true that it is raining, for instance, it is because natural forces have created specific atmospheric conditions that result in rain at that particular moment and place [8]. In this sense, every Truth is always the outcome of a creative process.

But then, how do we proceed when we cannot accept a generalized relativism that claims "everything can be true" or "everything can be false" (including the Truth of post-truth and denialism), yet cannot respond to this with a rigidification or reification of Truth?

Building on these questions, I’ve taken a reactive and creative approach in my documentary artistic practice—moving away from the idea of the image as an objective portrayal of the world and the photographer as a passive witness to events unfolding independently of their presence. Instead, my practice embraces a kind of "magical realism," freeing reality from the constraints of the Truth model through what Gilles Deleuze described as the "fabulation function". [9] [10] [11] Here, the power of the false lies in its capacity to multiply the world rather than in any intention to dominate or destroy it. [12]

Fabulation is distinct from the use of the false as manipulation—such as in the creation of fictions about the superiority of one people over another—where the will to power becomes a ‘being-for-death,’ driven by the desire to dominate and oppress. Truths created by dominant regimes often obscure the fact that they are constructed, aiming to maintain privilege. As Deleuze [13] pointed out, not all falsifiers operate in the same way.

Fabulation, by contrast, is a story that recognizes itself as a story. It embraces its condition as a legend. This is what I strive to achieve with my photographs: to borrow elements from the world and, through framing and perspective, for instance, to fabulate the world with and through them. I remain attentive to how, in streets, public squares, and every corner of the city, different bodies are continuously creating scenes, new kinds of bodies, and, consequently, worlds through their encounters.

A broken traffic light, a large clock at the entrance of a train station, a sticker of a bird on a glass window, a poster of Saturn hanging in the street, a rose, sunlight so intense that it explodes and infiltrates a man's body. All these elements shared the same space as my camera and I. However, what I aim to reveal with my photographs is not the Real but the world creating itself through the act of photographing.

In other words, it is a world that emerges from the encounter of these multiple bodies, human and non-human, gathered in that place, at that moment—a world where, at times, the yellow of Saturn meets the yellow of a woman's sweater somewhere on Earth. A world where the color red bursts into the image, dressing a woman in a long red cape. Or where a man remains unbothered by sharing the same space with a giant bird. Or where Time, walking with its cane, comes to catch the train. Or where a happy woman finds shelter within a sad woman. The supposed Truth of the world that photography might capture then gives way to the truth of the image [14] .

In my compositions, I seek to craft ambiguous images without digital manipulation [15]. From this ambiguity, statements like 'this is a street in Berlin' or 'this is an elderly woman wearing a yellow sweater' shift into questions, for instance, 'is this a giant bird?' and then into a further realization: ‘this came into being.’ In this sense, my aim, through a fabulative practice, is neither to reveal the Truth of the established order nor to construct a new Truth about the world, but rather to unsettle the fixity of things and open fissures through which life and these other worlds can gush forth and emerge.

My aim, furthermore, is to approach photography as a field of forces. It is through the encounter of these forces—emerging from various materialities—that the world and the things within it take shape in an endless process of coming into being. The world, therefore, ceases to be a fixed noun and transforms into a verb—worlding—a poetic process in which everything is continuously creating itself through relations [16].

What I seek, then, is to approach photography as a practice of putting together. What kinds of bodies do I bring into contact within a given frame? What enters the frame, what is absent, what escapes, or what is only half-present? And what can this act of relating disparate elements create? Consider the earlier image of a man with legs sprouting from his chest: descending a staircase at a train station, his reflection partially inverted in a mirror, and the way I framed the scene—all these elements converge to create a new kind of body that inhabits a world, with its possibility of existence residing in a latent seed, upon which photography acted to germinate it. In photography, choices like framing, perspective, the precise moment of the shutter click, and other aesthetic decisions all contribute to this process, bringing forth scenes, atmospheres, worlds constantly on the verge of breaking through—or not. In this sense, photography becomes an act of world-making—of bringing into being.

What is at stake in my proposal, in the end, is not aligning with the real or the imaginary, the fictional or the documentary, the history or the story. Instead, following Cardoso's [18] reflections, it is the desire to explore the tension that threads through these terms, always present in narrative processes, including those of documentary imagery. It is also longing to be part of the birth of these beings, these new species of things, these worlds—an act of defiance against a world presented as already finished, shaped to restrict the flow of life, rather than unleash its powers of becoming with, alongside, through, together.

Notes

[1] -  The title of this essay is not intended to serve as a project title; rather, it reflects on my artistic practice. In this text, I aim to explore how my approach to composing certain photographs constitutes a deliberate effort to highlight the fabulatory condition of images as well as the operations of what I call the bringing forth machine. In any case, classic street photography is also part of this process, existing within the space of tension between the real and its potentialities.

[2] - (Sontag, 1977).

[3] - (Sontag, 1977).

[4] - (Eco, 1984).

[5] - (Rancière, 2009).

[6] - (Mitchell, 1994).

[7] - (Deleuze, 1983; 1989).

[8] - (Cisney, 2023).

[9] - The English translations of Deleuze's works have opted for the term "story-telling." However, I prefer to stick with the original French term "fabulation".

[10] - On fabulation, see also Haraway (2011; 2016). I am particularly interested in Haraway's exploration of the connections between "fabulation", "storing," and "worlding."

[11] - (Deleuze, 1988; 1989; 1994; 2011).

[12] - As Scott Head (2009) observes, the alternative realism that photographic images can evoke—by affirming the powers of life—differs from the view that the only antidote to illusion and deception is reality "as it is."

[13] - (Deleuze, 1989).

[14] - Deleuze (1989) discusses this through Jean Rouch's cinéma vérité.

[15] - This practice, it’s worth noting, is not about invention as a purely subjective or manipulative expression that could diminish the historical value of the image. Instead, it proposes a creative engagement with the documented world, recognizing both the photographer and the camera as active participants in the unfolding of life (Piault, 2001).

[16] - On "fields of forces", see Ingold (2000) and Deleuze (1988; 1989). On “becoming alongside” and “becoming with”, see Ingold (2000; 2011), Nancy (2006), Haraway (2008; 2016), and Maturana & Varela (1980). On “worlding,” see Stewart (2010), Haraway (2008; 2016), and Tsing (2010).

[17] - Refer to Deleuze's (1988a; 2007; 2014) discussion on the concepts of the actual and the virtual.

[18] - This discussion, introduced by Cardoso (2007), my PhD advisor, has influenced my thinking since long before I began working with photographic images. It was also central to my research on narrative performances with the Kalderash Romani people, among whom I conducted ethnographic fieldwork.

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