The exhibition presents a diverse range of works, from analogue photographs to portraits generated by artificial intelligence. Real and digitally created faces alternate on the walls, blurring the boundaries between the physical and the virtual, the human and the machine.

When photography first emerged, it was seen as a threat to painting—but rather than killing the medium, it catalyzed the birth of avant-garde art. Similarly, the relationship between technology and art has led to some of the most important breakthroughs of the 20th century: from the algorithmic compositions created by computer art pioneers in the 1960s, to the transformative impact of the internet and Photoshop on both art and media. Today, physical and digital spaces are increasingly merging, and human and machine intelligence are beginning to converge. The AI revolution of recent years—and the rapid spread of tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL·E—has placed powerful image-making capabilities not just in the hands of artists, but in those of everyday users. While the long-term effects remain to be seen, one thing is clear: AI-generated images are proliferating at a staggering rate. In just the year and a half following the rise of this software, more AI images were created than photographs in the entire first 150 years of the medium’s history. 

The Hungarian artists selected in the open call—including Szelina Bodócs, Luca Gőbölyös and Zoltán Tombor—approach these developments from a variety of perspectives and using diverse techniques. Together, they reflect on questions of identity and authorship in the age of AI. What does authenticity mean when reality and fiction are increasingly indistinguishable? How are biases embedded in AI systems, and how do these mirror broader social stereotypes? What defines beauty in an era where algorithms shape our aesthetic standards? And will AI transform the traditional role of portraiture as a record of individual identity? Real and Artificial Identities at the Kiscelli Museum brings these questions to the forefront—inviting viewers to engage with the shifting boundaries of representation, technology, and the self.