Generative representation is the production of images that appear ‘real’, although they are constructed using completely artificial means. It describes the way in which an algorithmically produced image, like a portrait, might feel like an index to a real world subject, even though it is entirely contrived. This phenomenon gives the generative image an authority that is essentially borrowed from the long history and tremendous power of representation in modernity.

Today, as we are engulfed by images of dubious origin, propagated through politically structured networks, curated by opaque and sometimes discriminatory algorithms, it is an important moment to reflect on the power of the image, and its increasingly computational nature. In approaching this question it is worth taking a minute to discuss how the phenotypic image is produced, and to compare this with what we think of as ‘photography’.