This paper explores how AI-generated photography—specifically through tools like Midjourney—disrupts traditional associations between photography and realism. Building on André Bazin’s ontology of the photographic image, the author examines how AI art challenges the “ghostliness” and temporality traditionally tied to photography by generating images of people, places, and events that never existed.
Central to the analysis is Turkish artist Sarp Kerem Yavuz and his fictional photo series “ Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire.” This speculative body of work imagines a present-day Ottoman Empire led by a cursed Sultan who made a pact with a djinn. The series employs AI-generated visuals in Polaroid format to conjure a queer utopian narrative that blends Orientalism, alternative historiography, and dreamlike aesthetics.
The author interprets this as a radical act of historical reimagination, in which queer identity, AI technologies, and Ottoman imagery intersect to propose new political and aesthetic futures. The paper situates Yavuz’s work within broader theoretical frameworks, including José Esteban Muñoz’s concepts of queer utopia and futurity, as well as critiques of linear historiography.AI photography as a break from realism and traditional temporality
Ghostliness and fiction in digital images
Queer utopia and alternative history
Orientalism and post-Ottoman aesthetics
AI as a speculative tool for marginalized narratives
By examining how AI can produce speculative photographic histories, the article demonstrates how artists can use these tools not just for visual novelty but as vehicles for queer political imagination. In this context, the "haunting" of AI-generated imagery becomes a space for resisting dominant historical narratives and envisioning inclusive futures.