Methodology

In a world where information is increasingly untrustworthy and artificial intelligence platforms are quickly replacing basic human resources, it's difficult to imagine a world where our own history isn't distorted.
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The purpose of Archive 51 is to question the accuracy of historical evidence, specifically scanned film photographs. AI image generators often produce stylized and artistically inspired images, which can feature highly detailed, overly realistic renderings or even fantastical creations. Conversely, they can also create images that emulate the style of historically significant artists.

However, what if these image generators were used to create a photographic that never existed, or to produce realistically imperfect photographs that appear authentic due to their flaws?
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Archive 51 is an attempt to create such a genre of artistic historical misinformation.
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Each image was created using MidJourney v5 via incrementally altered text prompts. The plausibility conveyed in each photograph is partly due to the obscurity of the story that it documents. None of the photographs call into question prominent figures or can be connected to real places. While MidJourney creates multiple images per prompt, the critical creative moment is the human author’s agency that decides whether an image looks and feels appropriate to the misinformation story.

After finalizing the content of the images, a series of emulations were created to distort and age each one. Additionally, the backsides of each photo were generated using a combination of human authorship and artificial intelligence. The handwriting on each photo is uniquely generated using AI to appear realistically different across all 51 images.