Topfoto and Annex Films are launching a new ad campaign in these exciting yet profoundly concerning times for all image users and audiences. Who are we? What can we trust?
Famous for the brilliant and the bonkers, Topfoto has seen a lot in its near-one-hundred-year history. But whereas each past wave of social and technological progress has added to their rich and vibrant collection of images spanning from the earliest photography to the present day, the arrival of photo-realistic AI image generators now presents a unique threat, not just to the Topfoto archive, its photographers and other picture libraries – but to reality itself.
Featuring a cast of Topfoto’s archivists, the two 40-second films in Topfoto’s ‘Reality Checked’ campaign, ‘FAKE’ and ‘PROMPT’, give a rousing defence of the lasting power of the real image over the cheap thrill of the fake – and show what can be lost when the lines between them become blurred.
FAKE on YouTube
The two still image pulled from the videos are AI generated. They were made by David Baksh of Annex Films, specifically for this campaign.
