Design Dialogues: A Book Conversation on The Synthetic Eye

​Design Dialogues hosts a conversation around a design book, as a lens to reflect on our practice.

​In our November edition, we’re reading Fred Ritchin’s The Synthetic Eye: Photography Transformed in the Age of AI.

​The book starts from a simple observation: the image on your screen might not have a moment behind it. No photographer, no subject, no place. And yet it reads like one. AI can now produce images indistinguishable from photographs, and that changes what we understand as real.

​Chapter by chapter, Ritchin maps what follows: who bears responsibility for what we see, whether images can be trusted, and what photography can still do that AI cannot fake. He takes the problems seriously without dismissing what the technology makes possible.

​Images surround us. We choose them, place them, generate them, and trust them. The book asks what we actually expect them to do: prove something, convince someone, make something feel real?

​What to expect:

​✦ The group is intentionally small to enable depth
✦ A thoughtful discussion that allows for different views
✦ A social activity that serves as a reflection of our practice
✦ Light guidance to let conversation flow organically
✦ Hosted in a space that invites an intimate conversation

​What to bring:

​✦ Readiness for active listening, reading the book is not required
✦ If you will, a passage or idea from the book that stayed with you