Exploring Instant Photography using Generative AI: A Design Probe with the UnReality Camera

TL;DR

This paper investigates how generative AI integrated into an instant camera, called UnReality Camera, influences users' perceptions, creativity, and experience of instant photography through a design probe.

Contribution

It introduces the UnReality Camera, a novel AI-mediated instant camera, and explores its impact on users' perceptions and the experiential qualities of instant photography.

Findings

Users valued artistic control and enjoyed stochastic unpredictability.

The waiting period created anticipatory suspense for users.

Physical form of the camera fostered ownership and connection despite AI generation.

Abstract

Generative AI has increasingly been used for artistic creation, but little work has explored how it shapes the experiential meaning of practice. We consider how generative AI might transform the embodied and tangible process of instant photography through the UnReality Camera, an AI-mediated instant camera. The UnReality Camera prints a photo of the environment augmented by a user's spoken words as generative input. In a design probe, we explored how generative AI shapes people's perceptions of both photographic output and the broader photographic process. Although users valued artistic control, they also appreciated the creativity afforded by stochastic unpredictability. The waiting period for an unpredictable output elicited anticipatory suspense, and the camera's physical form evoked ownership and connection despite artificial generation. We discuss how people make sense of instant photography's experiential qualities when generative AI is embedded, and how their opposing affordances reshape interpretations of each other's experiential meaning.