The “Images Without Memory” series consists of works created with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and finalized in Photoshop. Its purpose is to establish a dialogue between the analog world of the daguerreotype and the realm of artificial creation, exploring how the perception of reality and fiction blurs over time.

Daguerreotypes were photographic expressions intended to preserve “reality.” However, AI-generated portraits immerse us in a paradox: a photographic technique designed to capture the tangible now gives shape to what never existed. These human echoes created by algorithms represent a conflicted dialogue between the “tangible” past and the artificial present—they are ghosts that tear through the veil of reality, questioning whether there is a difference between real and fabricated memory.

These images transcend any specific era, yet their aesthetic evokes an unsettling authenticity. The expressions of these fictional beings, deeply human, confront us with a melancholy that goes beyond mere representation of humanity: they are trapped faces gazing at us from the threshold between the real and the imagined.

Pascal Quignard argues that creating works of art is a way of discovering something that explains who we are or, at the very least, returns our gaze to help us understand our existence. The gaze, stripped of language and memory—like the one evoked by these daguerreotypes—becomes an abyss leading to the unnameable, to the very origin, before language existed.

In this sense, what looks back at us from the daguerreotypes is not their apparent authenticity but their spectral nature: they observe us from a non-existent temporality, from a past that never happened. These images confront us with the need to assign meaning and humanity to what we behold, challenging us to contemplate and inhabit a space between the real and the imagined.

Jean Baudrillard once said: “Reality can no longer be represented as it once was, because it is no longer an object—it is a simulation.”

About Simón Calle León

Simón Calle is a Colombian photographer from Bogotá, passionate about philosophy and literature. His work explores pre-established concepts and structures in society, generating discussions that aim to provoke more questions than answers. From his early days working with analog techniques to his current focus on conceptual works created with artificial intelligence, his photography combines visual metaphors and ambiguous readings to invite the viewer to reflect.

Throughout his career, he has worked in both documentary and commercial photography, but his focus has evolved toward a photographic practice driven more by conceptual purpose than aesthetic concerns. His work addresses themes such as the fragility of memory, the ambiguity of images, and the relationship between people and technology.

Simón has participated in the PhotoEspaña portfolio review and exhibited his work in renowned venues such as MADS Milano. With a style that blends technique and creativity, his work reflects on the identity of images, intensity, and originality, constantly exploring new ways of telling visual stories that transcend the obvious and go beyond structured language.