Matteo Basilè – Image courtesy of the artist. All rights reserved
For thirty years, Matteo Basilé has been working with images, traversing photography, digital processing, video, and, more recently, artificial intelligence. Born in Rome in 1974, he began experimenting with digital technology as early as the 1990s, when these technologies were still an unexplored territory, often met with skepticism by the art system.
His research has developed across nine series, from Thisoriented to Rerum Novarum, following a path where the evolution of tools has never erased the centrality of the authorial vision. At the core remains the relationship between image, technology, and memory, alongside the need to preserve what risks being forgotten.
As the artist himself states, his approach to artificial intelligence does not stem from joining a recent trend, but rather represents “the latest chapter of a thirty-year research on technology.”
The underlying principle of this new phase is called PHOTOSYNTHESIS. In Basilé’s works, the machine does not produce images from an indiscriminate repertoire; instead, it is fed through photographic materials actually captured by the artist. The point of origin therefore remains the physical world: bodies, landscapes, light, and everything that was actually encountered and captured by the lens.
As Basilé explains:
“The machine never generates from nothing. It always starts from photographic material actually acquired: reality captured by the lens becomes the body from which every image takes shape. I do not use AI as a shortcut to invent, but as an extension of memory.”
Artificial intelligence is trained on the artist’s personal archive, learning its language of light, visual recurrences, and compositional grammar. The machine, therefore, does not replace the author, but extends his ability to intervene on the image, allowing photography to transform into dynamic, moving matter.
Basilé defines this process as phygital—a continuous flow between the physical and digital dimensions, from the photographic shot to the sequence. As the artist points out, “technology does not replace the hand, but extends it,” preserving continuity with his authorial signature.
The crucial issue in his research is not merely whether or not to use artificial intelligence. It is, above all, about the starting point of the machine. On one side are systems fed by traceable, authorized, and consciously selected materials; on the other, models that absorb images and languages without clearly declaring their origin.
It is Basilé himself who identifies this choice as one of the central issues of the present: the difference between a technological future capable of amplifying authors and one destined, instead, to erase them. His work attempts to demonstrate that an alternative practice is possible, grounded in consent, the provenance of materials, and the transparency of processes.
In this perspective, declaring the origin of the image is not a limitation on creative freedom, but becomes a form of responsibility and, at the same time, a new affirmation of authorship. As Basilé reminds us, “technology is memory, and memory is the material art is made of.”
Bio
Matteo Basilé, born in Rome in 1974, is an Italian artist and photographer, and one of the pioneers of digital experimentation applied to the image. Active since the 1990s, he has developed his research through nine series, from Thisoriented to Rerum Novarum, exploring photography, video, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and phygital languages.
His work addresses themes of identity, memory, and the transformation of the image, maintaining a strong connection to photographic reality. Through the principle of PHOTOSYNTHESIS, he uses artificial intelligence systems trained on his own archive, transforming original and traceable materials while respecting authorial continuity. He lives and works in Rome.