Synchronising with Images

In this talk, Nina Davies examines how early image-making technologies, originally invented for scientific purposes, came to be adopted as tools for storytelling, and traces how these storytelling logics have seeped into courtrooms and other high-stakes environments. In this sense, images synchronise with reality so convincingly that we treat them as faithful reflections of events, yet techniques like slow motion can subtly distort what we see – implying, for example, that a person had more time to act than they actually did, a distortion that can influence judgments of guilt or innocence.

The talk also explores what it might mean for people to physically synchronise with images. From moving in slow motion to walking like an NPC to presenting oneself as an AI-generated image, she demonstrates how her work imagines a world in which the body can recalibrate – or even disrupt – our relationship to technology.