Worm(W)Holes: Talk by Dr Jane Boyer | Roundtable led by Gisela Torres

Wormholes: The image (of the image of the human) in crisis

The Talk

‘Finitude is the most capacious and enabling of the attributes we share with others, because unlike the particular way in which each of us looks, thinks, walks, and speaks, that connects us to a few other beings, it connects us to every other being. Since finitude marks the point where we end and others begin, spatially and temporally, it is also what makes room for them—and acknowledging these limits allows us to experience the expansiveness for which we yearn, because it gives us a powerful sense of our emplacement within a larger Whole’ (Silverman, 2009:4).

Does AI deprive us of this sense of finitude? Is it frightening in part because we no longer see the end to ourselves, but a terrifying mash of undifferentiated state of sameness? As sentient beings who value their individuality and see the individuality in other living beings, it is inconceivable not to be distinct. Photography has had a role in how we visualise our thoughts on finitude, differentiation, and so many other concepts of being human, but is that role changing with AI image production? My talk will be a meditation on Kaja Silverman’s statement above, because I believe this is the crux of the question in The Doughnut (W)Hole, and in the wider existential crisis of photography.

Dr Jane Boyer, Co-Director of [cloud], presents on the image in crisis and how this moment of disruption ushers in a new understanding of the image in contemporary art.

The Conversation

Following the talk, join a conversation with artists whose work explores these themes. Appropriately holey – or wholey – we're calling this group of work 'Wormholes'.

In the quantum world, a wormhole is a theoretical possibility where a black hole tunnels into a white hole. The black hole pulls in, absorbs, swallows – not unlike how we think of AI: a data-scraping, regurgitative model of non- or pseudo-creation. The white hole, however, is regarded as a 'source', an expeller of energy. As Carlo Rovelli puts it, 'the white hole provides a way out of the black hole and back into the universe'.

Our Wormhole artists, in pushing the image to extremes, are striving to find the white hole potential of this technology. Often, their work disrupts our common understanding of the image – the photograph itself seems to disappear altogether.

Roundtable includes Maria Ahmed, Sarah-Jane Field and Sarah Sweeney

Dr Jane Boyer is an independent lens-based artist, curator, academic researcher and publisher. She is co-director of [cloud] collective with Dr Gemma Marmalade. Jane’s practise and research is concerned with the recurring influences of the past that are at work in our present actions. She completed a Fine Art PhD at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University in 2021. She exhibits and publishes internationally. Jane works between the UK and France.

Gisela Torres is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and arts educator. Trained as a photographer and filmmaker, her practice explores the interplay between traditional and emerging art forms, depicting personal narratives where the familiar, mysterious, and otherworldly co-exist. Through still and moving images, self-portraiture, performance, printmaking, sculpture, and new technologies, she creates contemplative and reflective landscapes with atmospheric and playful intention. Her work is anchored in the process of making, manifesting the transference of the psyche and juxtaposing the material with the immaterial. As a freelance arts educator, she delivers talks and workshops on exhibitions, visual literacy, and photography to diverse communities.

This event is delivered by The Doughnut (W)Hole Pavilion, part of The Wrong Biennale 7th edition – the world's largest digital art celebration and a member of the International Biennial Association.

Taking its cue from the paradox at a doughnut's centre, The Doughnut (W)Hole brings together 14 international artists exploring how absences shape presence in our AI-driven age.

Artists: Maria Ahmed, Kasper Bergholt, Ben Millar Cole, Evangelia Danadaki, Sarah Deane, Sarah-Jane Field, Alan Knox, David Koh, Merve Kurtuluş, Duncan Petrie, Angel Qin, Heidi Reece, Sarah Sweeney, Min Jung Tsai.

Curated by Kim Shaw | Co-produced by Sarah-Jane Field

London Embassy: Hapax Living Room, 1–2 November 2025
Opening, artist talks, and panels with Dr Jane Boyer ([cloud] collective), Dr Caroline Molloy (School of Creative and Cultural Arts at UCA Farnham), Dr Madeline Yale Preston (British Centre of Photography), and delivering funding surgeries, Justin Hunt (Shifting Power, OU; Queen Mary's University).

1) Dr Jane Boyer

2) Gisela Torres