Research on the “Super-Real” Trend and Subjective Dilemma of AI-generated Images from the Perspective of the Landscape Society

Abstract

The widespread application of generative artificial intelligence technology has transformed AI-generated images from auxiliary creative tools to the core carrier of landscape production. Their “hyper-realism” has shifted to reshaping the contemporary visual cultural ecosystem. By using Guy Debord’s theory of landscape society as an analytical framework, it can be observed that AI-generated images, through data-driven collaboration, symbolic construction, and large-scale dissemination, make the representational features of landscapes extremely obvious, resulting in a phenomenon where the simulated system of the real prototype is separated. This shift not only completes the paradigm shift from “reproducing reality” to “constructing reality” but also leads to multiple predicaments, such as the decentralization of the creative subject, the alienation of the cognitive subject’s senses, and the distortion of the cultural subject’s memory. The research aims to study the internal logic and manifestation form of the “hyper-realism” shift of AI-generated images, reveal the mechanism of their dissolution of individual subjectivity, and explore the possible paths for the reconstruction of subjectivity in the technological context. This is to provide theoretical references for understanding the alienation and breakthrough of visual culture in the digital age based on the landscape society theory.