From his home, the lauded documentary photographer began to work on a collection of images about Russia with the help of generative artificial intelligence (AI). He was unprepared for the consequences.
In the late 1980s, De Keyzer travelled to Russia 12 times in the space of a year. The USSR was in its death throes and De Keyzer photographed the rituals and pastimes which would soon disappear. He returned in the 2000s to photograph inside Siberia's prison camps.
In November, three decades after he first visited Russia, De Keyzer published a series of AI-generated images in a book called Putin’s Dream. This time there were no human bodies, no moments in time, instead a vision brought to life with the help of computers.