Heliography Project 1827–2027
From heliography through Google Street View to AI-generated images.
The Oldest Surviving Photograph in the World: View from the Window at Le Gras” (French: “Point de vue du Gras”).
The Oldest Surviving Photograph in the World
In the late summer of 1827, after several days of exposure, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce held in his hands the oldest surviving photograph in the world – “View from the Window at Le Gras” (French: “Point de vue du Gras”). The photograph (16.5 × 21 cm) shows the view from the window of his studio in Le Gras (Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France). Niépce created the photo using a camera obscura on a tin plate coated with asphalt dissolved in lavender oil. He named the process heliography, derived from the Greek, meaning “drawn with the sun.”
Although the process was laborious and time-consuming, it marked a turning point in human history: the first successful attempt to capture a fleeting moment permanently. The resulting image, delicate and barely visible, was a quiet yet revolutionary triumph over transience. With this technique, what was previously intangible became tangible – fixed on metal, preserved, and portable.
The Magic of Images
In an era where images are predominantly generated and consumed digitally, I have often wondered if they can retain the same magic and value as the earliest photographs. Digital images are eternal in their essence – unchangeable as bits and bytes stored in the digital world, free from the effects of time. Yet, this immutability strips them of the human quality that made the first photographs so special.
I believe that images regain their original magic only through their physical form, which is subject to the ravages of time and the adversities of life. In their tangible incarnation as carriers of our memories and as proof of the fleeting moment, they can unfold their impact on the viewer in line with Barthes’ reflections on photography. Roland Barthes speaks of “it has been” (“ça a été”), which emphasizes the evidential nature of photography – the image as testimony that something truly existed. This process of transferring from “digital” to “material” is part of it. In this way, the image becomes an integral part of reality, which cannot be fully captured in the digital world.
Google Street View
180 years after Niépce created the first photograph, Google released the first images of its Street View project in 2007. Cameras mounted on cars, drones, and backpacks began documenting the world, creating a gigantic global image archive. This technology operates almost autonomously—cameras capture reality while algorithms automatically catalog each individual frame. Today, hundreds of billions of images document our daily lives, leaving behind a digital trace of the present.
The Everyday Life of Google Street View, captured against the backdrop of asphalt, creates a multilayered narrative where every detail — a glance at a phone, a random shadow — begins to define space and time. Thus, public space ceases to be merely a backdrop; it becomes a stage where we, often unconsciously, co-create a shared identity as actors.
Street View photographs are digital records of reality, but their value stems from their connection to the material world — they document real places and moments, acting as a kind of imprint of reality. This aligns with Roland Barthes’ theory that photography is a trace of the past and material evidence of what once existed.
AI-Generated Images, Dreams of a Digital Mind
Images generated by artificial intelligence, however, are an entirely different phenomenon. They do not arise from capturing a specific moment but through algorithmic imagination — creations without direct reference to reality. They are like the dreams of a digital mind: abstract, detached from time and space. They lack the authenticity that comes from capturing a fleeting moment.
Unlike photographs, which document reality, AI-generated images do not carry that punctum (Barthes) within them — that emotional spark which gives a photograph depth and a personal dimension.
