90 Miles

90 MILES

90 Miles is a post-photography, A.I. reportage illustration experiment by MCB, curated by Blockbird, exploring historical events and realities of Cuban life that have, since 1961, motivated Cubans to cross the 90 miles of ocean separating Havana from Florida.

For over 25 years, MCB kept a list of subjects he wanted to document though was unable to, mainly due to access or that access was impossible. While working on projects in Cuba from 2014-2016, including the books Yo Soy Fidel (Damiani, 2018) and Ondas (Twin Palms Publishers, 2023), more subjects were added to the list, including the Cubans who flee Cuba by watercraft to the United States, with the assumption they would likely never be created.

Since 1961, after Fidel Castro came to power and following the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, every year thousands of Cubans cross the 90 miles of ocean that separates Havana from Florida. In 2022, Cuba experienced its largest exodus since the 1980s due to an ongoing economic crisis, with soaring inflation alongside shortages of food and medicine.

The Cubans who attempt the crossing are incredibly resourceful, as necessary to the journey and as reflected in the rafts and boats often assembled from inner tubes, random pieces of wood and plastic, household supplies, etc.

Read here for a brief though comprehensive contextual history of the Cuban boat people, written by Nili Blanck for the Smithsonian Museum.

90 MILES

‍Since 1961, after Fidel Castro came to power and following the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, every year thousands of Cubans cross the 90 miles of ocean that separates Havana from Florida. In 2022, Cuba experienced its largest exodus since the 1980s due to an ongoing economic crisis, with soaring inflation alongside shortages of food and medicine

Read here for a brief and comprehensive contextual history of the Cuban boat people, written by Nili Blanck for the Smithsonian Museum.

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A.I. Reportage
Illustration

I learned to use a camera at age 13 and, as a stuttering youth who generally avoided speaking, photography became a primary form of expression and a way to see and experience the world. Early on I was influenced more by mythology and art history than photography and now, after 25 years of working mainly as a photojournalist, through A.I. that inspiration is returning to my imagination.

I first experimented with A.I. in 2022 using Dall-E. The outputs were initially too fantastical, but with Midjourney versions four and five, both used in 90 Miles, that impression began to change. The increased quality and the ease in creating that quality intuited a novel way to explore the possibilities of the photograph.

Publications such as The New York Times and The New Yorker have for decades used reportage illustrations of various kinds alongside reporting, to illuminate experiences, ideas and people in various ways while expanding our idea of a subject. Reportage illustrations allow for fresh connections to something that, though the illustration may not be real, may feel true. A.I. Reportage Illustration may arguably go a step further, as a generated image created from hundreds of millions of photographs may feel not only true, but real.

It goes without saying that society must maintain the integrity of the photograph. We must create barriers around certain A.I. generated output, as with the potentially dangerous photo-realistic imagery of Trump that went viral, while experimenting with the technology in order to use it to our advantage. I feel similarly to Fred Ritchin, the Founding Director of the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism Program at the International Center of Photography, when he said “there are things that artificial intelligence can add to the image equation, which can be very useful, and that’s the place we have to look.”

-MCB

A.I. Reportage Illustration

Anyone with a Discord application may now illustrate a lens less, photo-realistic reportage illustration on any subject anywhere, at any time, collaborating with a collective history of photography to illustrate the photographed world and create a vision of what was, is or can be.