The pyromaniac images
Theory-fiction of generative AI
Blending theory and fiction, the authors - a philosopher and an artist - explore the aesthetic and political implications of generative AI. In a fragmented time, against a backdrop of climate catastrophe, a duo of estate agents manipulate and imagine reality using the Platform, an image-generating AI.
Through a series of speculative fictions, this book explores the many facets of this revolution: how social networks, which have become filters and metafilters, are reorganising our realities; how anarchive, the chaotic accumulation of possible images, is recomposing the past, the future and the imaginary in an infinite game of distortion and reinvention; pyropictomania, or the pleasure derived from the spectacle of a formidable waste of energy; the theft of light, which is suddenly turning the history of art into darkness.
The platform hides a beast that has to be fed with electrical energy and available brain time.
Credits
- Book, 304 pages, UV éditions, 2025
- Authors : Pierre Cassou-Noguès et Gwenola Wagon
- Graphic design and production : MDCP
- Corrections : Nathalie David
- Published with the support of LLCP EA4008, Université Paris 8, Institut ACTE, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and Institut Universitaire de France.
- Ouvrage publié avec le soutien du LLCP EA4008 de l’université Paris 8, de l’Institut ACTE de l’université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne et de l’Institut Universitaire de France.
Press (sélection)
- «Book Club : Images pyromanes de Pierre Cassou-Noguès et Gwenola Wagon», Fisheye Immersive, 2025.
- «L’IA ou le non-sens bien ordonné», Gwenola Wagon est l’invitée de Sylvain Bourmeau France Culture, 2025.
- «L’art au futur antérieur : faire œuvre avec l’IA générative», Patrick Boucheron France Culture, 2025.
- «Gwenola Wagon – L’IA au service de l’anarchive», Benoit Gaboriaud, Fisheye Immersive, 2025.
- «Il est temps d’interroger notre attrait compulsif face aux images de feu», Isabelle Barbéris, Marianne, 2025.













