AI Cinematic Realism (AICR) proposes a new framework for the post-camera era, shifting cinema's guiding question from "Is this real?" to "Is this true?" Grounded in embodied cognition and a lineage of realist movements, AICR defines synthetic truth through the Ideational Frame, Three-Strata Model, and accountable authorship.
AI Cinematic Realism (AICR) – Explained
AI Cinematic Realism (AICR) is a framework that redefines cinematic truth in the age of generative AI — shifting the central question from "is this real?" to "is this true?" It covers the theory, practice, and ethics of synthetic cinema as a new, honest artistic medium.
AI Cinematic Realism: Slide Deck & Video Guide
This slide deck and video guide introduce AI Cinematic Realism, a framework for understanding how synthetic images and films achieve cinematic meaning through perceptual, environmental, and authorial coherence rather than photographic capture. It marks cinema’s shift from recording reality to conjuring emotionally authentic experience through synthesis.
From Lebenswelt to Emotional Plausibility: A Research Arc Toward AI Cinematic Realism
This article traces a research arc from analogue investigations of the Lebenswelt to the emergence of AI Cinematic Realism. It shows how Kracauerian tropes migrate across media, shifting realism from indexical redemption of physical reality to synthetic emotional plausibility while preserving phenomenology as the core method and evaluative standard.
The Latent Image — an excerpt from AI Cinematic Realism
This essay reframes cinematic realism as a phenomenon of perception rather than indexical truth. Drawing on phenomenology and philosophy of mind, it explores how AI-generated images can feel real without referring to the world, and how realism shifts in an era of generative systems and posthuman authorship.