Jonas Bendiksen: A story of fake news

Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing at a rapid pace. In this exhibition, Jonas Bendiksen highlights the need for (digital) media literacy and encourages everyone to critically examine the reliability of news and information.

A story of fake news
Here you see the work of Norwegian photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen, who investigated the production of fake news in the North Macedonian town of Veles. This town became infamous during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections for spreading misleading news articles. The exhibition highlights the dangers of fake news and the impact of technology on our perception of reality. With the rise of artificial intelligence and digital manipulation, critically assessing the reliability of information is more important than ever.

Not much has changed since then, and fake news continues to be a daily issue. The exhibition took place with new U.S. elections just around the corner. It underscores the importance of media literacy and encourages everyone to critically reflect on the reliability of information.

Bendiksen challenges you to think about how technology shapes our perception of reality. At a time when artificial intelligence (AI) and digital manipulation are increasingly intertwined with our daily lives, the ability to distinguish what is real from what is not becomes essential. How do you recognize fake news? Can we still tell real photographs from AI-generated images?

About Jonas Bendiksen
Jonas Bendiksen (Norway, 1977) is an internationally renowned photographer whose work focuses on themes such as community, faith, and technology. In 2006, he published his first photobook, Satellites, for which he spent seven years traveling through the satellite states of the former Soviet Union. In 2017, he released The Last Testament, a project in which he documented people around the world who believed themselves to be the Messiah.

Since 2004, Bendiksen has been a member of the prestigious Magnum Photos agency. His work has been published in leading media outlets such as GEO, National Geographic Magazine, Newsweek, The Sunday Times Magazine, and Vanity Fair. Internationally, Bendiksen’s work has been exhibited at the Goeun Museum of Photography in Seoul (South Korea, 2018), Fotografiska Stockholm (Sweden, 2019), and Rencontres d’Arles (France, 2019). His project The Book of Veles was previously shown at Fotografia Europea in Italy (2022). Bendiksen has also won the World Press Photo award in 2005 and 2022.

This exhibition was made possible with support from: the Municipality of Hilversum, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Pictoright, and Vfonds.