Imaginary
Friends.
Step in alone.
Leave with someone
who was never there.
An AI photobooth
Illuminarium, Toronto · June 2024
A souvenir of an impossible meeting.A little fiction.
A real connection.
A photobooth comes with an expectation: you sit down, the camera flashes, and a small piece of that moment comes home with you.
For Intel Encore, artist Dara Vandor gave that familiar ritual an unexpected guest. The booth paired each sitter with an AI-generated imaginary friend, producing a photograph of a meeting that never happened.
We collaborated with Dara to bring the image-generation experience to life. The technology stayed inside the booth. The souvenir went home with the visitor.
An ordinary booth.
An extraordinary
plus-one.
- 01
Take a seat.
The visitor steps into the booth and becomes the subject of a portrait.
- 02
Make an unexpected acquaintance.
The captured image is paired with an imaginary companion. The visitor doesn’t choose who appears.
- 03
Keep the evidence.
A small printed photograph makes the fictional encounter feel wonderfully tangible.
Never met.
Photographed together.
Seven supplied portrait sheets.
A small archive of imaginary encounters.
View print Four sepia-toned paired portraits. A light-haired figure appears beside a dark-haired figure; their expressions change between frames.
View print Four warm monochrome portraits of a curly-haired figure and a long-haired figure, leaning together and laughing.
View print Four monochrome portraits of a figure with locs beside a dark-haired figure, with subtle changes in pose and expression.
View print Four high-contrast portraits of two dark-haired figures, their heads close together in the familiar language of a photobooth.
View print Four sepia portraits pairing a curly-haired figure with a figure wearing glasses. Small differences in expression make each frame distinct.
View print Four black-and-white paired portraits: a long-haired figure and a short-haired companion, photographed shoulder to shoulder.
View print Four softly toned portraits of a curly-haired figure beside a figure with short, light hair. Both look towards the camera.
Strangers.
For a moment,
something else.
The paired pose is immediately familiar: heads tilted towards one another, a shared smile, shoulders touching. The fiction lives inside that familiarity.
Choose a print
Viewing print 01 of 07
These are generated booth outputs, not before-and-after comparisons. Each sheet can be opened at a larger size.
Read the portrait collection
The collection contains seven sheets, each with four paired portraits. The images use the close framing and monochrome tones of a traditional photobooth.
One sitter’s photograph is combined with an invented companion. Expressions and facial details vary across the four frames. The captions describe the visible images without identifying the people or treating the invented relationship as real.
The best part?
You could
take it home.
A 3.5 × 5-inch inkjet print gave an intangible encounter a physical form.
2,000+people through the booth
during its week at Illuminarium.
Visitor count and print details reported by Dara Vandor ↗.
A camera. A workflow.
A very human reaction.
Never’s contribution: the AI collaboration
behind Dara’s photobooth installation.
Made with
good company.
One of Never’s two installations
for Intel Encore, June 20–27, 2024.
- Artist
- Dara Vandor ↗
- AI collaboration
- Never
- Producer
- Dan Berzen / Mosaic North America
- Sponsor
- Intel
- Venue
- Illuminarium, Toronto
Thanks for keeping this between us.
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