Zsolt Bátori is a philosopher of art, a photography theorist, a practicing fine art photographer, and a curator. His work bridges theory, image-making, and contemporary debates on AI-generated visual culture.
After earning his PhD in Philosophy from Rutgers University, he has taught and conducted research at universities in Hungary, the USA, Spain, and Argentina. His primary area of research is the philosophy of art and aesthetics, with a particular focus on the philosophy and theory of the visual arts and photography. He is especially interested in questions concerning engagement with artworks, photographic meaning production and interpretation, and how generative AI reframes questions of authorship, creativity, deception, trust, and responsibility. As a photographer, he has exhibited his work internationally, focusing on projects about visual memories, landscape and social change, and abstracting ordinary scenes – through both photographic means and generative AI – into distinctively novel perceptual and cognitive experiences.
Zsolt is a researcher at the Faculty of Music and Visual Arts at the University of Pécs, and a member of philosophy and aesthetics research groups at the University of Murcia and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He also teaches at EINA, School of Art and Design (Autonomous University of Barcelona), where his teaching connects conceptual rigor with practice-led inquiry into photographic and computational image-making.
His research and artistic practice develop together: theoretical questions are pursued through image-making, and artistic experimentation becomes a method of inquiry. He received the APRA Foundation Berlin Multi-Disciplinary Fellowship for Visual Memories, a multidisciplinary project in philosophy and photography, and was recently awarded a scholarship (from September 2026) to further develop his research at Harvard University on AI-generated visual (and multimedia) content, integrating an interdisciplinary creative project within his theoretical work.
Zsolt is the founder, director, and curator of PH21 Gallery. For more than a decade, PH21 Gallery has organized group and solo exhibitions for photographers internationally – originally in Budapest and in collaboration with galleries in Barcelona, Jersey City, and Rome. In 2025, the gallery relocated to Barcelona. Since 2023, he has served as a juror for Photolucida Critical Mass, and in 2026 he was invited to join Photolucida’s board.
Research and creative interests:
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Philosophy of art and aesthetics
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Philosophy and theory of photography
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Philosophy of AI (ontology, authorship, creativity, deception, trust, responsibility)
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Fine art photography, including photo-based AI (creative praxis)
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Curating and photography criticism
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Visual communication and the visual arts; visual literacy
Professional membership and service:
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American Philosophical Association
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European Communication Research and Education Association
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European Society for Aesthetics: member of the Executive Committee (2012–2018), local organizer (with Borbála Jász) of the ESA annual conference in Budapest in 2023
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European Society for Analytic Philosophy
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International Association for Aesthetics: member of the Executive Committee (2012–2018)
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Photolucida: juror (2023–present); board member (2026–present)
Contact: zsolt.batori[at]gmail.com
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