Polina Bulgakova is a digital 3D artist who has developed her practice since 2020. Working in the “surrealistic realism” style, Polina crafts visual narratives that challenge the constraints of real-world physics, inviting audiences to think beyond conventional limits and embrace the possibility that anything is achievable. Originally from Siberia and now based in Israel, Polina draws inspiration from the cultural contrasts she has experienced, integrating these influences into her work to create striking visual juxtapositions. Her expertise spans product visualizations, vision boards, and concept art in both static and motion formats.
Following her solo artcast Dreamlandson Niio, Polina Bulgakova elaborates on her practice and background in the following interview.
Polina Bulgakova. Sleep Tight, 2021
You were raised in Siberia but now live in Israel. How have your life experiences and cultural background influenced your work?
It made my work very authentic and honest. I learnt how to embrace my differences and diversity, I learnt that it is ok to not fit fully and that my art can not fit to any defined style or niche. I realized that my art is a reflection of what is going on in my life, a reflection of my reactions to the environment or nostalgia, and the only way to be honest in my work is to actually be honest about who I am.
“My art is a reflection of what is going on in my life, and the only way to be honest in my work is to actually be honest about who I am.”
While having a background in more traditional forms of art making, you have found your medium of expression in 3D rendering and animation. Can you tell us a bit about the path that led to digital creation?
Before moving to Israel, my main medium was oil and a little watercolors, but a good part of my income was selling my oil paintings and oil commissions. Once I moved to Israel in 2017, I didn’t have proper space for that – oil is smelly and dirty, and I had to move to digital 2D. For 2 years I was painting in Photoshop, but it felt like something was missing, it felt like something flat – after you work with oil with bold texture, it was not “it”. In 2019 I moved to work from home due to COVID, and decided to learn something new, which was 3D. I fell in love instantly, and since then it hasn’t changed. I sometimes mix 2D and 2D, but both digital. Now if I take a real brush – it’s only for relaxation or if I want to fill a wall at my home.
Polina Bulgakova. Seated, 2024
You combine your artistic projects with professional 3D rendering and creative services such as product visualization and 3D models. How do your commissioned work and art projects influence each other?
There is a bold connection between those two. Commissions sometimes can be challenging, and sometimes I need to learn new techniques quickly to finish the work on time. But once I explore something new, it’s like a game with new levels – it sparks my curiosity, and I dive deeper into it in my art projects. And sometimes it’s the opposite – I find/learn something new that can be super useful in commissions and use it after I gave it a try in my personal projects.
“This is why I fell in love with 3D so quickly –there are literally no limits.”
An interesting type of commissioned work that you do are Custom Vision Boards, personalized scenes that you render in 3D from a brief that you send to your clients. Can you tell us more about these vision boards and your experience creating them?
I love making Vision Boards, it’s probably my favorite kind of commission. The first one I made for myself a few years ago – I read a lot about that stuff and thought “why don’t I use my favorite tools to make something that will help me reach my goals?”, and I had so much joy and fun making it. Then I started to commission VBs. It’s honestly a pure joy – to get to know a person, their dreams and desires, to see their eyes glowing while they describe their dream life, and then actually visualize it. It’s like a puzzle – I have specific pieces I need to arrange together to get a clear picture, while having certain creative freedom.
Polina Bulgakova. The Safe Romance. Custom Vision Board
Your work is characterized by a photorealistic surrealism that you achieve using 3D animation. What do you find most interesting about the tension between fantasy and reality? In terms of optimizing the work involved and computer processing requirements, do you have some “visual tricks” you can play with?
The most interesting thing about balancing fantasy and reality is that there are no limits and no boundaries at all. I have my patterns, of course, but in terms of the tech side mostly. And this is why I fell in love with 3D so quickly –there are literally no limits. Whatever I have in mind, the craziest ideas I can visualize. Sometimes I mix 2D and 3D, sometimes I animate textures in third party software in order to reduce render time, sometimes I combine those two.
Polina Bulgakova. Witchy Morning, 2022
The artworks we have presented in the artcast “Dreamlands” on Niio not only create imaginary scenes, but also evoke underlying feelings with which we can identify. What inspired you to work with these feelings in dreamlike scenarios, and how do you think they can convey their message to viewers?
“Dreamlands” is probably one of the most honest works of mine. I try to be as authentic as possible in my work, and these kinds of dreamlike scenes are pure reflections of what I was feeling and going through at these times. I hope that every viewer will get the message he or she actually wants to get – be it to reflect on the self, to embrace simple things in daily life, to feel alone but not lonely. My main goal is to encourage people to embrace their authenticity and their differences while looking at my art.
“My work can be viewed as a life graph – you can see what I was going through, and how it influenced me.”
It can be argued that your work is more painterly than cinematic, with peaceful, mediative scenes dominated by a single point of view and a carefully constructed composition. Would you agree with this statement? Do you see digital art as an evolution from the tradition of painting into a new form of creating images meant to be contemplated?
I have works that are dark and moody, works that are chaotic and rhythmic, works that are odd and evoke mixed feelings. It can be viewed as a life graph – depending on the period, you can see what I was going through, and how it influenced my work. The fact that during the last 1-2 years my works are mostly peaceful and calm shows that I’m pretty much in a stable calm period right now.
I don’t think that digital art is an evolution from traditional art. I think it’s a new tool, like a new set of brushes or a new kind of canvas. In the right hands of the right creator, everything can be used to embrace either revolution or traditions, there are artists that combine digital and traditional art tools and create breathtaking pieces.
Polina Bulgakova. Wood Morning, 2021
Your work is now available in several online platforms, including Niio. What opportunities do you see in these platforms, and what features do you find (or would like to find) in them that are most convenient for you as a digital artist?
Everyone knows how to make an income from traditional art – you sell an art piece from your shop or gallery, you get paid, you ship it, and you have a happy client. For digital art, especially animations, it’s different. From one side, we have this huge market on social media and the internet that we use to showcase our works, but from the other side – it’s not as simple to sell it as there’s nothing to pack and ship. Platforms like Niio provide us with an amazing opportunity to monetize digital art through licensing and digital editions, and it’s amazing to know your work is appreciated and displayed in someone’s home, office, building etc. I really like the way it gives me both exposure and profit. It can be argued for ages that “a true artist should only care for making great art”, but the truth is everybody needs to feed their family and pay the bills, even artists.
“Platforms like Niio provide us with an amazing opportunity to monetize digital art through licensing and digital editions, and it’s amazing to know your work is appreciated and displayed in someone’s home, office, or building.”
Tahn (Taeyoung Ahn, born in South Korea, 1967) is a multifaceted media artist, technologist, writer, and art educator with an extensive career that spans multiple disciplines. Currently a Ph.D. candidate in Media Contents, Tahn’s academic journey includes a degree from the Global Media Contents department at Chungnam National University in Korea, as well as studies in psychology, modern dance, and interactive multimedia, the latter pursued in the United States.
In his professional roles, Tahn serves as a concurrent professor in liberal arts and contemporary arts at Seowon University and holds the position of Chairman of the United Art Education Association in Korea. He also contributes as a lecturer in sculpture and art at Chungbuk National University, where he imparts his expertise to the next generation of artists.
Throughout his career, Tahn has exhibited his work in prestigious group and solo exhibitions across cities such as Seoul, Daegu, Rome, Uzès, Lisbon, and New York.
Tahn recently presented on Niio his solo artcast Tales of the Five Peaks, and kindly answered a series of questions about his work and his perspective on the Korean contemporary art scene.
Tahn. Ilwolobongdo_parallel universe, 2024
You have a strong background in painting and sculpture but decided to move into digital media. How did this transition come about? What do you find most interesting about traditional techniques (such as painting and sculpture) on one side, and working with computers on the other?
For me, the distinction between traditional media and digital media is not particularly significant. I see painting, sculpture, digital devices, and other tools simply as instruments that artists of any era can use to convey the stories of their time. As an artist, I believe it is important to utilize every available resource to best express the narrative of the present. This philosophy naturally led me to include digital media in my work, alongside traditional materials such as brushes, paint, and canvas. I consider this fusion a natural evolution of artistic expression. While it might be described as a blend of traditional and digital techniques, to me it is just an inevitable expansion that allows me to fully articulate contemporary stories.
“As an artist, I believe it is important to utilize every available resource to best express the narrative of the present.”
When you started creating digital art, what was the reaction of your peers, collectors and followers? Was it well received? Would you say that, during the last decades, digital art has been well received in the Korean contemporary art scene?
When I introduced digital elements into Korean folk painting, especially in the ‘minhwa’ series, the reactions were extremely polarized. Traditional art groups, some associations, and juries at art contests refused to recognize my work as ‘minhwa’ because I did not adhere to conventional methods. However, I continued my work because I believed that the essence of ‘minhwa’ lies in being art for the people. During the Joseon Dynasty, minhwa was created for the public, and today the public is the digital-native MZ generation. Therefore, I use digital media to connect with them while preserving the essence of minhwa. Today, I am recognized as a leading media artist in the field of minhwa, redefining its place in contemporary art.
Tahn. Ilwolobongdo_today and tommorow, 2023
“When I introduced digital elements into Korean folk painting, especially in the ‘minhwa’ series, the reactions were extremely polarized.”
As a professor and lecturer at Seowon University and Chungbuk National University, you teach to the younger generation of artists and creators. What are their expectations about creating art, and what differences do you see from previous generations in their understanding of the history of art and the career paths that they want to follow?
One notable difference is that the younger generation is more open to exploring various ways of interpreting their time. To guide them, I emphasize the importance of studying the historical context and understanding how previous generations expressed their issues through art. For instance, by examining classical works, particularly traditional paintings, students can reflect on how past artists conveyed their era and what they can learn from them.
Through this process, I encourage students to create narratives that connect traditional techniques with modern tools like AI. My goal is to help them produce art that addresses contemporary issues while also drawing from cultural heritage, thereby creating something meaningful for today’s audience.
“My goal is to help students produce art that addresses contemporary issues while also drawing from cultural heritage.”
The contrast between the built environment (cities, buildings) and nature is a recurring theme in your work. What do you find most interesting about exploring this subject?
In Korea, we have a long history of garden culture (Jeongwon). Historically, scholars would leave the city and build small dwellings in nature, creating gardens where they could reflect on life, engage in philosophical thought, and formulate political ideas. Those who couldn’t leave the city would bring nature into their urban homes by creating small ponds and gardens in their courtyards. If even that wasn’t possible, they would hang landscape paintings in their rooms to simulate the presence of nature. This desire for nature amidst urban life led me to explore how human beings, even while residing in cities, inherently seek out nature. My interest in this topic began with traditional Korean painting and has expanded globally through my experiences in South Korea and the UK.
Tahn’s work is often displayed in multichannel installations and large media facades.
“The desire for nature amidst urban life led me to explore how human beings, even while residing in cities, inherently seek out nature.”
Fantastic, surreal, and sci-fi elements are also commonly present in your work. Can you elaborate on your choice of these references? Would you say that the use of 3D software has inspired you to incorporate these elements into your work?
Korean folk painting (‘minhwa’), folklore, and shamanistic beliefs have always contained fantastic and surreal elements—not as mere illusions but as symbols that help sustain the reality of people’s lives. These elements serve as hope, faith, and guiding principles for many individuals. To me, these objects are not simply products of imagination but are deeply rooted in real stories. The recent advancements in generative AI software, along with 3D software like Blender and Cinema 4D, have made it easier to translate these elements into tangible, hyper-realistic forms, thereby amplifying their impact on the viewer.
Tahn. Sustainable Today’s Story, Palace of Imagination no1, 2021
Although your digital artworks may seem to depict an imaginary world, they address real issues of our world, such as environmental degradation, and notably, also express feelings of hope and perseverance. Do you think that it is precisely by depicting imaginary scenes that one can invite the viewer to consider their own reality?
Absolutely. Every individual carries their own universe within them. By presenting an imaginative world beyond the viewer’s everyday reality, I invite them to explore the infinite dimensions of their inner selves. This creates a space where they can engage with emotions or thoughts that they might not have considered in their conventional reality. The imaginary worlds I create serve as mirrors—reflecting possibilities that encourage viewers to rethink their own perspectives and transcend the limitations of their current existence.
“Every individual carries their own universe within them. By presenting an imaginative world beyond the viewer’s everyday reality, I invite them to explore the infinite dimensions of their inner selves.”
Most of the artworks we currently present on Niio are related to the Ilwolobongdo, the painted folding screen that was always displayed behind the King’s throne in the Joseon Dynasty, depicting the Sun, the Moon, and the Five Peaks. Can you tell us about the significance of this particular object in Korean culture and art?
The Ilwolobongdo, the folding screen that symbolized the presence of the king during the Joseon Dynasty, represents authority and power. What intrigued me was the idea that the Ilwolobongdo was only complete when the king stood in front of it, suggesting that the individual and the environment together create a unified meaning. In today’s society, I believe that every individual is their own ‘king,’ a sovereign over their life and choices. By incorporating the Ilwolobongdo into my work, I hope to empower viewers, encouraging them to recognize their agency and the importance of their presence. Additionally, I include contemporary symbols and objects that represent today’s era, creating new narratives that link traditional motifs with the present and future.
Tahn. Sustainable environment, deer and whales, 2022
In some of your works we can see written text in Korean. Can you explain to us what these texts mean, and what is their role in your compositions?
The Korean text that appears in my works is often drawn from classical Korean poetry or my own poetic compositions. These texts add layers of meaning to the visual narrative, much like traditional Korean paintings that combine imagery and poetry—an essential skill for scholars during the Joseon era. By including these texts, I aim to create a dialogue between the visual and the poetic, merging artistic expressions that convey both aesthetic beauty and intellectual depth.
You also refer to Western culture in some artworks that depict objects such as an Evian water bottle, a Rolex watch, or an Apple computer, and you also place famous brand names such as Prada, Fendi, or Netflix on other objects. What is the purpose of including these brands and objects in your artworks?
I do not see these elements as uniquely ‘Western.’ Instead, they reflect the consumer tendencies around me, representing desires and aspirations within contemporary society. For instance, my series inspired by ‘chaekgado’ (a genre of Korean painting featuring bookshelves) originally had educational undertones in the Joseon era but gradually evolved to include luxury items, symbolizing changing values and desires. By incorporating these recognizable brands, I am commenting on the transformation of human values over time, as well as the transient nature of material possessions.
Tahn. Sustainable Today’s Story, Palace of Imagination no2, 2021
In some of your works, your name also becomes a brand, in a twist of the artist’s signature. Why did you choose to do so?
In traditional Korean art, the use of a seal (or ‘nakgan’) as an artist’s mark was a fundamental aspect of a painting. For me, incorporating my name as a brand is an extension of that tradition, reinterpreted in a modern context. Whether it’s through a literal signature, an avatar, or a unique object representing me, these inclusions are my way of putting a personal stamp on my work—merging historical artistic conventions with a contemporary twist.
You are currently using AI models to generate some of the elements in your work. Unlike other artists, who rely on machine learning for the creation of the whole work, you use the outputs of this process as an element that is seamlessly integrated into your 3D animations. Can you tell us more about your approach to using artificial intelligence in the creation of your artworks? How do you conceive a balance between “manual” creation by the human artist and algorithmic creativity?
As I explore the potential of generative AI, I often find myself reflecting on the evolving role of the artist in an age dominated by new technologies. AI is a powerful tool that aids in research, inspires new ideas, and adds complexity to certain aspects of my work. However, I am also cautious about the potential for AI to overshadow the artist’s unique voice. While I use AI-generated elements to enhance or complement my compositions, I ensure that the creative vision and narrative remain distinctly my own. AI, to me, is a resource—a collaborator, but not the creator. It is the artist’s hand that ultimately guides, curates, and gives soul to the work, distinguishing art from mere aesthetically pleasing products.
“AI, to me, is a resource—a collaborator, but not the creator. It is the artist’s hand that ultimately guides, curates, and gives soul to the work.”
Dev Harlan is a New York-based artist whose work in sculpture, installation, and digital media explores the interplay between technology, nature, and the impact of human activity on our planet. His practice delves into themes such as landscape, anthropogenic change, and technological consumption, prompting viewers to question the often-assumed separation between human societies and the natural world. Harlan’s work invites audiences to see technology as embedded within, and inseparable from, the environment rather than as an external force.
Harlan’s work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally, with solo exhibitions in New York at the Christopher Henry Gallery and Gallery Madison Park. He has been included in international group shows such as “Noor” at the Sharjah Art Museum, the New Museum’s “Ideas City” in New York, and the Singapore Light Art Festival. Recognized for his contributions to digital media arts, Harlan was a 2020 NYFA Fellowship Finalist and won a 2022 Mozaik Artist Grant. His work is included in the permanent collections of corporate and private collectors, underscoring his impact and appeal.
Dev Harlan has launched on Niio his most recent series of artworks, Speculative Cores, which offer a compelling visual metaphor of the effects of our consumerist society on the environment. In this interview, he elaborates on the concepts and the processes behind his work.
Dev Harlan. Speculative Cores (Internet of Bubble Mailers), 2024
This new series explores the impact of our consumerist society on our planet, made evident in the growing amounts of waste that we are producing. It is obviously connected to your previous work exploring geology and terraformation. Can you elaborate on the connections between your previous work and this series?
Much of my work has a geological theme motivated by travels and residencies in the desert, and more recently my continuing education in Earth Science. When studying the landscape it is difficult to ignore the effects of anthropogenic change. The most obvious in the desert being strip mines, of which I have visited many. These are inextricably linked to technology –every single electronic device, battery or screen contains elements that must be extracted from the Earth.
In my previous moving image artworks I have worked with this theme of global resource extraction and the myth of limitless consumption through the juxtaposition of landscape elements and technological debris. This new work “Speculative Cores” is just one step adjacent where I am expressing this theme through the language of geoscience, specifically the well known form of the geological core sample. Technology is seen buried in stratigraphic layers with the rocks and minerals of which it is made.
“Every single electronic device, battery or screen contains elements that must be extracted from the Earth.”
The artworks present a series of 3D-scanned elements including sand and stone, as well as plastics and e-waste. Can you describe the process of creation?
In some ways this begins from a habit of collecting things. I have boxes of jars and bottles containing sand samples I have collected from all over the world, wherever I travel. Rocks also. I also have accumulations of electronic junk in the studio, and sometimes collect more from recycling centers and the vast amounts of waste left on sidewalks and loading docks throughout NYC.
In my process of 3D scanning artworks in the studio I began mixing materials–studies or works in progress with sand and rocks and broken electronics. For the core samples series I layer all these diverse materials in a large acrylic cylinder and create a scan of the cylinder. The scans are then further combined and composed with each other using digital tools.
“Our landfills will one day be parts of mountains, with cell phones, cars, bricks and diapers. We may ask with seriousness, is that the record we wish to leave behind?”
Composing these 3D scans as cylinders that evoke geological core samples gives a powerful message, suggesting that all this trash and debris will remain on our planet long after our present time. Do you think that viewers will grasp the meaning of the core sample as a testimony of a process of centuries, or millenia?
Certainly that is the intention, and indeed many of the proposed definitions of the Anthropocene epoch attempt to define a specific place in the geological record where humans have already left indelible traces, such as increased CO2 concentrations in stone, or radioactive particles from nuclear weapons testing.
I see many artists examining this form of the core cylinder, in what has been termed the ‘geological turn’, as it is a widely recognized shorthand for our ability to understand Earth history through the geosciences. In a real sense a core can be considered a dataset that records hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. But so also is the side of a mountain. Our landfills will one day be parts of mountains, with cell phones, cars, bricks and diapers. We may ask with seriousness, is that the record we wish to leave behind?
Dev Harlan. Speculative Cores (Alabaster Quickcam), 2024
Besides the conceptual aspect of putting these elements together, there is a clear attention to aesthetics, as is also evidenced in your previous series Hegemony of Screensavers. Which aesthetic decisions influenced the making of these compositions?
The photogrammetry scanning process comes with a lot of artifacts and unpredictability and there is a tension between wanting to embellish or “improve” the scan versus letting the model be what it is. I think I take a cue here from Hito Steryerl’s “poor image” theory in that leaving the artifacts and distortions in the scanning process helps tell the story of what the artwork is and how it came to be. The model simply rotates through the frame against a solid field to achieve a sort of literalness in presenting a 3D scan as precisely what it is.
At the other end of this tension I do want to add some uncanniness or departure from reality, as the artwork is still only a facsimile of the real. The trailing after image I use a lot also has a sort of literalness to it – the incremental temporality of time base art. It also provides emergent aesthetic properties and a sort of elegance in pattern and form that I find satisfying. Part of the strategy is to draw in a viewer’s attention with an aesthetic appeal which, on closer inspection, may communicate a more difficult story about the entanglement of nature and technological civilizations.
“I aim to achieve a sort of literalness in presenting a 3D scan as precisely what it is, but I also do want to add some uncanniness or departure from reality, as the artwork is still only a facsimile of the real.”
Dev Harlan. Speculative Cores (Salt Lake Slab), 2024
Jaime de los Rios(Donostia/San Sebastian, 1982) is a visual artist and programmer, founder of the open laboratory of art and science ARTEK[Lab] (2007). An expert in free software and hardware, he has developed over the last decades a body of work that blends contemporary art, science and technology, creating immersive environments and generative works, often in collaboration with other artists, scientists and engineers.
On the occasion of his solo exhibition “El problema de la forma” at Arteko Gallery, we present in Niio a selection of his recent digital works and conduct this interview in which we delve into the career, work processes and inspiration of the Spanish artist.
Explore a selection of artworks by Jaime de los Rios in On The Problem of Form
As a visual artist and programmer, you unite the two essential aspects of digital creation. What led you to develop your career in this field? Which aspect tends to prevail, the one that seeks a particular aesthetic expression, or the one that seeks to experiment with new technologies?
I consider that creation is intimately linked to the paradigm that the artist inhabits. In my case, different contemporary aspects intersect that have led me to use new technologies, as well as the aesthetics of these technological times. I did my studies in electronic engineering and I was educated to successfully manage the technical capabilities of my time. However, in the process of learning, certain desires and results have come in the way. These were not initially desired, but they responded to a philosophy or a concern. I remember well when I had to program an automaton that controlled a traffic light and I forced it to make a certain error that made the three lights blink in a randomized cycle. This reminded me of the famous movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (Steven Spielberg, 1977) and how it used the language of sound and color, with the notes Sol re Sol. There I realized that to control the technology of the moment was also to be able to use the best tools in a critical and aesthetic way and that in such a technologized society artists have an important role to reconfigure or offer a political view of the situation.
I work mainly with algorithms. I don’t always do it from a programming language but the logic is the same. I compose simple systems that are governed by different equations: these combinations make the system complex, quantum we could say. In its infinity I cannot know how the system will behave at a given moment but I can frame its behavior. It is like sculpting infinity. When handling these systems, I navigate among the mathematics themselves and it is these that make the possibilities emerge that perhaps would never have been in my head if I had thought about it from the beginning, so aesthetics and technology are absolutely linked to each other.
In your work there are influences of geometric abstraction and the work of pioneers such as Manfred Mohr. What references have marked the visual vocabulary of your works?
Of course, Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnar, Frieder Nake…. And also the whole ecosystem of the Computing Center of Madrid, including artists such as José Luis Alexanco or Elena Asins. At the moment when these artists became acquainted with computation through the computer there is a moment of singularity that is very inspiring for me and can be appreciated in my last exhibition. The precarious resources, such as simple geometries, and yet the great capacity for resolution are undoubtedly a great metaphor for the work of these artists in their time. It is the first painting made using a computer, but it has immense poetics.
I have arrived in my work to these artists that I already knew but I have done it at a later time, after exploring the history of painting itself and activating algorithms in a pictorial way. In recent years I have wanted the work to speak of its own support and its own algorithms in a transparent way and that is why the elements I use are precisely reminiscent of that synthetic painting.
Jaime de los Ríos. FlyTheProblem, 2024
A main aspect of your work lies in the use of generative algorithms to create constantly morphing compositions, with each work being what Frieder Nake once defined as “the description of an infinite set of drawings.” What attracts you to the possibilities of generative art? What is it like to conceive of a work that does not consist of a finished visual composition, but rather a set of instructions and behaviors?
It is undoubtedly one of the great differences with respect to plastic art. Algorithms allow us to think and develop artworks that change endlessly. We work with movement, fundamentally, let’s say that so far we have a new characteristic which is rhythm and we leave behind, as if it were a curse, the texture and smell of painting.
Here there are also two types of digital artists, those who direct their creation to something they have previously thought of and others like me who navigate mathematics and in the dialogue with the algorithm itself we let emergencies flow, but then both types of artists need to conceive the work as a system, a framework of possibilities. The work is never solved but it is enclosed in a space of freedom.
The most exciting thing about this technique, I would say, is to reach the infinite in a poetic way that enables contemplation. To do this, and knowing that it is a post-editing technique, that is, it does not begin or end, we only have to look at nature, the largest infinite system that can be known. From there it is trapped into mathematics and transferred to aesthetic systems. Some artists do it in a very direct and figurative way, others use a system of color and a rhythm that we can perceive as human beings, everyday phenomena such as the reflection of the light in the sea, the shoals of fish or the choreography of birds.
“The work is never solved, but locked in a space of freedom.”
In addition to pictorial references, in your work you have explored the relationships between digital art and film, using Gene Youngblood’s concept of “expanded cinema”, and also with the electroacoustic music of Iannis Xenakis, as well as jazz. What do these connections with film and music bring to digital art, and especially to your work?
My work is an incessant search for pictorial, tactile, and sound systems. However, I rarely generate my own sound, so I use the mathematics of music to apply it to the artworks. Many of us electronic art artists work transcoding data, that is, a work can be silent and at the same time have a lot of musicality as is the case of my work on Iannis Xenakis, where I use his famous equation, the curve, which he applied on the one hand in architecture but also in sound composition, to move a series of kinetic artifacts that are like windmills. By activating a movement directly proportional to this curve and also generating a very powerful rotational sound, the whole immersive work, which is also projected, forms a universe that evokes the work of Xenakis. It is almost a scientific experiment: what would have happened if we human beings did not have the sensors to hear, and had to translate those frequencies in the form of color, for instance.
Jaime de los Ríos. pixelsunshine, 2024
Telepresence is a concept you have worked with in several projects, which have notably incorporated a complex interaction between devices, people, and spaces. What attracts you to the possibility of creating these remote connections? Based on your experience with these projects, how do you see the ubiquity of digital art through platforms like Niio, which make it easy to integrate artworks on any screen?
The telepresence I worked with is situated in time between the utopia of net art, the rhizomatic connection, and the quantum era of entanglement. It is one of those concepts that are human aspirations and that Roy Ascott and Eduardo Kac, of course, talked about and developed a lot. In the days of the Intact collective we did teleshared actions between many places around the world. The most interesting thing is that they were not based on video as in our new tools, but given the precariousness of the Internet connection what we sent was mostly mathematics. So I became an interactive beacon of light to the music coming from the SAT in Montreal thanks to the data flowing through the fiber optic cables.
Niio is a revolution for digital art, it takes advantage of the nature of the medium and takes art out of the black box. One of the big problems of art today is that it has not changed at the pace of society, today we must be accessible and in the pockets of the user, the art lover and not exclusively in centers or institutions and galleries, which of course provide a great value to the work but limit access. Likewise, one of the characteristics that most interests me about Niio is to be able to enjoy the works in privacy, at a contemplative pace and in a space of one’s own without the pressure of contemporary daily life. Enjoying the work during different times throughout a day, a week or as long as you wish, that is the way in which art becomes great and we truly understand it.
“One of the features that interests me most about Niio is being able to enjoy the works in privacy, at a contemplative pace and in a space of one’s own without the pressure of contemporary daily life.”
Your works have occupied the facades of large buildings such as the Etopía center in Zaragoza or the Kursaal in Donostia. What are the challenges of creating a work for the public space and in large dimensions? How would you say they contribute to raising awareness and appreciation of digital art?
Besides the technical complications, because each digital facade has its own nature, what I am most interested in is to dialogue with the space, to reduce the gap between art that people feel safe with and is part of their history and digital art. Of course this is not the same everywhere. For example, in the city of Zaragoza, which is closely linked to classical art, I created a work called Goya Disassembled. It was the first work made for the facade of the art and technology center Etopia and the result of an artistic residency in this cultural institution. It was an infinite work in which the artist’s entire color palette was displayed, based on all his paintings and drawings. In most of the cities of the world this work would be a rhythm of colors, however in the Aragonese city it spoke of its history and the people who saw it knew perfectly well that these are the colors that in one way or another inhabit the city: dark, strong colors, just like the paintings that they know and love so much of Francisco de Goya.
Jamie de los Ríos. Crimson Waves, 2021. Kursaal, Donostia/San Sebastián. Photo: Sara Santos
Much of your work is characterized by collaborations with other artists or collectives. What have these collaborations contributed to your work? How does the creative process differ when you work on a piece individually from when you work as part of a team?
My artistic work has always been linked to collaboration, and I think that in general all artists working with new technologies are constantly busy! In my case I think that for better or worse I have developed a more personal line and when I have the opportunity to work with other artists in the creation, being a very hard and difficult process, it allows me to get out of my more personal line and activate other issues. If I look back, I’d say that when I work in a collective I am much more political and semantic, while when I work on my own I’m more romantic and liberated.
In any case there are different types of collaborations. When you work with different disciplines, for example in my case I have worked with musicians, we allow ourselves to be ourselves and reach something common. When you work with other digital or plastic artists you have to create a whole new space, that’s why many times you start from discussions and it’s more complicated to speak from the heart.
“When I work with a collective I’m more political and semantic whereas when I work on my own I am somewhat more romantic and liberated.”
You have a long experience in the design and technical coordination of digital art exhibitions and events in Spain, such as the Art Futura festival or the exhibition “Sueños de Silicio,” among many others. From this perspective, how have you seen the presentation and reception of digital art in Spain evolve? What successes and missed opportunities would you point out, globally?
This is a complicated question and at the same time essential to understand the contemporaneity of electronic art. I will begin by talking about the artists themselves and how they have been affected by the way of exhibiting this type of art, which is often related to spectacle and the possibilities of the future of art. Electronic, digital and new media art has been closely linked to the exhibition of new technologies and this has generated a precarious business model for artists who, by collaborating with more people, generate grandiloquent and very expensive works. The spectacularization of the medium has not served to professionalize the artists but rather the other way around, we have festivals in which we seek to be impressed by the use of new technology, and this has caused us to generate a niche, a place apart from contemporary art.
This is not bad per se, but we must enable new paths, encourage professionalization and the labor of art, with works in a smaller scale but also more linked to a personal production. This may sound a bit classical but I had the opportunity to work with the Ars Electronica archive some time ago for the curatorship of a small exhibition in Bilbao. The vast majority of artists who participated in this festival throughout its history do not create art anymore. Perhaps it is still a very young art.
Finally, I would like to add that I work at the New Art Collection and I study the work of artists in the technological field. In recent years there has been a great step forward in the field of collecting, with serious proposals from the creators that will allow new generations to enjoy this art.
Jaime de los Ríos. Scintillant, 2019. Collaboration with IED Kunsthal Bilbao and Susana Zaldívar.
Over the last two decades you have been active in the training aspect of digital art, running workshops and being part of teams in medialabs, notably as founder of ARTEK [Lab] at Arteleku. Can you give me an overview of the genesis and development of the maker and open source communities in Spain? How have the collaborative and training spaces in which you have participated influenced the development of a digital art scene in Spain? How has the reception of digital art that you mentioned in the previous question affected these spaces?
I have great memories of the first digital artists I met in Spain. They were linked to centers like medialab Prado. They were collectives like Lumo, which lived in a space of open creation, where they worked in the technological field from a political position of open source but also aesthetics. Not to beat around the bush, I will say that all this changed with the arrival of the maker movement. Being interesting and positive in the first instance, this movement took the political facet (open source, collaboration, etc.) and turned it into its emblem but left behind the aesthetic and even critical field. It linked creation to a certain machinery and it can be said that it made us almost slaves of those machines.
I lost many people along the way who, from being free researchers, turned exclusively to machines and the machinery of the market. I would say that here there is a first stage which is the hackmeeting, hacktivism as epicenter and hybridization of new ways of thinking in terms of technopolitical, cosmovisionary feminism, and then maker culture, a reductionism with neoliberal tendencies, oriented to generate a third industrial revolution linked to new economies.
“We have festivals where we seek to impress ourselves by the use of new technology, and this has caused us to generate a niche, a place apart from contemporary art.”
You are currently working as advisor and technical coordinator of the New Art Foundation, the largest collection of digital art in Spain. What challenges does the preservation of digital art pose, and how do you see the future of this type of artistic creation in terms of its permanence in institutional collections and the knowledge of its history?
Indeed, I am the technical director of the collection and I am passionate about it. We work with more than one hundred and fifty works, 95% of which belong to living artists. From the first thoughts on cybernetics in the video art of Peter Weibel to the generative art of Alba Corral. All the works are of a different nature and this implies a maximum challenge, a knowledge of thousands of sub technologies, different operating systems and different interfaces. It is still a path that is being generated thanks also to the support of all the artists, but it is certainly a collective challenge that we face and we want our works to survive in the future.
If I have to give some advice, in order for our works to be enjoyed in the future, I would comment that it is important that we work with tools that we know very well, that we make them our own and little by little we feel that we control those supports absolutely. Our lines of code are our paint strokes and the screens, our canvases, appropriating their colors and their movements. This may sound a bit unpopular, but the field of collecting requires a certain security when it comes to a work working or being restored. We are also developing protocols for the collection that make it possible to arrange the craziest works, of course!
Jaime de los Ríos. Vortex, 2024
In “The problem of form”, your current exhibition at Arteko Gallery, from which we present a selection of digital pieces in Niio, you recover the connection between painting and algorithmic creation that underlies much of your work. The exhibition combines digital works with pieces on paper and digital printing on aluminum. At the current moment of maturity in your career, how do you conceive the role of digital art in relation to other forms of contemporary artistic creation? How has the exhibition been received in the context of a contemporary art gallery?
I’m really excited about exhibiting at Niio, the exhibition has expanded in an unimaginable way. Now it travels through the networks and sneaks into screens all over the world. It is a very personal work that above all I have been able to exhibit in my homeland. After several exhibitions in the Arteko gallery, I can say, and this seems to me very important, that people have made my art their own.
In times of globalization and the tentacular capacity of the Internet, it is common to think that the number of “likes” is more important than the number of people around you. This is why the exhibition has been very successful, even in terms of sales! And nowadays I would say that digital art is already part of contemporary art. Both art lovers and people who are more distant from the medium are already more familiar with this movement that speaks of issues they are aware of, and uses the same tools they use in their daily lives.
“For our works to be enjoyed in the future, it is important that our lines of code are our paint strokes and the screens our canvases.”
Musician and digital artist Franz Rosatirecently presented on Niio a series of three videos titled DATALAKE: GROUNDTRUTH(2024) in which he worked with AI models to generate mesmerizingly fluid landscapes that evoke chaos and disaster, but also regeneration and impermanence. Widely recognized on the international digital art and electronic music scene, Rosati creates a unique combination of visual landscapes, soundscapes, and cinematic narratives that embody the ideal of the total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk) for a fully immersed audience.
In a previous interview for Niio Editorial, on the occasion of the launch of Rosati’s series LATENTSCAPE(2021), the artist offered us a general approach to his work. In this article, we focus on his most recent series, diving into his use of machine learning programs, his reflections about our current visual culture, and the elusive concept of truth.
Franz Rosati. DATALAKE:GROUNDTRUTH N1, 2024
This series brings to mind our fascination with disasters, which has been enhanced by digital technologies allowing the creation of ever more spectacular images of cataclysms in films and TV shows, and the growing tendency in mainstream media to feed us with disturbing images in the midst of the raging attention economy. Would it be correct to interpret the artworks as a commentary on our current media landscape?
I don’t know if I want to see the work as a commentary on the media landscape, this is not the very first target of the project.
For sure the theme of disaster, the cataclysm, and the overwhelming flux of visual information, has extended not only to the natural and ecological context, but also to the perception of a cognitive vortex. So the disaster as something disruptive, unexpected and out of control, is exactly what emerged during the production and the selection of the final materials.
I do not start any of my projects with a specific political or critical theme, it’s a pretty more subconscious process, I just start doing things and stop when something resonates with some parts of me, then I try to figure out why it resonates with me so much. This is why I’m very interested in understanding how my work might adhere to a vision of reality.
I think every artwork is political in some ways but I also think that every artwork must speak for itself, it’s not about releasing a statement through images and sounds, but instead leaving it there and observing how it resonates with the surrounding environment.
In this case, after months of generating materials and testing sounds, I decided that I wanted to catch the vibe of a visual multiverse inflated by images, that through an inescapable hyper-aesthetization process, disastrously decorate and beautify its own impermanent deflagration and collapse.
“After months of generating materials and testing sounds, I decided that I wanted to catch the vibe of a visual multiverse inflated by images that disastrously decorate and beautify its own impermanent deflagration and collapse.”
The use of split screens in some scenes reinforces the connection with newsreels and mass media. What do they bring to this project, in terms of visual composition and subtext?
The splitscreen aesthetics idea came out in an advanced phase of the work and was absolutely the most difficult part to do from a technical aspect.
I didn’t want to do it by using masks to tell AI where to put different things, which is a pretty common and straightforward approach. Instead I wanted to let AI interpret several words in the prompt, going back and forth to see how a comma or the weight of a specific word can alter the results and recall some features in the model. This was a pretty long process.
The screen is a very iconic and persistent element of our visual culture since Nam June Paik (and before him Guy Debord, Isidore Isou or Abel Gance) which was probably the first in visual arts to understand how powerful could it be, but today we have incredible artists such as Baron Lanteigne who is able deal with a simulacra of the screen in extremely powerful, subtle and unexpected ways, as in the content so in the setup of his works.
The splitscreen in this series is my “tribute” to the device, in its embodiment as a magic portal, a simulacra, a magic surface opening up to other worlds. A multidimensional device shaping our reality more and more, first in our homes, then covering walls and buildings of our cities, then fitting in our hands and pockets to slowly landing in the art galleries and exhibitions.
In my case I wanted multiple screens representations to be a strong part of the artwork: The television layout which is the one telling what’s happening in our world shaping our perception of reality as well as the LED wall or the stage design which is instead the most diffused example of mass worship during concerts and large events.
“The splitscreen in this series is my «tribute» to the device, in its embodiment as a magic portal, a simulacra, a magic surface opening up to other worlds.”
I want these elements to be almost like a living organism that is symbiotic with the natural elements, absorbs nature and is absorbed by nature. Virtuality and biology melted together.
So it is not just a way to visualize different contents and context. It is more about the splitscreen, the “news layout”, the LED wall, as a part of a new and complex hybrid ecosystem.
Franz Rosati. Still from the series DATALAKE: GROUNDTRUTH, 2024
An interesting detail in these scenes of chaos and destruction is the presence of cars. Artist Iñigo Bilbao once stated: “Confronted with images of a disaster, in order for them to cause us a real (and perhaps pleasant) impact, we need to identify something among the chaos, a reference that informs us of the scale of the tragedy […] Apart from the most macabre evidence, cars offer an easily recognizable shape, allowing us to glimpse the seriousness of the accident, the power of the bomb or the height of the floods.” Is the presence of cars in these artworks connected to this sense of scale mentioned by Bilbao? Or maybe it is something embedded in the imagery of disasters that AI models replicate?
Cars and humans have a very accidental yet central role in this work, retrospectively. That wasn’t planned at all, my idea at the beginning was only focused on depicting this process of nature, architecture and technology struggling to coexist and find their place, fighting, morphing and twisting.
I tried everything to totally get rid of both humans, cars and vehicles, and keep only images of technology. For some reasons the CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pretraining) part of the code responsible for learning and connecting visual concepts from natural language supervision, was strongly trained with tons of images labeled as cars, vehicles and people or something strictly related. So the semantic domain of technology is not separable from cars and vehicles.
The observation made by Iñigo Bilbao is revealed to be dramatically true and fitting in this case. In the end I decided to keep cars and vehicles and play with them, giving them a role, as a reminder of the many biases we can discover in AI, and how that speaks so much about our world and how some peculiar aspects of our society will always percolate into the tools we use and back in a recursive process, shaping their functions and role in our evolution or progress.
This could lead to a very simple deduction: The tool is the message or at least the part of the algorithm generates part of the message.
“I wanted to let AI interpret several words in the prompt, going back and forth to see how a comma or the weight of a specific word can alter the results. This was a pretty long process.”
The soundtrack is a crucial element of the artworks, as it brings in a strong emotional element to the images. As a musician, how would you describe the role of sound in this series?
Sound is very central for me, for many years I’ve worked with materials gathered from streaming platforms, and social networks as well as field recordings or unusual sounds, trying to build some kind of accidental sound design and music from the social bubble as Burial first taught us.
I always liked the realistic imprint coming from a mediated support, the new sonic landmarks and the emblematic sounds of audio compression and the limits of some new media devices; it’s like collecting field recordings in a digital world but recorded by non-professional devices such as smartphones, dash-cams, live recorded concerts, cracks, crashes, impacts, then reinforced with classic sound design process. All of this is mediated by audio compression and so on, ending up building a totally different soundscape. The question in this case is: we’re immersed in a virtual multiverse since the ‘90s, so what has become of our listening and hearing process from a cognitive and perceptual point of view?
In the first iteration there was a very strong musical presence, since it’s more than a couple of years that I’m working on the integration of real and AI generated strings, especially cellos, and my first thought was to go in that direction.
What you hear is basically the sound of disaster, something close to white noise on a liminal level but full of patterns your brain can hook up to.
In this case, I decided to use AI systems to produce a sort of massive but realistic sonic avalanche instead of composing music.
By analyzing some frames of the videos using Llava, I was able to generate a prompt to feed a Latent Diffusion Model for audio generation and enrich my AI-Foley Sound Library which was built around 2021 with the Latentscape project using SampleRNN at the time.
“What you hear is basically the sound of disaster, something close to white noise on a liminal level but full of patterns your brain can hook up.”
I came to this conclusion after seeing the workshop Martina Carbone and Daniele Imani Nobar, which also works with me as assistant, held for Re:Humanism. They focused on using AI for Foley in a classical sense, generating and designing sounds for silent movies.
So after browsing my Sound Library and after listening to it repeatedly I then decided to only focus on these massive realistic sounds, following the morphings and the behavior of the images, while pushing the musical layer in the background, beneath all the other sounds.
At the same time the sound design workflow for an artwork series is very different from the one I use for my music or audiovisual performances.
For this reason, Mattia Magionami‘s support has become essential in the last year. I usually come up with a general workflow, a well defined sound aesthetics and an overall idea for some details, I make some starter templates and collect or generate materials. Mattia then takes charge of all the creative editing, synching, mixing and mastering of the final piece.
Franz Rosati. DATALAKE:GROUNDTRUTH N2, 2024
Another mesmerizing aspect of these animations is the fact that they are constantly morphing, without end, every disastrous event merging into another. The scenes therefore are captivating in presenting a thrilling spectacle of chaos, but at the same time, since the disaster is not permanent, but part of a flow, it does not seem like a tragedy. What have you found interesting in the technique of morphing and constant transformation?
I always worked with chaos intended as a high number of complex events happening together. This definitely depends on my fondness for musicians like Iannis Xenakis or Zbigniew Karkowski, Masami Akita or Paul Dolden, just to cite a few who had the first relevant impact with contemporary culture in my teenage years.
Chaos is potentially where you can create the most interesting connections, a pool of everything happening simultaneously, to be explored and where to find unexpected patterns and relationships.
When we talk about AI, learning is one of the key terms, but remembering is never mentioned. I feel that learning and remembering relate to a different sensibility rather than applying the same exact mechanism. The ease with which mass media and people tend to forget things is a crucial issue in our reaction to information overflow.
The constant morphing flow of images and events, forces you to check for patterns, to hang on landmarks in the screen space and try to learn what you’re seeing and remember something to not get lost in the flux and start to decode what is happening.
“Chaos is potentially where you can create the most interesting connections, a pool of everything happening simultaneously, to be explored and where to find unexpected patterns and relationships.”
Going back to the theme of disaster, this continuous morphing reminds me of that specific instantaneous feeling you have while the disaster is unfolding: a fall from the bicycle, or something more tragic, for instance, not necessarily physical.
In that moment your brain freezes the time: the unexpected event leads to a condition where it’s impossible to find patterns, and time stretches to infinity until this perception ends and you go back to a new, a new different reality to be re-semantized.
Franz Rosati. DATALAKE:GROUNDTRUTH N3, 2024
Both the images and the soundtrack have been generated using AI models. Can you explain the process of creation, and the differences between generating images and generating sound with AI? Given that you already worked with generative algorithms, what do these artificial intelligence programs contribute to your creative process?
I don’t want to go deep into technical stuff about workflows and code. I’ll focus on the creative experience with Generative AI compared to “old school” Generative Algorithms.
There are very huge differences in some aspects. We’re confronting with the same kind of approach at the foundation, based on giving rules and observing narrow variations as results, but we’re dealing with different kinds of complexity.
Dealing with Generative AI means we have to handle visual data condensed in a Latent space and then used to represent words we can prompt. It’s like a magic spell, and numbers are hidden behind this, since the final users have very few numerical parameters.
In “old school” generative process, we’re dealing with numbers and parameters in a very Pythagorean way, using equations, working with euclidean spaces, coordinates or controlling emerging features and systems behaviors.
In a creative approach, this leads the artist and the creative, in a very peculiar position. At the same time this technology is evolving so rapidly that is very much subject to paradigm shifts.
“When we talk about AI, learning is one of the key terms, but remembering is never mentioned. The ease with which mass media and people tend to forget things is a crucial issue in our reaction to information overflow.”
In this series you introduce the concept of “ground truth”, which is used in statistical models, cartography, meteorology, and the military to refer to information that is known to be true. Evidently, the fictions created by 3D simulations and AI models are putting into question what we can call “ground truth.” What has led you to work with this concept in this latest series?
Ground Truth is a technical term used in AI as well as Geographical Information Systems or Remote Sensing (which I used a lot in projects such as Distantia from 2023) and Statistics in general, used to prove if something is real based on empirical evidence.
It’s basically the opposite concept of Inference, which is a more common and popular term in the field of AI.
At the same time, if you ignore the meaning of the term, it could sounds a bit ambiguous: the word “truth” is very central since the advent of the internet and the alleged democratization of the media, this word is being used to represent and declare the state of declaring a single truth itself especially by conspiracy theory influencers, Q-Anon militants and alt-right propaganda at the point that we are now used to identify the word “truth” as a sort of red-flag…for fake, dangerous bad stuff and in general to deny the existence of many truths. So “Truth” is probably the word that best represents the gray areas of our time.
“«Truth» is probably the word that best represents the gray areas of our time”
This exact dichotomy and hard contrast led me to go for his title, to exactly evoke that kind of broken and twisted information system, depicting the distorted infosphere, the flow we are exposed to every day, in contrast with the quantum conception of reality, which gives us the tools to see the many truths reality is made of, that is instead becoming more and more strongly established.
The creative duo Moonwalker (Dany Vo and Vy Vo) has its roots in the worlds of graphic design and illustration, where they honed their skills in creating mesmerizing artistic compositions exploring nature and fashion. Through the technique of digital collage, the artists generate fantastic worlds populated by flowers, plants, and human beings in idyllic harmony. Infused with gracile movements, their compositions are visually seductive and deeply inspiring, as is demonstrated by their growing number of followers and the interest in their work, which is expanding widely around the globe.
Niio is proud to present a selection of their work focused on nature and inspired by their personal experience with plants and flowers. The artcast Floral Propagationcollects several pieces created with AI models, while a series ofcatalogsoffer selected limited editions to art collectors. In the following interview, the artists elaborate on the concepts and motivations behind their work.
Moonwalker. Vivid Petals Collection #3, 2024
As illustrators and graphic designers, you have a keen sense of aesthetics and an instinct to create alluring visual compositions. This is apparent in your artistic work, which denotes a conscious selection of color palettes and use of balance and symmetry. How important is this compositional aspect of your work?
We prioritize creating visually compelling compositions with strong contrasts, bold shapes, and carefully selected color palettes. In today’s saturated digital landscape, we aim for instant impact—artwork that prompts viewers to pause and engage deeply. Despite our maximalist appearance, our principle of “less is more” guides us in every element choice, ensuring each detail serves a purpose. This compositional approach not only defines our visual style but also influences our subject matter selection, allowing us to effectively convey narratives and evoke emotions that resonate profoundly with our audience.
“In today’s saturated digital landscape, we aim for instant impact—artwork that prompts viewers to pause and engage deeply.”
You work with digital collage, in a way that is very much in line with a visual culture saturated with images. Would you say that nowadays it only makes sense to create a new image by appropriating existing content? And when you create your own libraries, do you elaborate an internal logic for the use of these elements, to develop your own visual vocabulary?
Our approach to digital collage began with a fascination for historical botanical drawings, which often go underappreciated in today’s visual culture despite their rich detail and historical significance. These assets, now freely accessible, sparked our desire to reinterpret them through animated digital art, bridging the gap between traditional artistry and modern visual expressions. As we developed our own libraries of visual elements, including more than just botanical illustrations, we established an internal logic to guide their integration. This process has evolved organically into a collage style, shaped through continuous experimentation and refinement. Each element is carefully chosen to contribute to our unique visual vocabulary, ensuring that every composition tells a compelling visual story.
Moonwalker. In Bloom Collection #2, 2024
“Our approach to digital collage began with a fascination for historical botanical drawings. As we developed our own libraries of visual elements, we established an internal logic to guide their integration.”
Your work deals with visions of nature. Currently most of us live in urban environments surrounded by domesticated forms of nature: trees bordering the sidewalks, parks designed for our leisure, pot plants at home. Is the representation of nature through art another form of domestication? Why do you think that we are so moved by the representation of nature?
The domesticated forms of nature that surround us in urban environments serve as essential sanctuaries for contemplation and connection. Through our art, we aim to capture and convey the profound bond we feel with nature—the way it enables us to reconnect with our true selves and harmonize our inner and outer worlds. Our artworks are a manifestation of this bond, translated into visual elements that we are privileged to share with others. We believe that representations of nature in art resonate deeply because they evoke this universal longing for connection and renewal. By exploring and interpreting nature through our creative lens, we hope to move our audience as profoundly as we ourselves are moved by the beauty and tranquility of the natural world.
Moonwalker. Vivid Petals Collection #4, 2024
“Through our art, we aim to capture and convey the profound bond we feel with nature”
Given your personal experience in caring for plants, how do you think this love for the natural environment can be communicated through your work?
We bring a similar love for nature into our artwork. Like plant enthusiasts, we select flowers with interesting forms and colors. This careful curation is central to our creative process, where we combine these elements into harmonious compositions. Occasionally, we create unique, imaginary flowers, always rooted in our methodical approach. Animation adds depth to our work, enriching the visual storytelling of our pieces.
Moonwalker. In Bloom Collection #1, 2024
In the series presented on Niio, the animations depict different species of flowers that have been created through AI-assisted digital collage. The digital medium allows you to create anything you can imagine, and while the compositions are quite spectacular, the flowers seem mostly realistic. Why did you choose to retain this level of realism instead of creating purely fantastical plants?
Artificial Intelligence is indeed integral to our creative process, but we approach its use with a specific vision in mind. While AI allows us to explore limitless possibilities in digital collage, our goal isn’t to create purely fantastical plants. Instead, we harness AI to achieve a balance: realistic blooming flowers that resonate authentically with viewers. This realism is essential because it aligns with our artistic intent to capture the beauty of natural blooms, akin to what we might capture in real-life footage. Creating such footage would typically demand extensive time, resources, and effort that are not always feasible for us. Therefore, AI serves as a tool to manifest our artistic vision effectively, ensuring our animations evoke a genuine connection with the natural world.
Moonwalker. Vivid Petals Collection #1, 2024
AI programs provide immense possibilities of creation to artists, yet they tend to generate similar aesthetics, as it has been made apparent with the progression from the algorithmic pareidolia of Google’s DeepDream to the blurry “paintings” created with GANs and now the morphing animations made possible by current AI models. As artists, how do you find your visual style and aesthetics within these ongoing trends?
Our focus is on depicting nature authentically, rather than following AI trends. While AI offers many creative possibilities, we prefer to use it as a tool to enhance our vision, not dictate it. We find inspiration in discovering new flowers and natural beauty, aiming to create artworks that are unique to our own style and perspective.
“While AI offers many creative possibilities, we prefer to use it as a tool to enhance our vision, not dictate it.”
Your work also connects with the world of fashion. What do you find most interesting about fashion as a creative field and a material for your artistic creations? Since both the representation of nature and the human body are visually very attractive, how do these two elements compete in your creations? Fashion inspires us for its creative blend of innovation and aesthetic expression. The Dutch fashion designer Iris Van Herpen, particularly, deeply influences us with her designs that intertwine with nature. In our art, we see nature and the human body not as competing elements but as complementary. Nature offers timeless beauty and intricate details, while the human body provides expressive form and emotion. We integrate these elements to explore themes of identity and connection, creating compositions where botanical motifs and human forms harmoniously interact. This approach invites viewers to reflect on the profound relationship between humanity and the natural world.
