Reface [Portrait Sequencer]

Reface [Portrait Sequencer] by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman (2007) is a surreal video mash-up that composes endless combinations of its visitors’ faces. Based on the Victorian “Exquisite Corpse” parlor game, the Reface installation records and dynamically remixes brief video slices of its viewers’ mouths, eyes and brows. Reface uses face-tracking techniques to allow automatic alignment and segmentation of its participants’ faces. As a result, visitors to the project can move around freely in front of the display without worrying about lining up their face for the system’s camera. The video clips recorded by the project are “edited” by the participants’ own eye blinks. Blinking also triggers the display to advance to the next set of face combinations. Through interactions with an image wholly constructed from its own history of being viewed, Reface makes possible a new form of inventive play with one’s own appearance and identity. The resulting kinetic portraiture blends the personalities and genetic traits of its visitors to create a “generative group portrait” of the people in the project’s locale.

Darren Slater (DSM)

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – INTERATOR
Electronic Language International Festival

Trip Portal – United Kingdom

Portal Trip is a captivating fusion of original music and Darren Slater’s AI-generated animations, transporting viewers on a surreal journey through ever-shifting dimensions. As abstract portals open and dissolve into fluid landscapes, the hypnotic visuals synchronize with Darren’s immersive soundscapes, creating an audiovisual experience that feels like entering another reality. A mesmerizing blend of movement and sound, this video invites viewers to lose themselves in its dreamlike, otherworldly depths.

BIO

Darren Slater is a musician and amateur visual artist based in the UK. He composes cinematic soundtracks in ambient and techno-house styles with sci-fi inspiration, using attribute-free loops and sound effects. He uses Krea AI Animator to bring AI-generated images to life, creating immersive experiences. He also works as a traditional artist, painting fantasy worlds with brushes and pigments.

Pods

Darren Slater (DSM)

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – INTERATOR
Electronic Language International Festival

Pods – United Kingdom

Pods is an atmospheric fusion of original music and Darren Slater’s mesmerizing AI-generated visuals. This 4K video takes viewers on a surreal journey through an abstract world filled with floating organic forms and fluid transformations. The sci-fi-inspired imagery and immersive soundscape complement each other perfectly, creating an otherworldly audiovisual experience that lingers in the imagination.

BIO

Darren Slater is a musician and amateur visual artist based in the UK. He composes cinematic soundtracks in ambient and techno-house styles with sci-fi inspiration, using attribute-free loops and sound effects. He uses Krea AI Animator to bring AI-generated images to life, creating immersive experiences. He also works as a traditional artist, painting fantasy worlds with brushes and pigments.

ChromaPause

Jiatong Yao

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – CGI VIDEOS
Electronic Language International Festival

ChromaPause – China

ChromaPause is an experimental film that explores the relationship between urban life, posthuman identity, and the yearning for nature in a digitalized world. Futuristic flowers bloom in a surreal mesh, symbolizing the balance between the organic and the synthetic. Posthuman figures merge with the technological landscape, embodying the convergence of humanity and technology. The work invites pause and reflection in this pulsating universe.

BIO

Jiatong Yao connects art, technology, and culture, exploring XR, 3D, AI, and interactive computing. He reflects on the transformation of the modern self through technology, creating immersive experiences that intertwine humanity and the digital age. With a background in computer science and technical art, he develops innovative projects on the impacts of information on society. 

XENO: UNDERTOW

Hsujing

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Arte e Tecnologia – Videoart
Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica

XENO: UNDERTOW – China / England

XENO: UNDERTOW is an experimental short film that employs stream-of-consciousness narration and AI-generated surreal visual art to explore the identity struggles and inner turmoil of cross-cultural migrants in mainstream society. Through metaphor, the film depicts a whale forcibly displaced from the boundless azure sea, cast into a desert of shifting sands. This imagery symbolizes the challenges cultural migrants face in adapting to dominant cultures and the profound sense of identity loss.

BIO

Hsujing is a contemporary artist and digital artist & director. His primary research focuses on the integration of technology and art, as well as speculative creative outputs. He is skilled in combining diverse techniques for artistic creation. His works blend elements of classicism with science fiction, not only envisioning future landscapes but also revealing persistent realities.

Daily Diffusion 53 & 86

Callahan Indovina

FILE SÃO PAULO 2025: SYNTHETIKA – Art and Technology – Shorts Films AI
Electronic Language International Festival

Daily Diffusion 53 & 86 – United States

The Daily Diffusion series by Callahan Indovina was a three-month project launched in 2024, as Generative AI tools and various plat forms to support the automation of animations and workflows were still emergent. The YouTube series aimed to provide workflows, prompts, and examples on how to utilize Stable Diffusion and various enhancements to create psychedelic animations. Like many of his works, the Daily Diffusion series took inspiration from Calalhan’s experiences within his dreams.

Music: https://www.mubert.com

BIO

Callahan Indovina is a spir itual and psychedelic artist from California’s Sierra Nevada. His artistic expression combines traditional digital composition techniques with innovative practices such as generative AI. His creations, described as super natural and dreamlike, reflect his surreal and transcendental vision, drawn from experiences within his dreams

The Witness

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival

Image activated by augmented reality, where 3D animated subjects and scenarios are integrated into a physical photograph. Inspired by the work of Carl Jung, the image is part of a larger series that explores themes such as identity, introspection and transformation. Through AR, game elements were introduced into the piece, offering virtual content unlockable through interactions.

Bio

Camila Magrane is a Venezuelan-American visual artist known for her augmented reality images, integrating 3D animated scenes and subjects into physical photographs. With experience in video game development and a passion for analog photography, she explores the dialogue between the virtual and physical worlds. Magrane’s images are inspired by surrealist compositions and reference the graphic hyperrealism of contemporary video game design.

Space Odyssey 2002

FILE 2024 | Aesthetic Synthetics
International Electronic Language Festival
Valentin Rye – A Space Odyssey 2002 – Denmark

This video offers a surrealist take on futuristic sci-fi concepts from the 60s and 70s. Imagine a future colonization of Mars where interior design is given an avant-garde twist. It was created by brainstorming visual ideas, generating countless images, refining the best ones and assembling them into clips. After careful selection, these clips have been organized into a cohesive timeline, accompanied by atmospheric music to enhance the overall experience.

Bio

Valentin Rye is a self-taught machine whisperer based in Copenhagen, deeply passionate about art, composition and the possibilities of technology. He has been involved in AI and neural network image manipulation since starting DeepDream in 2015. While his IT work lacks creativity, he indulges in digital arts during his free time, exploring graphics, web design, video, animation and experimentation with images.

태양의 공장
2015년 베니스 비엔날레 독일관에서 데뷔한 이 몰입형 작품에서 슈타이얼은 전례 없는 글로벌 데이터 흐름으로 정의되는 순간에 이미지 순환의 즐거움과 위험을 탐구합니다. 뉴스 보도, 다큐멘터리 영화, 비디오 게임, 인터넷 댄스 비디오 등 장르 간 충돌 – 태양의 공장은 빛과 가속을 모티브로 감시가 점점 더 가상의 일상적인 부분이 되었을 때 집단 저항에 여전히 사용할 수 있는 가능성을 탐구합니다. 세계. 태양의 공장은 모션 캡처 스튜디오의 강제 이동이 인공 햇빛으로 변하는 노동자의 초현실적 인 이야기를 전합니다.
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Fábrica del sol
En este trabajo inmersivo, que debutó en el Pabellón Alemán de 2015 en la Bienal de Venecia, Steyerl explora los placeres y peligros de la circulación de imágenes en un momento definido por el flujo global de datos sin precedentes. Rebotando entre géneros (reportajes de noticias, películas documentales, videojuegos y videos de baile en Internet), Factory of the Sun utiliza los motivos de la luz y la aceleración para explorar qué posibilidades están todavía disponibles para la resistencia colectiva cuando la vigilancia se ha convertido en una parte mundana de una realidad cada vez más virtual. mundo. Factory of the Sun cuenta la historia surrealista de trabajadores cuyos movimientos forzados en un estudio de captura de movimiento se convierten en luz solar artificial.

La trahison des tapis
The title is a reference to the famous work by René Magritte “The Treachery of Images”. Even though the video installation alludes to it, the viewer is immediately aware that this is not a real carpet. What you see is an animation, a digital carpet, its contemporary variant. However, the patterns of the replica show that it could have been made in the west of Iran. The movements, which appear surreal, are reminiscent of a state of intoxication. Whether this was triggered by drugs, or only arose from the lively imagination of a tired child, is left to the speculation of the viewer. The work reflects the importance of traditional arts and crafts in the modern digital world. It is the first of a series of digital carpets.
The animation has a realistic resolution of 4k, is 03:55 minutes, and runs in an infinite loop on a 65-inch display.

Live Inventory
Live Inventory es una animación en 3D de Leo Castañeda, un galardonado artista radicado en Miami. Combinando técnicas de motor de juego con modelos de escaneo 3D de la colección de The Wolfsonian, Castañeda da vida a las obras de arte a medida que los elementos de la era de las máquinas de la exposición “Un universo de cosas: Micky Wolfson Collects” mutan en entidades virtuales surrealistas dentro de vitrinas asombrosas. En su video alucinante, Castañeda disuelve las fronteras entre objetos, personajes y espacio, investigando el impacto de la digitalización en la evolución de los diseños cotidianos y nuestras ideas preconcebidas sobre la experiencia humana.

Höhle der Wölfe
Den of Wolves ist eine Videoinstallation, die auf einer Reihe von Referenzen basiert, um eine neue vielschichtige Mythologie zu weben. Die Arbeit folgt drei bizarren Wölfen durch eine Reihe von zunehmend surrealen Einzelhandelsgeschäften, die nach den Insignien eines Monarchen suchen. Die Arbeit besteht aus einer kontinuierlichen Kameraaufnahme und ist eine eindringliche, traumhafte Reise, die Verbindungen zwischen Populärkultur, institutioneller Autorität und technologischer Überabhängigkeit herstellt.

Tage Ohne Stunden
Eine künstliche Welt beschwört der Schweizer Computerkünstler Yves Netzhammer in seiner achtminütigen Videoinstallation “Tage ohne Stunden“ herauf. Das Blickfeld des Betrachter ist Teil des Werkes, er wird in die surreale Filmsequenzen einbezogen, in denen sich die Figuren wie Puppen bewegen, gezeichnet von einer Software, der ihnen eine glatte, künstliche Oberfläche verleiht.

Den of Wolves
Den of Wolves is a video installation drawing on a range of references to weave a new multi-layered mythology. The work follows three bizarre wolves through a series of increasingly surreal retail stores as they search for the regalia of a monarch. Composed of one continuous camera shot, the work is an immersive, dreamlike journey drawing connections between popular culture, institutional authority and technological over-dependence.

Factory of the sun
In this immersive work, which debuted at the 2015 German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Steyerl probes the pleasures and perils of image circulation in a moment defined by the unprecedented global flow of data. Ricocheting between genres—news reportage, documentary film, video games, and internet dance videos—Factory of the Sun uses the motifs of light and acceleration to explore what possibilities are still available for collective resistance when surveillance has become a mundane part of an increasingly virtual world. Factory of the Sun tells the surreal story of workers whose forced moves in a motion capture studio are turned into artificial sunshine.

The Present Condition

The landscapes of ‘The Present Condition’ derive from a journey of more than 15,000 km by land by the artist between the two geographical extremes of South America. The video is suffused with a surreal atmosphere, where real and imaginary spaces intersect. Concepts such as human intimacy, desire, work, the savage capitalism that builds cathedrals in the desert, the perverse bureaucracy and the construction of the border wall are just some of the elements that are mixed in a striking and suggestive mosaic of images.

file sp 2019 videoart

FLUID ECSTASY
by Peter Palm
is an artistic underwater video work by Peter Palm, which he realized on the island of Mauritius with the conceptual artist Milo Moiré. Filled with a naive sexuality, this short film lasting just under six minutes reveals surreal, grace-filled perspectives on the female nude. Beneath the surface, within the concealing element of water, nothing remains concealed.
The title “Fluid Ecstasy” describes a trance-like, natural bliss in the flow of merging.
“Fluid Ecstasy” presents a metaphysically ambivalent ambience that documents our prenatal state of becoming in the form of a visual metaphor. In an analogous notion of being, “being” is understood as that in which everything partakes, though in various ways. The origin of all life lies in water. Peter Palm shows the nude Milo Moiré in a peaceful world, comparable to our “being” in the womb prior to our birth.
Both Milo Moiré and Peter Palm have done without technical aids, with one exception … flippers, which make reference to the metamorphosis from fish to Homo sapiens.
The video was created during numerous dives.

Craco

Tobias Stretch channels the beauty and melancholia of Hauschka’s single “Craco” in his uncanny video filmed in Philadelphia’s answer to Brooklyn’s High Line, Reading Viaduct Park. With music videos for Radiohead, Crystal Fighters and Christopher Bono to his name, the Philly-based animator is known for his distinct aesthetic and method, pairing landscape photography with life-size stop-motion puppets. “I thought right from the beginning when I saw Tobias’s work that it has a mixture of analog and handmade elements and a surreal atmosphere. In my music you have similar elements,” says Hauschka himself, aka the German pianist and composer Volker Bertelmann, who headline’s London’s Union Chapel tonight as part of his European tour. Although best known as a 21st-Century protagonist of the prepared piano practice championed by John Cage, Bertelmann “left all the preparations at home” in order to work with a pure sound on this track. Named after the Italian ghost town, “Craco” is taken from his entropy-laced album Abandoned City and played to Stretch’s own fascination with urban decay. “The music was there beforehand, but I had a bowl of music and a bowl of names and I tried to pair them up. I think the music sounded not only like an abandoned place but also like a nostalgic place and that’s why I thought it was a great match.”

requiem

Dans REQUIEM, la chorégraphe Nanine Linning imagine la tension entre la vie et la mort, le profane et le sacré, le charnel et le spirituel. Les thèmes, qui sont inextricablement liés entre eux et sont en même temps des opposés absolus. Inspirée du «Requiem» de Fauré, de «La Divina Commedia» de Dante et des images absurdes et surréalistes du duo d’artistes «Les Deux Garçons», Linning est à la recherche de son propre paradis sur terre.REQUIEM est une production multidisciplinaire avec 25 danseurs, orchestre en direct , deux chanteurs solistes, une chorale, un artiste sonore et vidéo. Il s’agit d’un triptyque où le public montera d’abord sur scène à travers des installations de danse; les danseurs créent un monde figé et silencieux. Dans la deuxième partie, le «Requiem» de Fauré est interprété tandis que chanteurs et danseurs suivent la chorégraphie de Linnings dans un monde d’immenses images vidéo sur scène. Dans la dernière partie, un artiste sonore brisera le «Requiem» de Fauré. Le monde gelé de la première partie fondra et l’énergie de la vie sera libérée dans une chorégraphie dynamique pour la chorale et les danseurs.

Requiem

In REQUIEM choreographer Nanine Linning imagines the tension between life and death, the profane and the sacred, the carnal and the spiritual. Themes, which are inextricably linked together and are at the same time absolute opposites. Inspired by Fauré’s “Requiem”, Dante’s “La Divina Commedia” and the absurd and surreal images of the artist duo “Les Deux Garçons”, Linning is searching for her own paradise on earth.REQUIEM is a multidisciplinary production with 25 dancers, live orchestra, two soloist singers, a choir, a sound artist and video. It is a triptych where the public will first walk on stage through dance installations; the dancers create a frozen, silent world.In the second part Fauré’s “Requiem” is being performed while singers and dancers follow Linnings choreography in a world of immense video images on stage. In the last part a Sound Artist will break apart Fauré’s “Requiem”. The frozen world of part one will melt and the energy of life will be released in a dynamic choreography for the choir and dancers.