Artificial intelligence currently stands at the centre of discussions on the development of new technologies. Although machine learning, neural networks and related issues are given a lot of air time in the media and expert circles, and these technologies have become part of our everyday life, most users only have a superficial understanding of them. The goal of this exhibition is to present the complex processes underlying AI in a simple and accessible way, to explain how these technologies came about and showcase the work of modern artists working with artificial intelligence in all its existential forms — as co-author, enabler, or mediator to new realities and new questions of ethics.
The exhibition’s name is a reference to the book My Mother Was a Computer byKatherine Hayles. This book explores questions of identity, emotional attachment and human dependence on technology. The relationship between humans and machines is complex and multifaceted. People develop and use new technologies to improve their lives, but at the same time fear losing control over them. This creates a tension between an optimism for the future and a fear of potential consequences.
As with any encounter with the unknown, be it a person, phenomenon or technology, our relationship to AI goes through several steps, from fear, to interest, to partnership. This dynamic is reflected in the way the exhibition is arranged: each of the gallery’s seven rooms corresponds to one of the emotions accompanying this transformation, and walking from room to room is like passing through these different emotions. This creates a dynamic for the narratives told in this exhibition, moving from the unsettling to the positive scenarios.
No other issue to date that has made the question of what it means to be human so pertinent. AI challenges traditional ideas of control, ethics, authorship and objectivity and puts on display the structure of our knowledge and where its boundaries lie. How can we overcome the fear we feel when AI creates things beyond the limits of what it was made for? How can technologies influence human relationships, complementing them or even replacing them? What does the future hold for human-machine interactions?
Curator: Olga Vad Head of the Art & Science Master’s program, "New Media Art" program at Moscow School of Contemporary Art, and NADO Curatorial Agency
Use the floor plan to navigate through the exhibition. Explore the exhibits by clicking on the room numbers to learn more about the projects and authors.
Julia Cyberflora / 2024
Neuroblot_1
An exploration of how humans interact with a non-anthropomorphic artificially intelligent system — one that does not attempt to imitate human qualities. Each "neuroblot" is an animation inspired by a plate from Rorschach’s inkblot test. This test uses a patient’s free associations to make psychological assessments and gain insights into their individual perceptual abilities.
The animations are created in Stable Diffusion using the text-to-video function, which generates a video on the basis of a textual description or prompt. What results is a series of meditative visual images, which for fleeting moments take recognizable forms before falling back into abstraction.
Neuroblots can be interpreted as a point of contact between non-human and human intelligence, where the never-ending transformation of formless matter generates patterns that are sometimes recognizable and at other times unsettling. This opens up new ways of seeing and interacting with what we see, even if it is fluid and undetermined, and invites us to reflect on how we view artificial intelligence today.
artist
Julia Cyberflora / 2025
Umbra Materia
Umbra Materia (Latin for "shadow material") is an attempt to create an entirely abstract black object. This kinetic sculpture may be seen to resemble natural phenomena or take on any number of shapes and forms — the interpretation is left entirely to the viewer.
The sculpture is built around a sun-like core, whose shape unites a host of living organisms and phenomena, with protuberances rotating chaotically, creating a feeling of disorder. Coloured black, the solar symbol absorbs light instead of radiating it. Using techniques similar to those used in op art, volumetric forms appear to become two-dimensional. A careful observer may come to perceive this two-dimensionality as negative space, giving the whole piece a sense of depth.
Umbra is a series of art works that utilize the concept of the hypnotic pendulum, tuning viewers to a particular perceptual wavelength set by the artist, but without encoding any specific ideas. As in an encounter with the unknown, those who fall under this hypnotic spell might obtain a feeling of anxiety, but also one of protection as the trance provides a shelter from reality.
artist
Ellina Gennadievna / 2024
Synthesis
A video project which explores the concept of memory reconsolidation — the process by which existing memories are renewed and updated. Using the examples of bees, who require repetitive signals to renew their memories, and humans with their more versatile cognitive systems, the film illustrates how images are transformed in the mind.
Scientists and artists discuss various facets of memory, from the role odours play in evoking emotion to the functioning of neural networks, which process data using their own sets of algorithms. Synthesis uses a visual language that embodies perpetual change, with repeated questions, rhythmic cutaways and a dynamic structure all reflecting the process by which memories are "rewritten", alluding to the increasing plasticity of memory in the digital age.
The human ability to revisit and reshape memories echoes the way in which algorithmic systems learn and evolve. This parallelism raises important questions: to what extent is the line between the memories of living organisms and those of machines becoming blurred? And should this line disappear, how will we be able to tell a true memory apart from an artificially generated image?
Speakers: Nikita Bukreev Tatyana Zachepilo Elena Nikonole Nikita Prudnikov
Camera: Vera Vishnevaya Aleksei Vyatkin Nikita Sevastyanov Mikhail Smolko Nikita Kozyr
Editing: Vera Vishnevaya Ellina Gennadievna
Music: Izolenta
Commissioned by V–A–C Foundation Year 2024
This version of the film was specially created by Vera Vishnevaya for the exhibition “My Mother Was a Computer”.
artist
Irina Zadorozhnaya / 2024
My Limbo Land: Part 1 / Sleep: Part 3 / Breakfast
My Limbo Land is a simulative space inspired by Jean-François Lyotard’s thought experiment about the eventual explosion of the sun. The project centres around Jess, a digital phantom and AI agent who contemplates her existence. Jess as a character draws on the logic of quantum physics, existing in superposition — both nowhere and everywhere. Her body appears, multiplies, and disappears depending on the context.
The project makes use of a wide array of technologies, including facial and body motion capture, which was used to input Jess’s movements and expressions, 3D modelling, deep learning speech synthesis, and AI content transformation.
Irina Zadorozhnaya’s work explores the relationship between our physical bodies and our digital representations. The artist places everyday rituals like sleep and breakfast outside of time by situating them in digital space, inviting us to reflect on how digitalization can transform rituals into meaningless artifacts. This approach prompts us to ask ourselves what it means to perceive and interact with reality — what does it mean to be "real" in the digital age? Where can we draw the line between the biological and mathematical or the visual and conceptual?
artist
Lena Poturemets / 2024
mutatis mutandis
This interactive installation is a portal to a post-human world where plants change shape to preserve the memory of a once beautiful mankind. Visitors can become a part of this process. When you approach the mirror screen, a specially trained algorithm analyses your body. Neural networks decide which aspects of your appearance to capture and transform into patterns to be used when generating new plant creations.
This project tackles a subject known in scientific discourse as plant blindness, a phenomenon describing the human tendency to overlook and underestimate the importance of plant life. If we don’t see them, how do they see us? What "beauty" can they find in our appearance? This project encourages us to reflect on how we can change our relationship to plants and other beings in order to maintain the delicate balance with nature. Another question raised by this artwork is whether humanity is the prerogative of humans alone.
artist
Vadim Epstein, Ivan Pavlov / 2023
THE POEM
We are letters. The text is with us.
THE POEM is an artistic project which uses AI algorithms to embed a rich poetic text into the surreal paradigm of an ancient manuscript. What results is far from a simple illustration of a poetic verse: the aim is not to provide an interpretation of the text itself, but instead to algorithmically transcode the symbols present inside the poem and project them onto a separate universe of visual representations, turning what is described but not seen into what is seen but cannot be described.
To this end, the artists have used H.P. Lovecraft’s The Poe-et's Nightmare (1916), a poetic homage to Edgar Allan Poe. As noted by Indian researcher Venkatesh Rao in his essay Disturbed Realities, it is crucial to remain aware of the collective moods and transformations of consciousness at pivotal moments. This "prophetic" worldview, which also characterized Lovecraft’s work, helps us understand what place scientific discoveries and other changes in the world around us have in our overall emotional and psychological experience.
The project explores the embodiment of language in two of the fundamental ways of understanding the world — poetry and mathematics, taking us from the tangible to the conceptual and inconceivable. Just as language can describe and model worlds, mathematics can construct new languages. Poetry, on the other hand, stands between the two, being neither one nor the other.
artists
Kami Usu (Kamila Usupova) / 2024
Machine Vision
Machine vision is an invitation to look at the world through the eyes of a machine and compare human and artificial perceptions of the world around us. This is achieved by using videos manipulated by computer vision algorithms, whose function is to enable computers to "see" and interpret visual data.
The source material has been taken from the NASA Image and Video Library, including footage of hurricane Florence as seen from space and panoramic views of the nebulae of the Milky Way. The resulting AI-processed images manifest through characteristic contours and abstract shapes. These so-called operational images are visual patterns resulting from the functioning of AI models.
The audio component of the work uses recordings of electromagnetic waves, noise and interference. These sounds, which normally lie outside of the range of human hearing, form part of the artistic experience, enabling us to "hear the unhearable", as if we experience first-hand the hidden inner workings of computational algorithms.
artist
Victoria Volokitina, Ksenia Gorlanova, Tatiana Zobnina, Alexander Pogrebnyak / 2025
Happened
Happened is an interactive spatial and sound installation that utilizes computer vision technologies. After entering the space, visitors are subjected to analysis by AI models. You are informed of this by personal replicas generated and given a voice by artificial intelligence, whose messages may include descriptions, requests, instructions, or even an impression the AI model has got from watching you.
The project uses open-source algorithms to open up unique modes of interaction, but everything depends on the visitors. The algorithm doesn’t hear or understand you like a human. Visitors can use the items on the podium or ignore all communication. Whatever happens, whether action or inaction, will trigger a new round of communication with the installation.
This is a space where visitors can interact with an algorithm in a dynamic and sensitive way without the traditional interfaces. Emotional experience, whether comfort, confusion, or curiosity, reveals the inner workings of computer vision, large language models and speech synthesis.
artists
ha:ar / 2025
Refraction No.1703
Refractions is a series of stained-glass artworks created with the assistance of AI. These works take their inspiration from art of the Middle Ages, seen anew through the lens of modern technology.
Stained glass is an age-old artistic technique on the interface of colour and light, which has long had a narrative function in architecture, conveying stories, ideas and symbolism through visual imagery.
Refraction No. 1703 at Zifergauz retains the clear contours of traditional stained glass. However, while the image itself might appear as if it belongs in a historical narrative, it is permeated with the aesthetic of the digital age. The character’s intense gaze and expressive pose underline parallels between classical iconography and modern social media images.
As philosopher Michel Foucault has observed, every era creates its own unique ways of understanding the world and representing knowledge. Visual narratives are neither rigid nor universal, but rather shift in response to ideological transformations, changing power structures, and technological advances. What is sacred imagery to one era can be used by the next to form their identity or self-image.
Stained glass preparation: studio of Elena Pankratova, stained glass artist Sergey Khvalov
artist
Mariia Fedorova / 2025
Dear Brother,…
An installation consisting of a luminous biomorphic object made of polymer resin with a built-in camera at the top capable of reading emotions. When a person interacts with the installation, the camera determines the visitor’s state of mind and changes colour to match the emotion it detects. For example, joy might be reflected as bright yellow and sadness as deep blue. There are two copper plates on top of the object which can be used to "calm" the artificial intelligence after an interaction, turning it back to a neutral white.
This work is an exploration of how humans and machines can form friend-like relationships. Humans interact with AI first and foremost through the psychological notion of "being seen", based on compassion and empathy, when a person recognizes the feelings of the other and shows a willingness to listen and understand them. The work’s name is a play on the Big Brother concept, but where the technology, instead of exercising surveillance and control, offers support and empathy: in this world, the "brother" is an ally.
artist
Aristarkh Chernyshev / 2025
Abstract Engineering
Abstract Engineering is a term coined by artist Aristarkh Chernyshev to refer to the design and engineering of devices and structures of abstract function, existing more in the artistic and conceptual realm than in the functional plane. The artist’s sculptures resemble engineering prototypes that could serve some kind of useful purpose, but instead, it is the aesthetic appearance that is important.
The images, created using Stable Diffusion, take their morphology from a combination of industrial mechanisms, such as the Synchrophasotron or a nuclear reactor, and organs and systems of the human body, specifically the heart and circulatory system. Just as "paper architecture" refers to designs destined to remain as drawings and mock-ups and not intended for actual construction, Abstract Engineering is an artistic exploration of new forms, ideas, and possibilities that may be too ambitious or unfeasible to realize.
artist
Liudmila Fridman / 2025
Demon
A project centring around the image of the Demon appearing in Mikhail Vrubel’s paintings. This figure symbolizes the eternal search for answers and contradictions between good and evil, beauty and ugliness. Like the Demon, AI is an intermediary, carrying out precise calculations but lacking its own subjective experience. What it produces is inevitably filtered through the lens of human perception.
This is an interactive installation: the machine’s AI systems are touch-activated, converting automated calculations into visual representations. This process illustrates how human perception shapes digital information, translating it into familiar forms. Rather than presenting AI as an animate being, this project emphasizes the fact that meaning arises not within the system itself, but in the human mind.
As well as reproducing the aesthetics of Vrubel, the use of generative algorithms challenges our views of the boundaries of perception. The Demon is merely a computation process, only obtaining meaning through human interaction. The installation conveys the Demon as a majestic yet elusive figure, a metaphor for the existence of AI outside of human experience.
artist
Maria Kuptsova / 2025
Arbor.Silva
Arbor is a cyberorganic sculpture incorporating innovative technologies, imagining a situation in which wood (a natural, organic object) has gained intelligence. It represents a unique system whereby living and synthetic elements are combined to create architectural forms "grown" using AI algorithms and 3D printing. The project is an exploration of the regenerative life cycle of wood, from its natural state to the creation of bioartificial objects.
Exhibited at the Zifergauz Gallery, Arbor serves as a reminder of New Holland’s connections to the timber industry. In the 18th century, the island housed warehouses to store timber for shipbuilding. This project looks at native tree species such as the birch and oak examined through the lens of a microscope and the analysis of big data on botanical properties. The artist has used generative-adversarial networks (GAN) to create new visual forms with a synthetic wood material capable of carbon capture.
The project also re-examines the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi. The mycelia of fungi are embedded in the structure, serving as a biosensor able to detect toxins in the environment. Data is collected and analysed in real time, and the results are broadcast using an array of LCD screens and embedded microspeakers that together generate a cyberorganic audio and visual code.
Project team: Sergey Kostyrko — bioelectric sensory system Korbinian Enzinger — biodesign Artem Konevskikh — machine learning Gleb Andreev — digital production Marina Muzyka — organic matter
artist
Lena Charobay / 2025
Nestates
Nestates is an installation made up of three videos representing an artistic interpretation of birds' nests created with the use of AI. The project was inspired by the artist’s personal experience of finding a chick that had fallen from its nest and bringing it to a shelter, where the workers promised to take care of it. This experience led the artist to reflect on how birds adapt to changes in the urban environment, such as the felling of trees or the construction of new buildings.
Lena believes that birds' nests have a place in urban art, and that artworks can draw attention to this issue. The series Nestates visualizes what nests might look like if they were to became a part of urban planning. The project builds on AI-powered research, which explored the variety of nests and nest materials (such as grasses and fibres).
The architecture of the nests is adapted to human needs, with more spacious nests that can be placed side by side. This makes it less likely that chicks will fall out, and if they do, they will most likely land in a neighbouring nest. This project invites us to reflect on how AI might help us preserve biodiversity, help us to interact with other species, and encourage us to think about the environment.
artist
Mikhail Grigoriev
Brainstorm
Brainstorm is an interactive installation that provides an opportunity for visitors to express their opinions on key issues related to the development of AI, such as privacy, bias, job losses, and environmental impact.
Tablets containing questions are placed around a "well" in the centre of the room. Whenever a visitor submits information, a wave generator causes the water to ripple, coloured particles are generated on the projection dome and data is added to the statistical visualizations, which will collect data for each of the questions throughout the exhibition run. "Yes" generates warm colours (red, orange, yellow), while "No" generates cool colours (blue, green, violet). This collaborative audiovisual landscape reflects the complexity of our relationship with technology.
Wells are normally associated with the idea of mystery and the abyss, our fear of the unknown. As we come to understand the essence of the technologies that shape our present and future, what will we find out about ourselves?
Installation by: Mikhail Grigoriev, Olga Vad, Alina Chereyskaya
artist
Dreamlaser / 2024
Artificial Life
Dreamlaser has created an AI installation with the theme of nature. The installation aims to show visitors what neural networks are capable of and give them the opportunity to interact with an AI model.
Team-up with AI and paint breath-taking pictures. The screen is your canvas, and the touch panel is your brush, with a range of textures and colour palettes to choose from. Your creative partner will be a neural network, who can turn a simple linear sketch into a complex painting featuring elements of nature. Artificial intelligence algorithms complete and complement the picture, turning it into a dynamic landscape.
artists
Julia Cyberflora
Julia Cyberflora is an artist. She has a degree in architecture with over 10 years of experience as a practicing architect and designer. Since 2016, she has worked as a multidisciplinary artist, sculptor, and engineer as part of the Cyberflora project, producing technology-based kinetic objects, digital art, augmented reality, and wearable art. Julia’s works have featured at a number of modern art and technology exhibitions, fairs and festivals in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Beijing.
Julia Cyberflora is an artist. She has a degree in architecture with over 10 years of experience as a practicing architect and designer. Since 2016, she has worked as a multidisciplinary artist, sculptor, and engineer as part of the Cyberflora project, producing technology-based kinetic objects, digital art, augmented reality, and wearable art. Julia’s works have featured at a number of modern art and technology exhibitions, fairs and festivals in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Beijing.
Ellina Gennadievna is an artist, programmer, curator, and teacher. She was born in Kazan and graduated from Kazan State University with a degree in Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics. She was further educated at the Interactive, Communication and Mixed Media Workshop at Rodchenko Art School. In her works, she creates new interactions between organic and inorganic nature, virtual and real environments, systems and entropy.
Irina Zadorozhnaia is a digital simulation director who works with digital tools and AI agents. She aims to intensify the interplay between the human and non-human, shifting the borders of control and moving beyond a simple dichotomy. Zaporozhnaia has participated in exhibitions both in Russia and abroad, including at Brighton Digital Festival and The Lumen Prize in the UK. She won awards at restore: digital art 2023 and 2024 in the categories Web 3.0 and Artist’s Digital Film.
Lena Poturemets is a multimedia artist. She explores technological progress as a natural and logical next step in the evolution of the biosystem, in which the natural and artificial exist in harmony, permeating and complementing each other. She has participated in media art festivals both in Russia and abroad (Intervals 2024, Blooming Festival 2023, METAXIS 2022), as well as featured at exhibitions in St. Petersburg (Traces at the Museum of Nonconformist Art, Evolution at Zifergauz, 1703, and elsewhere).
Vadim Epstein is a media artist, educator, programmer, and VJ, previously working as an IT consultant and theoretical physicist. He has been involved in visual net. art since 1996, combining generative and figurative methods with algo narratives.
Ivan Pavlov is a sound artist and musican, previously working as an acoustic engineer and data scientist. Since 1998, he has been releasing electronic music under the alias SON, exploring how sound influences our perception of music and reality.
Kami Usu (Kamila Usupova) is a media artist, sound explorer, and VJ. She works with algorithmic aesthetics, generative graphics and sound art. Her projects reveal what is hidden from human perception: data flows, radio waves, the sounds of refraction. Kami Usu creates her art using digital and analogue tools, AI, and machine vision, seeking new modes of interaction.
Her works have been exhibited at LoosenArt, Generative Gallery, NCCA Kaliningrad, Perm Museum of Contemporary Art, Cryptography Museum Moscow, Zifergauz, Yandex Museum, Ogon Centre for Contemporary Art, МАММ, GROUND Solyanka, Tretye Mesto Cultural Centre, Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art, and elsewhere.
Victoria Volokitina, Ksenia Gorlanova, Tatiana Zobnina, Alexander Pogrebnyak
A collective from St. Petersburg and Ekaterinburg who have been working together for over two years with a focus on the reality of the automated daily collection of personal data. They first collaborated in 2022, reaching the finals of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum competition Science.Technology.Art. In 2023, the first version of their installation Happened was exhibited as part of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art’s Forms of Dialogue.
ha:ar is an artistic duo from Turkey created by sculptor Hande Şekerciler and new media artist Arda Yalkın with the goal of uniting traditional artistic techniques with modern technologies. In their explorations of new forms of expression and modes of production, their work spans a wide range of genres, from video, CGI graphics, music, generative art, robot performance, artificial intelligence, and also incorporates traditional art forms such as painting and sculpture. As the artists themselves put it, the subject of their work is "conflict with the civilisation created by humanity, the technology it produces and the way of existence".
The duo’s work has been exhibited at museums, art fairs, and galleries in Turkey, the USA, Spain, Italy, France, the UK, Hungary, Greece, and Russia, including Contemporary Istanbul, CADAF (Miami), Noise_Media Art (Istanbul), and Bass Museum of Art (Miami).
Mariia Fedorova is a new media artist. She is a graduate of Moscow Architectural Institute with a Master’s degree from Central Saint Martins. She also participated in the post-graduate programme The New Normal at the Strelka Institute, which investigated new technologies. Her works have been exhibited in Europe, Asia, South America and Russia, including at the XXII Triennale di Milano and in Living Matter at the New Tretyakov Gallery. Mariia has held art residencies at Tokyo University of the Arts, Pro Helvetia (Switzerland), and Garage Studios (Moscow).
Aristarkh Chernyshev is one of Russia’s media art pioneers. He started his artistic career in 1991 right after graduating from Bauman Moscow State Technical University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Satellite Systems Design. He creates media sculptures, interactive artworks, and videos, experimenting with artificial intelligence, 3D printing, DIY electronics, and other innovative technologies. His projects explore the concept of information, deconstructing data flows and using speculative design to conceptualize devices and services related to social media, genetic engineering, and other technologies. His creative process centres around speculative design and biomimicry. He participated in the Fourth Moscow Biennale (curated by Peter Waibel), Medi (t)ation — 2011 Asian Art Biennale, and the 5th Seoul Mediacity Biennale. He was awarded the 2009 Kandinsky Prize.
Liudmila Fridman is a media artist working at the intersection of art and technology. She uses generative neural networks and machine learning to create a variety of digital projects, from media installations to multimedia performances. She explores new audiovisual forms through a combination of intuition and algorithmic structures. Each work addresses the role and future of technology as a force acting not in opposition to human beings, but as a direct continuation of them.
Maria Kuptsova is an artist and PhD candidate at the University of Innsbruck Synthetic Landscape Lab. She works with deep media art, drawing attention to the connections between biological systems, synthetic materials and hybrid interfaces. Maria won the 2022 Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Award in the Science Art category. Her works have featured internationally at festivals and exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kuryokhin Center (St. Petersburg), Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), Llum BCN (Barcelone), Tallinn Architecture Biennale (Tallinn), aut. architektur und tirol (Innsbruck), CYFEST 15 (Yerevan), NCCA (Kaliningrad), Videoformes Hybrid and Digital Arts Festival (Clermont-Ferrand), and elsewhere. She has taught at the University of Innsbruck (Austria), IAAC (Barcelona), The Bartlett (London), Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (Suzhou), Shukhov Lab (Moscow), ITMO University Art & Science Centre (St. Petersburg). Along with other team members, she initiated and supervised the Master’s programme — Da. Digital Art at FEFU (Vladivostok)
Lena Charobay is an artist and art director. She finds her main inspiration in nature: "Its forms, colours, and compositions are infinitely diverse. I am inspired by the aesthetic of the interaction between humans and nature, as well as by eco technologies. In my work, I combine 3D software with sewing. Natural structures are like fabric, so I model plants by cutting out forms digitally, creating soft, natural forms. By adding new textures, I create unique digital organisms." She has worked with a number of brands, including Bvlgari, Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Nike, Adidas, and Hyundai, and has taken part in exhibitions and festivals internationally, including Future Space (Moscow), Athens Animfest (Athens), Art in Space (Dubai), Forward Festival x Keyframe (Vienna/Berlin).
Mikhail Grigoriev is a creative developer and visual artist. He is a pioneer in creative technologies with over 10 years of experience at the intersection of visual art and technology. He uses cutting-edge tools to create immersive projects with real-time generative graphics. He has participated in festivals (Circle of Light, Intervals, Staro Rīga), and museum exhibitions (Zifergauz, 2023). He has created permanent installations for Arcadia Earth (Canada), Soyuzmultpark in Moscow/Kazan and MAF St. Petersburg. He collaborates with musicians (SBP4, Aigel) to produce interactive visual shows. Born in the USSR in 1986, his art is influenced by science fiction, electronic music and early internet culture.
Dreamlaser is an international collective working with multimedia technologies since 2005. Artistic installations created by dreamlaser have featured at a number of festivals, including Art Innovation (New York), Signal (Prague), Intervals (Nizhny Novgorod), Circle of Light (Moscow), and NUR (Kazan). The artists' work addresses eternal themes of love, search, and transformations, shedding new light through metaphors and images brought into being through the use of modern technologies, AI, and a wide array of multimedia tools.
Lucullus Languish, student of the skies, And connoisseur of rarebits and mince pies, A bard by choice, a grocer’s clerk by trade, (Grown pessimist through honours long delay’d) A secret yearning bore, that he might shine In breathing numbers, and in song divine. Each day his fountain pen was wont to drop An ode or dirge or two about the shop, Yet naught could strike the chord within his heart That throbb’d for poesy, and cry’d for art. Each eve he sought his bashful Muse to wake With overdoses of ice cream and cake, But though th’ ambitious youth a dreamer grew, Th’ Aonian Nymph delcin’d to come to view. Sometimes at dusk he scour’d the heav’ns afar Searching for raptures in the evening star; One night he strove to catch a tale untold In crystal deeps – but only caught a cold. So pin’d Lucullus with his lofty woe, Till one drear day he bought a set of Poe: Charm’d with the cheerful horrors there display’d, He vow’d with gloom to woo the Heav’nly Maid. Of Auber’s Tarn and Yaanek’s slope he dreams, And weaves an hundred Ravens in his schemes. Not far from our young hero’s peaceful home, Lies the fair grove wherein he loves to roam. Tho’ but a stunted copse in vacant lot, He dubs it Tempe, and adores the spot; When shallow puddles dot the wooded plain, And brim o’er muddy banks with muddy rain, He calls them limpid lakes or poison pools, (Depending on which bard his fancy rules). ‘Tis here he comes with Heliconian fire On Sundays when he smites the Attic lyre; And here one afternoon he brought his gloom, Resolv’d to chant a poet’s lay of doom. Roget’s Thesaurus, and a book of rhymes, Provide the rungs whereon his spirit climbs: With this grave retinue he trod the grove And pray’d the Fauns he might a Poe-et prove. But sad to tell, ere Pegasus flew high, The not unrelish’d supper hour drew nigh; Our tuneful swain th’ imperious call attends, And soon above the groaning table bends. Though it were too prosaic to relate Th’ exact particulars of what he ate, (Such long-drawn lists the hasty reader skips, Like Homer’s well-known catalogue of ships) This much we swear: that as adjournment near’d, A monstrous lot of cake had disappear’d! Soon to his chamber the young bard repairs, And courts soft Somnus with sweet Lydian airs; Thro’ open casement scans the star-strown deep, And ‘neath Orion’s beams sinks off to sleep. Now start from airy dell the elfin train That dance each midnight o’er the sleeping plain, To bless the just, or cast a warning spell On those who dine not wisely, but too well. First Deacon Smith they plague, whose nasal glow Comes from what Holmes hath call’d “Elixir Pro”; Group’d round the couch his visage they deride, Whilst through his dreams unnumber’d serpents glide. Next troop the little folk into the room Where snore our young Endymion, swath’d in gloom: A smile lights up his boyish face, whilst he Dreams of the moon – or what he ate at tea. The chieftain elf th’ unconscious youth surveys, And on his form a strange enchantment lays: Those lips, that lately trill’d with frosted cake, Uneasy sounds in slumbrous fashion make; At length their owner’s fancies they rehearse, And lisp this awesome Poe-em in blank verse:
Aletheia Phrikodes Omnia risus et omnia pulvis et omnia nihil.
Demoniac clouds, up-pil’d in chasmy reach Of soundless heav’n, smother’d the brooding night; Nor came the wonted whisp’rings of the swamp, Nor voice of autumn wind along the moor, Nor mutter’d noises of th’ insomnious grove Whose black recesses never saw the sun. Within that grove a hideous hollow lies, Half bare of trees; a pool in centre lurks That none dares sound; a tarn of murky face, (Tho’ naught can prove its hue, since light of day, Affrighted, shuns the forest-shadow’s banks). Hard by, a yawning hillside grotto breathes From deeps unvisited, a dull, dank air That sears the leaves on certain stunted trees Which stand about, clawing the spectral gloom With evil boughs. To this accursed dell Come woodland creatures, seldom to depart: Once I behold, upon a crumbling stone Set altar-like before the cave, a thing I saw not clearly, yet from glimpsing fled. In this half-dusk I meditate alone At many a weary noontide, when without A world forgets me in its sun-blest mirth. Here howls by night the werewolves, and the souls Of those that knew me well in other days. Yet on this night the grove spake not to me; Nor spake the swamp, nor wind along the moor Nor moan’d the wind about the lonely eaves Of the bleak, haunted pile wherein I lay. I was afraid to sleep, or quench the spark Of the low-burning taper by my couch. I was afraid when through the vaulted space Of the old tow’r, the clock-ticks died away Into a silence so profound and chill That my teeth chatter’d – giving yet no sound. Then flicker’d low the light, and all dissolv’d Leaving me floating in the hellish grasp Of body’d blackness, from whose beating wings Came ghoulish blasts of charnel-scented mist. Things vague, unseen, unfashion’d, and unnam’d Jostled each other in the seething void That gap’d, chaotic, downward to a sea Of speechless horror, foul with writhing thoughts. All this I felt, and felt the mocking eyes Of the curs’d universe upon my soul; Yet naught I saw nor heard, till flash’d a beam Of lurid lustre through the rotting heav’ns, Playing on scenes I labour’d not to see. Methought the nameless tarn, alight at last, Reflected shapes, and more reveal’d within Those shocking depths that ne’er were seen before; Methought from out the cave a demon train, Grinning and smirking, reel’d in fiendish rout; Bearing within their reeking paws a load Of carrion viands for an impious feast. Methought the stunted trees with hungry arms Grop’d greedily for things I dare not name; The while a stifling, wraith-like noisomeness Fill’d all the dale, and spoke a larger life Of uncorporeal hideousness awake In the half-sentient wholeness of the spot. Now glow’d the ground, and tarn, and cave, and trees, And moving forms, and things not spoken of, With such a phosphorescence as men glimpse In the putrescent thickets of the swamp Where logs decaying lie, and rankness reigns. Methought a fire-mist drap’d with lucent fold The well-remember’d features of the grove, Whilst whirling ether bore in eddying streams The hot, unfinish’d stuff of nascent worlds Hither and thither through infinity Of light and darkness, strangely intermix’d; Wherein all entity had consciousness, Without th’ accustom’d outward shape of life. Of these swift-circling currents was my soul, Free from the flesh, a true constituent part; Nor felt I less myself, for want of form. Then clear’d the mist, and o’er a star-strown scene Divine and measureless, I gaz’d in awe. Alone in space, I view’d a feeble fleck Of silvern light, marking the narrow ken Which mortals call the boundless universe. On ev’ry side, each as a tiny star, Shone more creations, vaster than our own, And teeming with unnumber’d forms of life; Though we as life would recognize it not, Being bound to earthy thoughts of human mould. As on a moonless night the Milky Way In solid sheen displays its countless orbs To weak terrestrial eyes, each orb a sun; So beam’d the prospect on my wond’ring soul; A spangled curtain, rich with twinkling gems, Yet each a mighty universe of suns. But as I gaz’d, I sens’d a spirit voice In speech didactic, though no voice it was, Save as it carried thought. It bade me mark That all the universes in my view Form’d but an atom in infinity; Whose reaches pass the ether-laden realms Of heat and light, extending to far fields Where flourish worlds invisible and vague, Fill’d with strange wisdom and uncanny life, And yet beyond; to myriad spheres of light, To spheres of darkness, to abysmal voids That know the pulses of disorder’d force. Big with these musings, I survey’d the surge Of boundless being, yet I us’d not eyes, For spirit leans not on the props of sense. The docent presence swell’d my strength of soul; All things I knew, but knew with mind alone. Time’s endless vista spread before my thought With its vast pageant of unceasing change And sempiternal strife of force and will; I saw the ages flow in stately stream Past rise and fall of universe and life; I saw the birth of suns and worlds, their death, Their transmutation into limpid flame, Their second birth and second death, their course Perpetual through the aeons’ termless flight, Never the same, yet born again to serve The varying purpose of omnipotence. And whilst I watch’d, I knew each second’s space Was greater than the lifetime of our world. Then turn’d my musings to that speck of dust Whereon my form corporeal took its rise; That speck, born but a second, which must die In one brief second more; that fragile earth; That crude experiment; that cosmic sport Which holds our proud, aspiring race of mites And moral vermin; those presuming mites Whom ignorance with empty pomp adorns, And misinstructs in specious dignity; Those mites who, reas’ning outward, vaunt themselves As the chief work of Nature, and enjoy In fatuous fancy the particular care Of all her mystic, super-regnant pow’r. And as I strove to vision the sad sphere Which lurk’d, lost in ethereal vortices; Methough my soul, tun’d to the infinite, Refus’d to glimpse that poor atomic blight; That misbegotten accident of space; That globe of insignificance, whereon (My guide celestial told me) dwells no part Of empyreal virtue, but where breed The coarse corruptions of divine disease; The fest’ring ailments of infinity; The morbid matter by itself call’d man: Such matter (said my guide) as oft breaks forth On broad Creation’s fabric, to annoy For a brief instant, ere assuaging death Heal up the malady its birth provok’d. Sicken’d, I turn’d my heavy thoughts away. Then spake th’ ethereal guide with mocking mien, Upbraiding me for searching after Truth; Visiting on my mind the searing scorn Of mind superior; laughing at the woe Which rent the vital essence of my soul. Methought he brought remembrance of the time When from my fellows to the grove I stray’d, In solitude and dusk to meditate On things forbidden, and to pierce the veil Of seeming good and seeming beauteousness That covers o’er the tragedy of Truth, Helping mankind forget his sorry lot, And raising Hope where Truth would crush it down. He spake, and as he ceas’d, methought the flames Of fuming Heav’n resolv’d in torments dire; Whirling in maelstroms of rebellious might, Yet ever bound by laws I fathom’d not. Cycles and epicycles of such girth That each a cosmos seem’d, dazzled my gaze Till all a wild phantasmal flow became. Now burst athwart the fulgent formlessness A rift of purer sheen, a sight supernal, Broader that all the void conceiv’d by man, Yet narrow here. A glimpse of heav’ns beyond; Of weird creations so remote and great That ev’n my guide assum’d a tone of awe. Borne on the wings of stark immensity, A touch of rhythm celestial reach’d my soul; Thrilling me more with horror than with joy. Again the spirit mock’d my human pangs, And deep revil’d me for presumptuous thoughts; Yet changing now his mien, he bade me scan The wid’ning rift that clave the walls of space; He bade me search it for the ultimate; He bade me find the truth I sought so long; He bade me brave th’ unutterable Thing, The final Truth of moving entity. All this he bade and offer’d – but my soul, Clinging to life, fled without aim or knowledge, Shrieking in silence through the gibbering deeps. Thus shriek’d the young Lucullus, as he fled Through gibbering deeps – and tumbled out of bed; Within the room the morning sunshine gleams, Whilst the poor youth recalls his troubled dreams. He feels his aching limbs, whose woeful pain Informs his soul his body lives again, And thanks his stars – or cosmoses – or such — That he survives the noxious nightmare’s clutch. Thrill’d with the music of th’ eternal spheres, (Or is it the alarm-clock that he hears?) He vows to all the Pantheon, high and low, No more to feed on cake, or pie, or Poe. And now his gloomy spirits seem to rise, As he the world beholds with clearer eyes; The cup he thought too full of dregs to quaff, Affords him wine enough to raise a laugh. (All this is metaphor – you must not think Our late Endymion prone to stronger drink!) With brighter visage and with lighter heart, He turns his fancies to the grocer’s mart; And strange to say, at last he seems to find His daily duties worthy of his mind. Since Truth prov’d such a high and dang’rous goal, Our bard seeks one less trying to his soul; With deep-drawn breath he flouts his dreary woes, And a good clerk from a bad poet grows! Now close attend my lay, ye scribbling crew That bay the moon in numbers strange and new; That madly for the spark celestial bawl In metres short or long, or none at all; Curb your rash force, in numbers or at tea, Nor over-zealous for high fancies be; Reflect, ere ye the draught Pierian take, What worthy clerks or plumbers ye might make; Wax not too frenzied in the leaping line That neither sense nor measure can confine, Lest ye, like young Lucullus Launguish, groan Beneath Poe-etic nightmares of your own!