We’ve been dreaming about a magical jungle
Exhibition on view:
November 1, 2023 – (extended) March 31, 2024
Hosted by:
Digital Arts Blog
Curated by:
Cansu Peker
Location:
Online
“We’ve been dreaming about a magical jungle
where digital artists create love
and art lovers meet their muse
when Digital Arts Blog was born.”
Welcome to We've been dreaming about a magical jungle, a virtual art exhibition that invites you into a realm where nature, technology, identity, and spirituality converge to create a mesmerizing tapestry of human experience.
The collection is about dreaming in 1s and 0s to find yourself in nature; the human essence that drives us to find organic in digital, and self in mother nature. Through the works of 11 diverse and visionary digital artists, this exhibition invites you to explore the intricate interplay between the mystical and the mundane, the tangible and the intangible.
We've been dreaming about a magical jungle features eleven digital artwork by artists from all over the world and from various backgrounds — yet the collection reveals the shared feeling of empowerment, self-discovery, and the search for intimacy in nature.
Wildy Martinez’s Wildflower Fields S/S 23 Look 4 depicts a powerful woman thriving in the vibrant profusion of wildflowers, reminding us of the beauty that blossoms even in adversity, mirroring the strength within us all. Alive by Saeko Ehara blends inspirations from Art Nouveau and anime styles, breathing life into a woman becoming one with nature while inviting a journey into the intricate. Connie Bakshi’s Orientalis Exoticum I immerses us in a mythological realm, where a being neither flora nor fauna explores concepts of belonging and rejection.
A Storytelling by Clayton Campbell offers an intimate glimpse into a matriarchal moment of wisdom and connection, set in a temple-like garden, evoking the profound feminine mysteries, while Livia Ribichini’s Kinesintesi envisions a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature in the digital era — not letting ancient agricultural movements get forgotten.
Before I Had a Name by Maxwell Dewunmi challenges the notion of identity, asking who we are before society gives us a name. Portal by Sophie Capshaw-Mack guides us through a digital wilderness, questioning human dominance and redefining the boundaries of consciousness.
Tripura’s Love tomorrow speaks to the cyclical nature of life and love, reminding us that pure love remains in every cell of our being. Similarly, Cymoonv depicts a supreme moment of loving in i luv the way you care about my gardens.
While Modern love by Rhea Bambulu delves into our obsession with online presence and the fading value of authentic human connections in the digital age, URL Connection by Ghostrystore explores the paradox of physical distance and digital intimacy, highlighting the interconnectedness of our lives.
All takes place in the magical jungle, welcoming yet mysterious.
In We've been dreaming about a magical jungle, these eleven artists invite us to step into a world where reality and imagination merge, where the human experience is reimagined and rediscovered through the lens of art, to find ourselves in Mother nature.
As you navigate this virtual jungle of creativity, we hope you find inspiration, reflection, and a renewed appreciation for the extraordinary within the ordinary. Let these artworks take you on a journey of wonder, where dreams are realized, and the magical is made tangible.
Artist: Tripura
Artwork: Love tomorrow
Year: 2022
Medium: 3D motion graphics
Credits: Sound art by Lo.Sai, commissioned by Anna Nova Gallery x Masters digital gallery
Description: We struggle to break out of the cycle of repetitive events, pushing our way through obstacles to the surface we call «tomorrow.» Even when we tell ourselves that now is not the time for love, that there are more important goals, we are looking toward tomorrow, where it will meet us. When love comes and blossoms inside you, like a bud on a tree after a long winter, you understand that this is the only reason for which you have been spinning like a snowflake all this time... This moment of pure love remains with you forever, in every cell of your body and you’re alive again...
Artist: Saeko Ehara
Artwork: Alive
Year: 2023
Medium: Generative AI
Description: The image draws inspiration from the Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha's 'Reverie (1897)' and incorporates elements of anime style with the help of AI (Midjourney). The image was edited using Adobe Photoshop and animated generatively using TouchDesigner, a node-based software for visual coding.
I first discovered Mucha's artworks during my teenage years when I began studying oil painting. I was always captivated by his intricate and ornamental expressions. Despite the figures and plants being outlined, they possess an organic quality that makes them appear alive.
To me, the process of animating a still image is what breathes life into my artwork.
Artist: Livia Ribichini
Artwork: Kinesintesi
Year: 2022
Medium: Video art with AI and creative coding
Description: Kinesintesi is a speculative work, in a future or maybe past or world other. The movements of agriculture (hoeing the earth, disseminating, etc.), movements now forgotten by almost all of us, are recognized by an AI that feeds the digital plant. According to numerical parameters the plant develops leaves, grows in height or decreases and blossoms in flowers / fruits in an almost symbiotic relationship between human and digital nature.
Artist: Sophie Capshaw-Mack
Artwork: Portal
Year: 2023
Medium: Video
Description: From a visual perspective, Portal appears to follow a confused and curious cockatoo on a never-ending quest navigating through uncharted digital wilderness. The looping artwork contemplates the ways in which continuous advancements in technology and natural language processing (NLP) alter how intelligent beings interpret experience and interact with various planes of existence. The semantical looseness of the phrase 'intelligent beings' is purposeful: intended to question presiding conceptual frameworks for consciousness and ontology rooted in anthropocentrism. These notions seem to function as both extensions of and rationales behind concurrent power dynamics, with human dominance depicted as a fundamental truth. By daring to shatter epistemological boundaries, Portal offers an escape from such paradigms.
Artist: Connie Bakshi
Artwork: Orientalis Exoticum I
Year: 2022
Medium: Generative AI
Description:
“She only blooms in silence
to hide from leering eyes,
in fear of kings and bandits
who would hunt her for prize.”
— Excerpt from Metaphorphosis
Orientalis Exoticum is a species of neither flora nor fauna, birthed in the deep of Metaphorphosis. A creature of unknown origin and subject to mythological speculation, it is sought after for its purported aphrodisiac qualities in accordance with a manner of rigorous processing and consumption.
Metaphorphosis is anomalous lore, written and visualized in collaboration with AI, that contemplates the united states of being, an undefined space that lives at the intersection of belonging and rejection. The tale considers the minute lens shifts that would teeter between the grotesque and divine, fetish and indifference, human and other. Drawing from the transformation canons of western literature and eastern mythology, Metaphorphosis draws a thin line between the exiled and the exalted.
Artist: Cait Lamas
Artwork: 𝕌 ℝ 𝕃 𝒞𝑜𝓃𝓃𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃
Year: 2023
Medium: 3D video
Description: Oceans apart while our circuits are intertwined.
Artist: Maxwell Dewunmi
Artwork: Before I had a name
Year: 2023
Medium: 3D
Description: “Before I had a name, my identity was in limbo. I was a blank canvas. I was faceless”
“Before I had a name” features a central faceless character with six similar but uniquely patterned faces around it. Each face represents an identity or possible identity.
When we are born, we are given names (identities) that most of the time stay with us for the rest of our lives. Before you had that name, you had no identity, you were just a child in the loving arms of your parents.
They can decide what you will be called for the rest of your life but who then decides what you are or what you become? The ones that named you? or your surroundings?
Artist: Wildy Martinez/ Wildflower Fields
Artwork: Wildflower Fields S/S 23 Look 4
Year: 2023
Medium: Midjourney AI
Description: As the woman stands amidst the natural setting, she is embraced by a profusion of wildflowers in an array of colors and shapes, illustrating the profound beauty found in the most unlikely of places. The wildflowers symbolize the resilience of the human spirit, thriving even in challenging environments, much like the extraordinary strength that resides within all of us.
Artist: Clayton Campbell
Artwork: A Storytelling
Year: 2023
Medium: Digital, AI- Dalle E; photoshop, 66" x 66"
Description: My image is perhaps a mirage, or a distant memory, of two women sharing a deeply private matriarchal moment of intimacy taking place in a sacred space. An elder is transmitting knowledge and wisdom through her storytelling to a novice, in a temple-like garden. It has a circular roof open to the sky, connoting a path and access towards the numinous realm of the great feminine blood mysteries. They are unguarded and open, free and safe, caring and loving in how they undertake their exchange.
Artist: Cymoonv
Artwork: i luv the way you care about my gardens
Year: 2022
Medium: 3D video art
Credits: Ambient music by Charly Pœ
Artist: Rhea Bambulu
Artwork: Modern love
Year: 2022
Medium: GIF
Description: We live in the connected era, where we wake up to notification and continuously crave for the attention we don't need. Our online presences become the pivot of our existence and it becomes worse where the others people value fade by the amount of followers they have.
Curated by:
Cansu Peker
Founder, Digital Arts Blog
Cansu (sounds like john+sue) has always been a fan of everything that’s beautiful and artful, and excited by the ever-advancing technology. Since completing her MA studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, she has been taking part in creative productions, art exhibitions, and curatorial projects.
She founded Digital Arts Blog in 2023 out of her lifelong admiration towards this marvelous fusion of art and technology, with the aim of creating an accessible and inclusive space for digital artists from all backgrounds.