ONENESS, HYPERMASK and BLOOM at the Fluviale festival
Synthetic portraits, composite beings and speculative forms of life.
Installation views from STREAM.fields 2026 at ODEON im Spitzer, Vienna.
Featuring ONENESS, HYPERMASK and BLOOM from the ongoing AVANTGARDEN project.
Photos: eSeLat – Joanna Pianka
AVANTGARDEN at STREAM.fields 2026, Vienna
A selection of works from AVANTGARDEN was presented as part of STREAM.fields 2026 at ODEON im Spitzer in Vienna.
The presentation included the moving image works ONENESS, HYPERMASK and BLOOM, shown within the exhibition and screening program alongside artists, filmmakers, musicians and researchers participating in this year's edition of the festival.
AVANTGARDEN is an ongoing series of virtual environments, moving image works and synthetic lifeforms. Across videos, virtual worlds and image series, the project develops parallel habitats populated by artificial organisms, composite beings and speculative forms of life.
The works presented in Vienna focused on synthetic portraits and evolving entities assembled from biological references, cosmetic materials, digital skins, ornamental structures and artificial ecologies. Together they explore organisms that exist somewhere between portrait, species and environment.
The images document the installation and screening at ODEON im Spitzer, Vienna.
guided expedition through virtual worlds.
CODED LANDSCAPES
Gallery Wechselstrom, Vienna
Tonight I will open a few portals and take visitors on a guided expedition through my virtual worlds.
From Sphere 4 to ProtoMachines Lab, we will travel through habitats populated by proto-machines, artificial organisms, fractal structures, ancient plants, communal gathering spaces and various forms of synthetic life.
Some of these environments have existed for years. Others continue to mutate.
All of them ask the same question:
What happens when virtual spaces stop behaving like simulations and start behaving like places?
Part of the Fluviale Festival.
Discussion moderated by Thomas J. Jelinek.
With Reante Pittroff, Christoph Theiler, Darko Fritz and guests.
SUBSTRATE
System activation tonight.
FEEL THE SUBSTRATE
Liquid / vapor / atmospheric matter
Floral + amber extraction residues circulating through image, sound, space
SYNTHSPA ONLINE
VRChat + Second Life
continuous access after activation
SUBSTRATE
digital artist book
67 pages of synthetic residue
atmospheric fragments
rendered bodies
cosmetic systems
AVANTGARDEN: SYNTHSPA
Black Box Ljubljana
18:00
More about the project:
Synthetic bodies appear in hydrotherapy environments, reflective interiors, and controlled sensory fields.
Bathing sequences unfold in regulated conditions of water, light, vegetation, and cosmetic matter. Movement remains slow, suspended, non-emphatic.
Behavioral stillness persists.
A spatial field of sculptural systems introduces calibration environments: machinic devices, hydroponic structures, cosmetic instruments, and synthetic garden architectures.
Operational states remain active without declared function.
SUBSTRATE circulates as liquid, vapor, reflective matter, and atmospheric field. Derived from floral and amber extracts, it connects image, sound, object, and space into continuous material distribution.
Function remains unresolved.
Reflective architectures and hydrotherapy environments extend into virtual space.
Systems continue across physical and digital layers.
BLOOM and SPECIMENS operate as parallel formations within the same ecosystem: synthetic portrait conditions, behavioral loops, cosmetic embodiment, and speculative wellness procedures.
Therapeutic aesthetics, environmental control, and technological regulation converge into a continuous synthetic condition.
SYNTHSPA
Very happy to announce SYNTHSPA, a new series of interconnected works unfolding across upcoming exhibitions and online environments.
SYNTHSPA began from an interest in environments designed around permanent optimisation. Spa systems, biotech aesthetics, cosmetic interfaces, wellness rituals, ambient sound, liquid states, and virtual worlds gradually merged into a single atmospheric condition.
The project moves through an ambiguous zone between rendered body, designed species, simulation, and behavioral conditioning. Synthetic humanoid figures appear suspended inside immersive environments shaped through hydrotherapy imagery, sensory regulation systems, environmental design, and speculative wellness procedures.
Some works function almost like biotech advertisements or atmospheric simulations for entities already born inside synthetic environments. Others focus on body calibration, immersion, maintenance rituals, or virtual architectures operating in continuous loops.
The series currently includes audiovisual works, experimental soundscapes, virtual worlds, digital sculptures, the SUBSTRATE artist book, and spatial installation systems developed through AI image and video generation, procedural workflows, and sound composition.
Tools used throughout the process include Blender, Ableton Live, Leonardo, Suno, Affinity Designer, Pixelmator Pro, Unreal Engine, Unity3D/VRChat, and custom AI workflows trained on my own 3D renders.
