HYPERMASK
HYPERMASK is a series of digital portraits and staged self-representations constructed through the accumulation and recombination of visual fragments.
Emoji-like forms, synthetic skin, cosmetic materials, reflective surfaces, organic textures and interface elements become components of the face. Across different iterations, these elements are rearranged into changing configurations while certain structures persist.
The work treats the face as an image system and draws on the visual language of filters, selfies, cosmetics, avatars and digital retouching, where the appearance of the body is increasingly produced through layers of modification.
The resulting portraits occupy an unstable territory between self-representation, mask, interface and synthetic body.
HYPERMASK, 2025.
Tanja Vujinović
AVANTGARDEN at ROOT/CLOUD, TOP Lab Berlin
BERLIN / 3–5 SEPTEMBER 2026
I’ll be presenting a selection of works from AVANTGARDEN at ROOT/CLOUD, a three-day exhibition and public programme at TOP Lab Berlin, curated by Xristina Sarli as part of Berlin New Media Week.
The presentation includes AVANTGUARDIANS, ONENESS, BLOOM, alongside documentation of virtual environments.
Extinct anatomies, synthetic organisms, botanical structures, composite beings, proto-machines and speculative habitats move between screen, sculpture, image and virtual space.
The works come from an ongoing practice of creating synthetic ecologies where biological forms, computation and imagination become part of the worldbuilding, exploring how new species might emerge through digital tools, biological observation and synthetic image systems.
The exhibition includes works from AVANTGUARDIANS, where extinct anatomies are reimagined as contemporary digital beings, alongside ONENESS, a series of composite portraits assembled from multiple species. BLOOM explores unstable formations of botanical structures, cosmetic surfaces and synthetic skin, while excerpts from the virtual worlds SPHERE 4, SPHERE 5 and other AVANTGARDEN environments extend these investigations into immersive ecosystems inhabited by artificial life.
Across these works, virtual space functions as a laboratory for ecological imagination. It becomes a place where biological memory, computation and artistic speculation generate new organisms, habitats and relationships between living and synthetic systems.
ROOT/CLOUD
3–5 September 2026
TOP Lab Berlin
Schätzelbergstraße 1–3 / Industriestraße 40
12099 Berlin
3 Sept · 19:00
Opening + discussion: WHO LEADS THE AVANT-GARDE?
4 Sept · 19:00
Artist talk: Tanja Vujinović — AVANTGUARDIANS
5 Sept
Open Studios / tour / live set
Free entry.
Curated by Xristina Sarli
Hosted by TOP Lab Berlin
Part of Berlin New Media Week 2026
ONENESS
ONENESS is on the cover of the new issue of KUNSTFORUM International, dedicated to Hybrid Identities.
Very happy to see my work featured on the cover, across the following pages, and throughout the issue.
Thank you Julia Katharina Thiemann for featuring my work, and to Julia and editor Ann-Katrin Günzel for choosing ONENESS for the cover.
The issue is out August 27.
ONENESS is part of my ongoing exploration of hybrid bodies, synthetic identities and shifting forms of embodiment, a direction that continues through several bodies of work including HYPERMASK, THE FACE FIELD and BLOOM.
Kunstforum International: https://www.kunstforum.de/en/
SOURCE
Field notes for SOURCE.
Lakes, rivers, forests, insects, reflections, textures, changing light.
I have been spending time outside while developing the project, looking closely at things that are easy to overlook: the movement of a dragonfly above water, the reflection of a body on a riverbank, the structure of a leaf, light moving across a surface.
A dragonfly became one of the recurring elements in SOURCE. Fragile, agile and resilient, it moves between water and air, appearing as both organism and afterimage.
These encounters leave traces.
A shape seen outside can return later as a fragment of a face. A reflection becomes a surface. A botanical structure becomes an artificial material. A remembered movement becomes a digital image.
SOURCE moves between being an Earthling and living inside the world of technical images. Between direct experience and computation. Between what the body encounters and what the image systems make of it.
A few field notes alongside images from SOURCE.
The project is now online. First exhibition coming soon.
FIELD NOTES: SOURCE
Over the last few days I spent time outdoors, moving between lakes, forests and the coast.
Water, trees, birds, dragonflies, plants, reflections, changing light.
It made me think again about some of the earliest virtual worlds I built and about the natural forms, rhythms and structures that have remained present throughout my work.
The first Spheres grew from this interest. Gardens became spatial structures. Plants, water, organic forms and biomimetic systems became elements for building temporary zones for exploration and reflection. Transparent structures, floating forms and proto-machines created spaces that could be entered, explored and experienced as changing digital terrains.
This interest has continued through different forms and scales, alongside research into avatars, virtual communities, Internet culture, artificial identities, technological environments and the ways we experience ourselves through images, devices and networks.
AVANTGARDEN developed these ideas through virtual worlds, moving image, synthetic organisms and speculative habitats. SYNTHSPA brought them into a different kind of system, exploring recalibration, artificial wellness, synthetic materials, sound and systems of self-maintenance. COLONY pushed the research into replication, artificial identities and the production of a new visual culture.
Now I am developing the concluding phase of SYNTHSPA around water, light, plants, transparent structures, synthetic organisms and sound.
The new works bring together virtual spaces, moving image, 3D sculpture, AI-generated imagery, collage, drawing and watercolor. My ongoing work with composite portraits also continues here through shifting forms that draw from botanical, animal, anatomical and synthetic references.
The new SYNTHSPA space is being rebuilt in VRChat as a place of flowing structures, reflections, organic forms and artificial life. Earlier ideas return in new configurations, alongside new forms developed specifically for this project.
I am calling this concluding phase SOURCE.
SOURCE brings together many of the things that have been present throughout the practice: nature and technology, artificial and organic forms, virtual space, sound, perception, imagination and the question of what it means to live among increasingly interconnected systems.
The fountain is not a destination.
It is where things come from.
