The Merge

Still from video

The Merge (2024) is a single-channel digital video that explores dystopian future environments and landscapes where a Material Artificial Intelligence (MAI) has been synthesized to counteract the environmental effects of the ecological crisis, which, in the not-so-distant future where the story is set, has made the atmosphere uninhabitable. This new material-based artificial intelligence system transforms objects and materials into large hollow structures that constantly grow in response to external atmospheric conditions, offering a shelter to humans and other species.

This video workhas been realized as part of theFelloship program ARTeCHO – Art, Economy & Technology, co-funded by the European Union.

Thanks to Baltan Laboratories, ETOPIA Center for Art and Technology, Frankfurt School, SERN Start-up Europe, MEET Digital Culture Center.

The Merge, 2024 Single-channel digital video, sound 05’20”
The Merge, 2024 Single-channel digital video, sound 05’20”
The Merge, 2024 Single-channel digital video, sound 05’20”

Stills from video

The Merge has been screened at ETOPIA Center for Art and Technology, Zaragoza, SP; Dutch Design Week 2024 at Koelhuis, Eindhoven, NL; CIFRA for Venice Art Night, Venice, IT.

Full video available upon request.

Installation view at The New Current (2025), Rotterdam, NL

Installation view at ETOPIA’s media-facade, Zaragoza, SP

Installation view at Dutch Design Week 2024 at Koelhuis, Eindhoven

The video work The Merge is also an introduction to the online platform: www.themerge.space

As a long-term project, this platform is conceived as an experimental digital space to explore worldbuilding as a tool to imagine ecological speculative futures, and to host experimental digital formats of research presentation and online collective exhibitions.