Meta-scapes, A Solo Art Show by Helio Santos

Helio Santos is a Mexican Artist working with data, internet, and technology with background in painting and digital art. You are invited to view his work at Colonna Contemporary Art Gallery in Wayne on February 13th from 6–10 pm. Please RSVP.

This series explores the concept of the artificiality of landscapes as social and cultural constructs. By employing imagery commonly perceived as “natural,” the series seeks to question how such perceptions are constructed, probe the nature of reality itself, and examine the ways in which our active perception shapes these constructs.

The creation process is intrinsically tied to code and algorithms, which serve as the driving force behind the work. The project begins with the generation of hundreds of landscapes using machine learning diffusion models. These generated landscapes are then compiled into a dataset, which feeds an artificial vision algorithm specifically designed by the artist.

The algorithm processes, classifies, and reconfigures the pixel data from these landscapes, recontextualizing and synthesizing new landscapes. By leveraging the pixel as the fundamental unit of digital information, the series reveals new ways of understanding and constructing what we perceive as “natural.