Night Lights Denver

"Remembrance: Coral" is a biofeedback performance art project I created to confront my fear of inheriting early-onset Alzheimer’s, from which my mother now suffers. The project uses machine learning to create interactive animations, similar to video games, that respond to EEG brain sensor interactions. It merges surrealistic artistic sensibility with technical expertise and represents the culmination of my creative concepts.

"Speculative Core Samples" is part of an ongoing investigation into the material impacts of anthropogenic change on the Earth System. Resembling a geological core sample, the moving image artwork travels through descending layers of sand, stone, plastic, e-waste and artifacts entirely captured using 3D photogrammetry. The artifacts a culture leaves behind - art, tools or refuse - can tell us much about their values. What will future civilizations make of ours?

Total Confusion (2024) is an expression of the tumultuous emotions experienced during a separation. It captures the profound sense of loss that comes from parting with a long-term partner, leaving one’s country of origin, and grieving the fragmentation of the family unit. The piece is a visual exploration of the inner turmoil, disorientation, and overwhelming confusion that accompany such deeply personal transitions.

"Urban Data Mining" is a projection mapping public digital art project on the iconic Daniels & Fisher Tower, a 325-foot tall historic landmark in downtown Denver, built in 1911. The project digitally reconstructs the tower piece by piece, using 76,484 unique objects. Every material on the tower is meticulously documented, including its color, dimensions, material, and detailed specifications. This information is collected as urban data and displayed as tags that are mapped onto the tower itself, visualizing the data through advanced machine vision techniques. In today’s architectural landscape, it's crucial to consider how buildings deconstruct as thoughtfully as they are assembled. By creating an urban mining database, we gain a powerful tool for not only preserving historic buildings but also for enabling future architectural upcycling. The architectural "kit of parts" from the Daniels & Fisher Tower emerges from these tags, extending like living limbs that interact with the street below, exploring new possibilities and styles within this complex, data-rich interface. This project exemplifies the potential of information overload in reshaping our understanding and engagement with architectural heritage.

“…how unlucky for us, the earth, was abundant…” "BLOOM" turns the facade of the Daniel & Fischer Tower into a canvas of metamorphic abstraction using CGI materials, and breathing life into classic iconography. Inspired by the metamorphic processes of nature, the 3D animation blends Mediterranean statuary, ancient Greek symbols of fertility, sunlight and harmony with abstract elements. Samples of natural forms emerge, mutate and loop as 3D models of Greek relics evolve into procedural shapes that echo the organic growth of soft corals and evergreen vines. With "BLOOM", Valentina delves into the richness of archetypal forms and explores how synthetic imagery brings to life the interconnectedness of our natural and built environments.