Transmutations is the culmination of a year-long collaborative project in which eight artists created a series of moving image works, each inspired solely by the final twenty seconds of the preceding artist’s piece. This project, done in the process of the Surrealist parlor game Exquisite Corpse had one directive: each work must originate through an analog photographic or film process before being transmuted into digital form for projection onto Denver’s iconic Daniels & Fisher Tower. The title speaks to the alchemical journey of transformation, where the tactile and chemical properties of analog materials—silver halides, acetates, nitrates, pigments, and iron salts—are transfigured into non-physical streams of digital code. Curated by Shana-Cruz Thompson and featuring Jason Biehner, Ahmed Salvador, Sapphire Goss, Kevin Hoth, Leah Diament, Markus Puskar, & Sharifa Lafon. Pictured: "Hothroids re-animated" by Kevin Hoth

Inspiration came when Senior Artist Alex Riczko read an article about mycelium found on asteroids, and how there is a chance mushrooms effectively came from space. That inspired the visual of bioluminescent mycelium, producing energy so dense and powerful that it has the ability to form portals to other dimensions.

A sphere is a unitary entity, not easily integrated into a collective body. "Oracles Oracle" is then an exploration of the solitary nature of a sphere, even in a crowded space. Among the chaos of spheres raining down into the Kittredge Building, each object remains itself, continually jostling for position in the crush of objects. The spheres do not become a unit but a crowd, packed together, waiting for the time they can regain their freedom of movement. Just as the Kittredge Building fills entirely with spheres, the floor drops out from beneath the spheres, dispersing them like seeds into the darkness. 

"Working Drawing" examines the medium of drawing as the primary document by which architects communicate construction information. But what happens if an architect begins to produce different kinds of drawings to communicate more than just the organizational rationales of construction? Where does beauty live in the architect's drawing, and how is it communicated before the building is built? Looking at line drawings, impressionist paintings and mosaic collages, "Working Drawing" imagines which personas that Denver's Kittredge Building could adopt relative to different possible forms of architectural practice.

"Convolutions" is a real-time algorithmic animation system that was built specifically to spill across the architecture of the historic Kittredge Building. Built with Cacheflowe's personal creative coding framework called "Haxademic", the software runs continuously, displaying new combinations of patterns and effects that will never repeat the same image. The title ("Convolutions") refers to the low-level graphical processing steps that encourage the organic ornamentations to dance around the surface of the building.

SPARK is an after-dark light and projection program hosted throughout downtown. Using the latest in projection mapping technology and equipment, the Denver Theatre District and Downtown Denver Business Improvement District have found a way to fill temporarily empty spaces with light and magic. Artwork at this location created by Joel Rekiel, Denver Projection Mapping. Windows graciously provided by Independence Plaza.

SPARK is an after-dark light and projection program hosted throughout downtown. Using the latest in projection mapping technology and equipment, the Denver Theatre District and Downtown Denver Business Improvement District have found a way to fill temporarily empty spaces with light and magic. Artwork at this location provided by waveform.exp

SPARK is an after-dark light and projection program hosted throughout downtown. Using the latest in projection mapping technology and equipment, the Denver Theatre District and Downtown Denver Business Improvement District have found a way to fill temporarily empty spaces with light and magic. Artwork at this location provided by waveform.exp

"Micromonumental Mapping: Essence of Creation" is a projection mapping artwork, created by Limelight, featuring a 3D-printed, 1/40-scale model of the Opéra de Lille in France. Viewable through the window as part of the SPARK program, you can see it from Sunset until 2:00 AM daily, located near 16th St and Curtis Street on the ground floor level of the 16th Street Center Parking Garage.

"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.