BioFlux
Imagine a distant future where you inherit a mysterious computer drive filled with fragmented files containing the collective memories of a community. The file formats are obsolete and unreadable by contemporary machines. Driven by curiosity, you begin to reconstruct them, unaware of their origins or contents. BioFlux emerges from this speculative gesture: a generative video artwork that unfolds as a continuous stream of narrative fragments and visual reconstructions. It transforms the viewer into a digital flâneur, drifting through the reconstructed memories of Macao and collecting fleeting glimpses of conversations, personal photographs, and everyday moments. The work weaves these recovered fragments into a fluid and dynamic flow of interconnected thoughts, experiences, and remembrances. It transports us into a poetic multiverse where multiple plotlines and possible worlds coexist and intertwine. Rooted in the CONTA.ME project, BioFlux begins with the transcription of 23 personal interviews, then employs generative techniques to deconstruct and reassemble these biographical narratives. Individual stories are reconfigured algorithmically, blending and overlapping to form a living, ever-evolving audiovisual tapestry. Rather than offering a linear story, BioFlux operates as a “living archive”—a constantly shifting flux that transcends conventional storytelling. It invites viewers to wander, reflect, and immerse themselves in an impressionistic yet deeply human journey through the layered fabric of communal identity. By revealing hidden connections and shared threads between personal histories, BioFlux highlights the complex interdependencies that shape collective memory. It is both an act of digital archaeology and a meditation on how technology reshapes the ways we remember, narrate, and imagine our shared pasts and possible futures. BioFlux ultimately invites contemplation on memory as an unstable, generative force—continuously rewritten, collectively held, and endlessly in flux.
Short Bio
Pedro Alves da Veiga is an artist and researcher with a PhD in Digital Media-Art, jointly awarded by the University of Algarve and Aberta University. He is a professor and sub-director of the PhD programme in Digital Media-Art at Aberta University. Before academia, he worked for over twenty years as an entrepreneur, creating award-winning web design and multimedia projects. He is an integrated member of CIAC – the Research Centre in Arts and Communication. His research bridges art, science, and technology, focusing on the implications of the attention and experience economies in new media art, traversed by hacktivism, artivism, curatorship, and art-based research methodologies. In his artistic practice, Veiga works with generative art, creative programming, interactive systems, assemblage, and digital audiovisuals. His projects question representations of events and ideals, often emphasising participation and the disruption of attention. By merging aesthetics and technology, his works invite viewers to engage, interact, and construct unique interpretations. His art has been internationally exhibited, including in Portugal, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, China, South Korea, Thailand, and the USA.
Link to website or social media https://pedroveiga.com/bioflux/