Biogram Toneprints is a body of work that explores the digitization of organic structures through the invisible spectrum of light. At its core, the production process uses measurement techniques from the two eras and two ends just outside the visible spectrum of light. The 3D capturing involves LIDAR (infrared depth laser scanning) technology to calculate data points of spatial information about the physical dimensions of living plants. The printing process explores the other end of the invisible light spectrum (ultraviolet light) through one of the oldest methods of photographic printing - the cyanotype. Each cyanotype toneprint is treated with different organic teas to elicit various chemical reactions and color hues. By flattening the 3D scans into dynamic topographic maps, the project deciphers a dimensional translation of material and digital memory systems while shedding light on the link between the virtual and the actual, the visible and invisible. The works are available for collection in the our shop.

"Chthonic Light" serves as a meditation on the timeless cycle of death and rebirth. The word "Chtonic" in the title is a play on "chthonic," signifying the fertile underground soil where matter metamorphoses into a tonic for new life. In the first iteration of the piece, a LIDAR scan of a tiger lily emerges from an AI-generated nebula and undergoes a visual transformation from material decay to a digital constellation of subatomic particles. Produced in honor of my late grandmothers, the work explores themes of life's cyclical nature, highlighting the potential for renewal even in the face of profound loss. It juxtaposes the fleeting beauty of a flower with the celestial wonder of a nebula, inviting viewers to contemplate the interconnectedness between the macro and the micro. The first version of this work premiered as an immersive dome projection in October 2023 at Spectra Studio in Los Angeles.

What lies within the bounds of being? IntraBeing explores the boundaries of imaging the human body to imagine a boundless and intra-active sense of being. Eli Joteva worked remotely with researchers at Fraunhofer MEVIS to develop the work, exploring the capacities of medical imaging and simulation techniques to locate the enigmatic spaces that emerge at the limits of resolution and computation.

For eight hours, artist in residence Eli Joteva performed a series of full-body MRI scans and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), commonly used only to visualize neural connectivity in the brain, to instead reveal nerve fibers in the chest, pelvic region and the feet of her own body. She was inspired by the fact that hydrogen atoms, on which MRI processing relies, are also in constant nanosecond flux and thus elude precise measurement. These components are key elements of the three-screen installation, complete with AR extension, which shows an oscillating internal landscape of hydrogen atoms, the nerves they flow along, and the magnetic potentials generated between them.

IntraBeing premiered at Ars Electronica in 2021 (Linz), was part of ComeAlive in 2022 (Eindhoven), exhibited as a solo show in the ArtSci Gallery (Los Angeles) in 2023, and is currently on view at No Song Unsung (Brea, CA) and on LED monitors in the Business Park (Sofia). Bulgarian information about the current exhibition in Sofia can be found here.

All digital sculptures can be viewed from a mobile device in AR at intrabeing.joteva.com

Biogram Blueprints is a body of work that explores the digitalization of organic structures through the invisible spectrum of light. At its core, the production process uses measurement techniques from the two ends just outside the visible spectrum of light to contemplate the relationship between the visible and the invisible, the virtual and the actual. The 3D capturing involves IR depth laser scanning technology to compute digital data points of spatial information about the physical dimensions of four live plants. The print series “Biogram Blueprints” uses these 3D scans to explore the other end of the invisible light spectrum through one of the oldest methods of photographic printing - the cyanotype. All prints on view are partially developed, rendering portions of each image to remain sensitive to UV light, and thus undergo physical changes over time. By flattening the digital scans into dynamic topographic maps, the project aims to decode the translation of material and digital memory systems.

Inspired by processes of quantum mechanics, diffraction, deterioration and subatomic field fluctuations, this accompanying light installation expands on the relationship between the virtual and the actual by breaking down the visible spectrum of light. The capturing process of “Zero Point Field” uses IR depth laser scanning technology to compute virtual data points of spatial information about the physical dimensions of four live plants, and animates them into an inter-exchangeable field of particle noise. The piece is installed as a rear projection on a suspended disk of glass

CryoLumen is a project produced in collaboration with the environment. Each Storm Print is a material record of a past weather storm, updated with real-time solar storm data that is viewable in Augmented Reality.

The process begins with fleeting sculptural compositions placed over photosensitive paper and exposed under various weather conditions for the duration of local storms. They are then scanned and digitally altered to expose elements unseen in the physical paper, revealing a polarity between material and digital spaces: an ice block thaws over silver gelatin paper, to reveal its thermal qualities in a digital landscape.

This materially dynamic process further evolves into a digitally immersive space as the prints become digital negatives of organic processes that point to invisible planetary storms. Each print is overlaid with a secondary augmented reality sculpture that uses daily data from NOAA of solar wind storms. This near-real-time data alters the digital sculptures differently each day by intensifying the flows of particles and the colors of magnetic lines computed from solar superstorms. In this way, the project connects the deeply personal archive of the artist’s local weather experience during quarantine, with the planetary position of Earth’s real-time endurance of cosmic storms.

Acknowledgments:

The realization of this project has been kindly supported by The National Culture Fund of Bulgaria and Riyadh Art.

Real-time solar wind data by NOAA: swpc.noaa.gov/products/real-time-solar-wind. AR production assistance by Colter Wehmeier. The visualization of the coronal mass ejection is based on the magneto-hydrodynamic simulation described in Fan. Y., ApJ, 824:93, 2016. Visualization data pre-processing by the Advanced Visualization Lab, NCSA. Solar Superstorms simulations by Dr. Robert F. Stein and field line calculations by Dr. Patrick J. Moran, Michigan State University, Physics and Astronomy Department.

‘Fermented Reality’ is an AR app that allows us to experience the environment through the lenses of the microscopic organisms that inhabit everything around us (and inside us). We invite you to explore your surroundings through the app and see the world through fermentation on your own IOS device here.

The app brings the bubbling process of fermentation to the center. A reality that is not available to human eyes unless we use magnifying instruments or learn to identify their presence by their resulting products. Different cultures have learned through time to cohabitate and develop relationships with microbes, experiencing their environments through fermentation. During fermentation, organisms orchestrate a symphony of chemical reactions that lead to common products like bread, wine, beer, vinegar, cheese, yogurt, pickles, kombucha, and more. This app also speaks about a reality that is in constant change, where collaboration between diverse organisms brings cultures to develop new flavors, new environments, and new worlds. The process of fermentation demonstrates how microbes are collaborators that can provide sustainable solutions from the creation of food, to plastic alternatives and soil amendment (Bokashi composting).

Fermented reality is a collaboration between Joteva Studio, Maru García and Olderbrother with sound design by Kati Milano.

In mnemoawari, various cryo sculpture release their entropic potential into virtual and material memory. The interactive multimedia installation deals with the power of awareness within the transference and formation of immaterial impressions. 

This ongoing photography series utilizes the refraction and diffraction of a full moon’s light in the Black Sea (the sea of death), as a meditation on the transient cycles of life and light.

inter-i considers the sensory composition of the body as a cyclical ground of transmission beyond its materiality. Composed of a myriad of fluctuating light patterns, the female body form fills and empties in volume, shape-shifting its gestures and essence in the perceptual field of each viewer.

Latent Projections is an ongoing exploration of biofeedback brainwave technology as well as a poetic speculation on the spectrums of memory. Each image and video in the series frames a kind of internal portrait, externalizing into color the electrical phases of the mind as it recalls various events from the past or visions from the future. On a material level, the project explores dormant and invisible aspects of memory found in the crystal structures of water and oscillating signals in the human body. 

Participants were asked to keep a bottle of sterilized water as close to their body as possible for 24 hours, including sleeping with it under their pillow. After having dreamt next to this water, it was frozen in a circular mold and allowed to crystallize, revealing unique structures for each person. The participants were then wired to an EEG device, and asked to recall their dreams of the future or favorite activities of the past. Their EEG signals were recorded and fed through a custom-built software which translates the five defined brainwave bands into their corresponding color harmonic frequency as follows : Delta (0.1 - 3.5 Hz) gets mapped to the color red (400-484 THz), Theta (4-8Hz) to orange (484-508 THz), Alpha (8-12 Hz) to green (526-606 THz), Beta (12-30 Hz) to blue (606-668 THz) and Gamma (30-100Hz) to violet (668 - 789 THz). Each second, the dominant brainwave in the data generates it corresponding color, producing a portrait of streamed colors of each participant’s memory recall session. Finally, this generative color portrait is projection mapped to illuminate and refract through their unique crystal ice formations. The final images and videos are records of these latent projections, revealing the cycles and hues of the invisible affects of memory. 

Is it possible that biological life has desires and senses beyond human vision and comprehension? This in-progress photography project takes into consideration the agency and livelihood of organic materials and ecological terrains. Inspired by ideas of vibrant materialism and quantum mechanics, the project scans various landscapes and organic compositions with laser-light in order to expose a fluctuating dimension and view of plant life.

Is it possible that the future has the power to pull the present?

The project INELIMENTAL (2012-2016) employs light to offer a new way of seeing through the shadows of two worlds. The images are selected from hundreds of double exposed analog films, shot as a personal record of experience over the last three years in Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Spain, Serbia, Turkey, Thailand and the USA. The improbable combination of elements captured on film, brings life to a series of phantasmal memories and impossible mixtures of experience and vision. Nature and cityscapes merge with human figures, monuments and rituals, thereby conceiving a documentary un-reality made possible only by the meeting of two separate time-spaces. The spontaneous decision-making in the shooting process transcends mental logic by instead relying on an elementary intuitive response. Ultimately, this trust in a subconscious mechanism allows for the synchronistic alignment of spaces across points in time, while pointing to a metaphysical interconnection between the undeveloped film and the undeveloped aspects of the collective and personal memory.

VOICES uses experimental photography methods to locate the parallels between seven colors of the visible spectrum, seven tones of the octave, and seven energy centers within the human body. In order to analyze and present these intersections, the project uses digital in-camera multiple exposures to layer human bodies with sound-illustrating methods like cymatics, and other spectral forms. 

The VOICES INSTALLATION includes an interactive component that allows viewers to activate each “VOICE” print with their presence: when approached each artwork senses the viewer, illuminates in its respective color frequency, and plays its respective note from the octave.

The project was produced in partnership with Vivacom ArtHall, Ivan Shopov, and Studio Reaktiv. 

TRANS-CAPTIVITY is an immersive installation that presumes the metaphor of light as mental awareness. From there, it investigates the means of its projected refractions through form, space and mental models.

Part of the TRANS-FORMULATIONS project produced for the exhibition "Dark Thoughts/Light Spots", financially supported by The Sofia Fund for Innovations in Culture.

Sound designed in collaboration with Ivan Shopov (Balkansky).