Unaesthetic Tableau traces a haunted, blundering passage through a digitally constructed scene built from photos and found images of remnants and dissolution—trash, stains, peeling paint, broken TVs. These fragments were translated into 3D models using AI software that imperfectly and erroneously remediates visual information. Misrecognition becomes a generative force as textures become warped, objects are distorted, and the debris of is reconstituted as digital wreckage.
The video’s scene is a virtual tableau that was first screen-recorded and then used as a base or platform for a second version rebuilt in Blender. In this iteration, the models are rendered white and textureless, appearing sculptural, bone-like, and spectral. A navigation through this space is animated and layered over the initial footage. The resulting composition resists resolution. Frames are dropped, then roughly interpolated, producing low-res motion that echoes the incompleteness and distortion of the models. Sound, too, is abrasive, like a dragging, scraping camera hauling itself through artificial, unfinished terrain.
This work continues the artist’s engagement with melancholy, digital perception, and the aesthetic ambiguity of found objects. Decay is mediated through digital mistranslation and loss surfaces in spectral misreadings and partially incoherent reconstructions.
Unaestetic Tableau was exhibited at Plaza (vol. 1: June – August 2026) by Deluge Contemporary Art and Antimatter Media Art in conjunction with LIVERY Victoria, an outdoor community screen at the southwest corner of Oak Bay Ave and Davie St in Victoria, BC.
Sasha Opeiko 