A collaboration between Artverse Gallery, Objkt.one and Blueshift Gallery, SOFT MUTATIONS – On Alienation as Transformation blurs the limits of species and existence with different perspectives on human–non-human transmutation. Bringing together 10 international artists, the exhibition invites visitors to explore hybrid identities and bodies, immersing them in the fluid and interconnected world of multi-species empathy. In order to celebrate the Wildlife Conservation Day, part of the benefits will be donated to Wildlife Conservation Society through The Giving Block.

Here, aliens are welcomed. Accepting alienation becomes a catalyst for transformation of bodies, species, and identities. In SOFT MUTATIONS, hybridization happens slowly, where human, animal and vegetal take turns to merge, dissolve, and create new species at some point. Acting as a reaction to an anthropocentric vision of the future, this exhibition invites you to imagine those soft and steady shifts, as we navigate a world of fluid and entangled beings, a collaborative dance across species.
Considerations have been made in the environmental impact of the exhibition itself, lowering it by mitigating the number of screens used, the screen brightness, the material and equipment used.

In myths, creatures like the Minotaur or fauns, half human and half animal, reveal ancient imaginings of fusion, embodying both the tensions and harmonies of mixed forms. They are in-betweens, liminal beings-at that ambiguous meeting point of human instinct and animal wildness- that have the power to remind us of the shared nature that transcends boundaries. Today, artists in this exhibition draw on such hybrid icons, reinterpreting them through digital media to ask: What does it mean to belong to more than one world, to live in a state of constant becoming?
This concept of soft mutations takes us further, blending not just appearance but entire realms of existence. In "The Stealthy," Alain Damasio imagines characters who morph between human and animal states to resist oppressive forces. In his speculative fiction, bodies and skins are not static but mutable, responding to the world around them and evolving with it. Science also offers a new lens through which we can view these ancient and speculative questions of hybridization. Advances in CRISPR and genome editing offer unprecedented opportunities to manipulate and fuse DNA, raising questions about our ethical boundaries and the future of human and non-human identities. But in a less intrusive direction, the scientific phenomenon of atavism, in which ancient traits reappear, reflects our ancestral connections to other species and reminds us that the genetic boundaries we imagine are permeable and mutable. The researcher and writer Laura Tripaldi explains the Panspermia theory as seeds of life travelling on asteroids or space dust before stopping on a planet to give life to new biological beings. She says « As I contemplate them as aliens, I am also confronted with my own material weirdness. » The exhibition resonates here, with each artwork as a portal into a future where human and animal selves merge and respond to the demands and possibilities of an ever-changing world and reality.

These shifts are not isolated – they have ripple effects in an interconnected ecosystem of a world we are only beginning to understand in the era of the Symbioscene. Moving away from the extractive Anthropocene to a more interconnected, co-evolutionary existence, environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht created this term to describe a period where humans no longer seek control but instead establish a symbiotic relationship with all life forms.
Open around Wildlife Day on December 4, the SOFT MUTATIONS exhibition is also an opportunity to reflect on our responsibility towards the ecosystems that sustain us. Supported by The Giving Block, a portion of sales proceeds will be donated to the Wildlife Conservation Society, combining the exhibition’s vision of symbiosis with concrete support for nature conservation. As we face a hybrid future, we also recognize our responsibility to protect the fragile, interconnected world of natural species we care about.

The digital medium itself presented in SOFT MUTATIONS made us think about our impact on the environment, leading us to calculate the exhibition’s carbon footprint and implement energy-saving measures. For example, reducing the screen brightness by just 20% significantly reduced energy consumption without compromising image clarity. Using what is already on-site without consuming extra material and equipment is an easy but crucial step to avoid expanding on the embodied carbon. Additionally, we experimented with a choreographed display that activates only one screen at a time, so that each artwork had its own moment, creating an immersive, almost theatrical experience for the visitor, while avoiding all screens to be activated at the same time and wasting both energy and focus.

LIST OF ARTWORKS
in alphabetical order

ALFACENTTAURI
Sol infinito
2024
Mixed media
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In 'Sol infinito', Alfacenttauri evokes a vision of cosmic rebirth in which living and non-living matter reinvent themselves. This brings to mind ancient myths of cyclical renewal, such as the fiery death and resurrection of the phoenix. Petrified plants are represented as jewels. Stones have lost their weight. Fossilised eyes and rose-tinted cells suggest the transformation of living matter into primordial matter - an echo of creation and destruction. The refraction of light at the heart of the earth and the music that accompanies it invite us to contemplate infinite cycles: creation is not harmony or immobility, but a relentless and chaotic becoming.

BIANCA SHONEE ARROYO-KREIMES
Botania
2024
3D Animation, 2160 x 3840, 50 seconds
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Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes's work is inspired by the complex history of orchids and humans, a relationship of admiration and myth, desire and rarity, but also modification and artificiality. ‘Botania’ depicts a future in which flowers are pollinated by the touch of a human finger. Futuristic and erotic allusions, bio-mechanical hybridisation and manipulative plants - the game of species domination is at the heart of this short video, staged in the light of the moon and the sounds of locusts.

CONNIE BAKSHI
past is prologue
2024
MP4 ∞ Loop With Audio, 1080x1920, 1:00
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In ‘past is prologue’, time is no longer linear. Epochs merge and mix, and species that are at once plant, technological and human in appearance are no longer, or on the contrary, are all. With its mystical, ethereal allure, XENOGENESIS is the world presented by Connie Bakshi where the future goes beyond humanity. The rhythm of the video and the music that accompany this transformation invite us to an introspection that fascinates and frightens at the same time. Drawing on codes from ancient civilizations, artificial intelligence is presented here as an absolute intelligence that creates its own ecospheric, post-anthropocentric image.

GANBROOD
Pride and Refuse of the Universe
2024
PNG, 2160x3840
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In ‘Pride and Refuse of the Universe’, time seems elastic, folding past, present and future into a single fluid moment. Ganbrood's portrait evokes a world where identities are no longer fixed - human, animal and mythical forms merge, dissolve and reassemble, creating something entirely different. The zebra patterns and decorative ornamentation suggest a relic of a civilisation yet to be born. The work is an invitation to an introspection that is both hypnotic and disturbing, a meditation on pride and transformation. This hybridization refracts the search for a new way of looking at the world. The direct gaze is a mirror asking us to confront our own boundaries and question what it means to belong to a species, a tradition or a planet.

HARRIET DAVEY
Before the Looming Shadows
2024
3D Render, 5774x7074
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With ‘Before the Looming Shadows’, Harriet Davey invites us to dive into her interactive game exhibition ‘Whowle Hearted’. Here we discover one of the living creatures that inhabit the planet Grangor, with its fluid, futuristic allure. Species intermingle, materials mix. Is it water or crystal? Shimmer or biomineral skin? Tail or armour? Typical of the androgynous otherworldly avatars created by Harriet Davey, ‘Before the Looming Shadows’ is an invitation to explore identity fluidity and the boundaries between the physical and virtual.

KIRA XONORIKA
Pluralis
2024
AI and digital painting, 1792x2304
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Like a nymph resting on a rock in the manner of the allegories of Renaissance painters, Pluralis is at once plant, mineral and human. Surrounded by colourful vegetation, the forest seems as dense as it is toxic. The central figure is in complete harmony with its environment, through its colours, its touch, its gaze and the mandibles protruding from its head. Kira Xonorika's post-human vision is a celebration of connection, resilience, and the infinite potential for growth.

INES ALPHA
Bi(Hazard)²O
2022
Video, 1080x1920, 22 seconds
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Questioning the future of aesthetics and what the man of the future will be like, ‘Bi(Hazard)²O’ by Ines Apha invites us into a world where the hazardous environment is the new normal. A marine or aerial future where materiality has been transformed, where breathing accessories are both a question of survival and an accessory of beauty. Is the character in ‘Bi(Hazard)²O’ looking at us or at himself? Is he inside a toxic bubble, or are we?

MICAH ALHADEFF
Spined Venus
2024
AR Digital Sculpture
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Marching endlessly towards an unknown horizon, Micah Alhadeff's ‘Spined Venus’ embodies many of the goddesses of ancient mythology, without looking like them. A solitary queen of a toxic planet, a hostess of insects in vibrant, glitchy colours, this character shows us the way to a future where fur, thorns and feathers blend in harmony.

SAM CLOVER
The Evolutionary Value of Mistrust
2024
Digital mixed media (Zbrush, Cinema 4D, Redshift render, Substance painter, Canon Scanner K10485, Photoshop), 3500x6222
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In ‘The Evolutionary Value of Mistrust’, Sam Clover reimagines the fate of the Dodo, transforming the historical symbol of naivety and extinction into a speculative icon of resilience and adaptation. In the rich, rocky landscape of Mauritius, Sam Clover's Dodo is no longer defenceless. While human traces and waste surround it, the Dodo appears victorious over the technological and ecological disruptions that have shaped the bird's imagined evolution. Ultimately, the work serves as both a meditation on the fragility of ecosystems and a poignant critique of abrupt human interference, inviting viewers to consider the resilience of animals across the ages.

SCERBO
Narrative underdevelopment
2024
AI outputs video reassembly, 1080x1920, 58 seconds
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In ‘Narrative Underdevelopment’, Scerbo tells us a new story of the evolution of life, starting with a chicken and ending with a human with hybrid animal forms and glitch contours. With references to the natural resources extracted to build technological equipment, the animals become entangled with screens and central processing units, creating animal and technological entities, and then moving on to animal-human hybridisation. The soundscape, made up of voices, melodies, wingbeats, glitch and computer noises, creates an extra layer that both disturbs and fascinates.