Meraviglia (2022) captures that electrifying moment when reality tilts on its axis and wonder floods the senses. Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Stefano Contiero transforms the familiar territory of algorithmic art into something altogether more fantastic, creating two works that function as portals into transformed perception.
Marbled textures flow like liquid silk across digital surfaces, with their vibrant palettes creating compositions that breathe with organic life. Generated through fluid dynamics algorithms that blend and distort color fields, these works achieve a pointillistic depth through subtle dithering techniques that fragment each hue into countless prismatic particles, extending Seurat’s optical mixture into algorithmic territory. The swirling forms recall the color field investigations of Saturazione (2021), yet push toward something more narratively complex through scale shifts and spatial disorientation that mirror Alice’s journey through Carroll’s impossible landscape.
This investigation into fluid metamorphosis connects to Max Ernst’s decalcomania experiments, where chance processes create portals into altered perception, yet here algorithms replace gravity and accident as the organizing principle. Like Bridget Riley’s optical investigations, the works demand active perceptual participation, their dithered surfaces creating the same sense of visual instability and disorientation found in impossible spaces. Presented during the 2022 Venice Biennale in a satellite exhibition, the works represent Contiero’s exploration of how algorithmic processes can generate genuinely surprising visual transformations.
The collection’s intimate scale of just two outputs reflects a profound understanding of wonder as quality rather than quantity. Each work functions as a complete universe unto itself, inviting viewers to lose themselves in endless visual discovery. The most compelling generative art emerges from the courage to surrender familiar territories, transforming algorithmic precision into genuine enchantment.