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THE INVISIBLE STAGE — Eight Plays the Future Never Rehearsed 🎭
What if modern technology existed in the Victorian era?
I created eight artworks showing how everyday digital experiences like endless scrolling, passwords, online meetings, cloud storage, notifications, and AI automation might look inside a 19th-century toy theatre.
I took inspiration from three historical illustrations (1870–1890) from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and used them to create two custom Recraft Styles: Stormy Sketches and Stormy Gouache.
All eight artworks were created using Recraft V4.1 Pro in October 2026.
I wanted to combine historical art with modern technology and show how much our everyday lives are influenced by digital systems.
Custom Recraft Styles:
Stormy Sketches — Acts I, II, III and VIII (main Style linked above).
Stormy Gouache — Acts IV, V, VI and VII.
Stormy Gouache Style: Stormy Gouache
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Chaekgeori 2026 — The Shelves of Today
Chaekgeori were 19th-century Korean folding screens that painted a scholar's bookshelf as a portrait: no face, only books, brushes, porcelain and the objects that defined a person. I found these screens in the open-access collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art (CC0) and The Met (Public Domain), and trained a Recraft V4 Style on their flat reverse perspective, mineral pigments and indigo silk.
Then I asked the Style to paint the shelves of 2026: a streamer, a developer, a DJ, a student, a gamer, a podcaster, a designer and a remote worker. Each one is still a portrait without a person. The ring light sits next to the peony vase, the rubber duck next to the ink stone, the sleeping cat next to the clock. The genre was always about the objects that define us; it just needed new objects.
The project shows the full 8-panel screen, plus each shelf as its own folding screen.
Also on comments specific shelfs for
- Streamers
- Developers
- DJ
- Student
- Gamer
- Podcaster
- Designer
- Remote worker
📜 Archive references:
Books and Scholars' Accoutrements, Yi Taek-gyun, late 19th c. — Cleveland Museum of Art (CC0): https://clevelandart.org/art/2011.37
Books and Scholars' Possessions, anonymous — The Met (Public Domain): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/73134
Books and Scholar’s Objects (Chaekgeori), 19th century: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/4812/books-and-scholars-objects-korea
🎨 Recraft project: https://www.recraft.ai/project/6ecc9616-9551-4dca-9ac8-df5b6ff3b6b5
🖌️ Try the Style: https://www.recraft.ai/styles/16bdb41a-58f0-4079-b0c5-c647f889b6d1
#recraftstyleschallenge
i went back to the late 1890 and earliest 19th century, and choose to work with a beautiful painting called; Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth by the artist; Martin Johnson Heade.
it definitely deserved a comeback, so i turned it into a Recraft Style, and use it to draw things Martin would never have imagined, like modern fashion wears, techs and appliances.
there's alot in my recraft project, check it out through the link.
more with V4 Style
459 years ago, an artist imagined architectural worlds that seemed impossible to build.
In 1567, German artist Lorenz Stoer created Geometria et Perspectiva, a remarkable collection of geometric illustrations filled with impossible structures, mysterious shapes, and surreal Renaissance architecture.
When I discovered these illustrations in the public-domain archives, one thought stayed with me:
What if these imaginary worlds actually existed?
For the Contra × Recraft Archive Style Challenge, I decided to bring these centuries-old illustrations into a new dimension.
Using historical references, I explored how Stoer's intricate geometry could be reimagined as photorealistic 3D environments, transforming flat woodcuts into monumental architectural spaces filled with weathered stone, sculpted bronze, metallic geometry, crystal-like surfaces, and natural light.
I wanted to preserve the imagination of the original artist while giving his impossible worlds a sense of physical reality.
The result is GEOMETRIA MATERIALIS: a visual journey from Renaissance imagination to contemporary digital creation, presented through before-and-after comparisons and cinematic motion.
The imagination is centuries old. The dimension is entirely new.
Old visions. New dimensions.
My entry for the Contra × Recraft Archive Style Challenge.
#RecraftStylesChallenge #RecraftAI #Contra #GeometriaMaterialis #DigitalArt #ArchitecturalVisualization
Stoer's impossible geometry was a great find. It feels like it was waiting for this.