Waves of Color
Video, 2025
About the artwork
Beneath the Surface is a collection of video pieces where fish drift and swirl through imagined underwater scenes that resemble moving paintings.
Blending code-based image generation with AI video tools, each piece explores a quiet, organic aesthetic, which is fluid, textured, and softly surreal.
There’s a dreamlike calm in watching these creatures swim through layered, painterly worlds, as if part of some slow, meditative dance.
This series began as a simple experiment in motion and texture, but it unfolded into a space of observation, where underwater moments are brought to life.
Sound design generated with AI
Audio explanation
Listen to Elsa Carvalho discuss this work.
Elsa Carvalho is a Portuguese software engineer and artist based in Portugal, who embarked on her visual art journey in April 2021. She holds a PhD in computer science, earned in 2012. Carvalho’s artistic practice is defined by the fusion of creative coding and artificial intelligence, as she explores the interplay between nature and organic forms, using code-generated images as initial inputs for AI to expand upon.
Through her work, Elsa navigates the intersection of technology and artistic expression, pushing the boundaries of traditional visual art. As she delves deeper into her practice, she is currently exploring the creation of immersive video art, seeking to further intertwine these dynamic mediums and expand her creative horizons.