Éter

• Title of the work: Éter
• Year: 2026
• Author: Andre Palacios
• Link to the work: https://editor.p5js.org/NDR_/sketches/udfqu2hSv

Brief description of the work: Éter (Ether) is a dynamic generative image programmed in p5.js, in black and white, built from endogenous data (the passage of time) and exogenous data (the mouse position). On a black background, a regular grid of white points is continuously deformed: each point is displaced by a sine wave along the horizontal axis and a cosine wave along the vertical axis, both shifting over time. The straight grid bends, folds over itself and condenses into luminous bands that cross each other, while other areas scatter into loose particles, like masses of energy colliding. By moving the mouse, the viewer changes the frequency of the wave (horizontal axis) and the depth of the deformation (vertical axis), and thus intervenes in the system. The work takes its name from the Ether, the subtle and invisible fabric that connects all things, and proposes the image as a point of contact between the dream world and the real world: two dimensions that are connected and separated at the same time, where destruction and chaos are also part of creation.

Technical, aesthetic, and conceptual development

Ever since I first encountered computers, my relationship with them led me to find a part of myself that I believed was intangible. Materializing the ideas that came from the deepest world of Oniria (the stratum of the subconscious where physical logic dissolves and dreams dwell), that Ether (the subtle and invisible fabric that connects all things) where the energy of my ideas coexists in a collective unconscious, became something I was able to make tangible through machines. This turned into a symbiotic relationship in which I found a way for my thoughts to take shape in spaces beyond paper. Understanding the pixel as the new brush, and having grown up in front of machines, my relationship with them helped me grasp the infinite possibilities I had to carry out the most complex ideas my mind held, ideas that were capable of becoming reality.

It was that same symbiotic relationship with the intangible that led me to interpret the rest of my skills through algorithms, systems, texts and images, understanding destruction and chaos as part of creation. It is something I have felt all my life thanks to Synesthesia, a condition brought about by my hypersensitivity to the world, which showed me how I could interpret my surroundings and replicate my imaginary through the pixel and reality.

In replicating this imaginary, I experienced the feeling of the body and the friction of those masses colliding with each other: the oneiric with the Lattice (the informational matrix and energy network described by Jacobo Grinberg, the fundamental structure of reality that many perceive as the simulation). However, understanding that the real world had the same physical characteristics that could be replicated through machines made me realize that both worlds were connected and separated at the same time. That is where I, as an individual, recognized myself as capable of connecting both, as if I were a kind of sensory translator.

As a translator of that reality, I perceive that humanity is connected by a collective network of thoughts in which we all share this collective unconscious that unites us, but which few are able to understand as part of the whole; a space where the world of dreams and the real world are simply nothing more than two dimensions that stem from the same place.

Under this premise, through aspects such as sacred symbolism, mathematics and the understanding of these machines, my aim was to converge on the idea that we, too, could easily be an algorithmic representation of a much larger and more complex system that humans are still trying to discover. In essence, my work speaks about that clash of energy masses where both worlds are connected across multiple consciousnesses and we can all perceive both realities, often without being able to define where the line between one and the other lies.

Bibliography

• BREA, José Luis. (2008). “Redefinición de las prácticas artísticas (s. 21)” en El tercer umbral. Estatuto de las prácticas artísticas en la era del capitalismo cultural. Murcia: CENDEAC, pp. 106-113.
• BREA, José Luis. (2002). “Breve (y desordenado) antiglosario –o diccionario de tópicos– sobre el arte electrónico” en La era postmedia. Acción comunicativa, prácticas (post)artísticas y dispositivos neomediales. Salamanca: CASA Editorial, pp. 4-8.
• BREA, José Luis. (2010). “Las tres eras de la imagen. Imagen-materia, film, e-image”. Madrid: Akal.
• GRINBERG-ZYLBERBAUM, Jacobo. (1991). “La teoría sintérgica”. México: Instituto Nacional para el Estudio de la Conciencia (INPEC).
• JUNG, Carl Gustav. (1916). “La estructura de lo inconsciente” en Dos escritos sobre psicología analítica. Obra completa, Vol. 7. Madrid: Trotta.
• JUNG, Carl Gustav. (1936). “El concepto de inconsciente colectivo” en Los arquetipos y lo inconsciente colectivo. Obra completa, Vol. 9/1. Madrid: Trotta.

Brief biography of the author

Andre Palacios is a student of Multimedia Arts 1 (Lacabanne chair) at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes (UNA), Argentina. Having grown up in front of computers, Andre found in them a way to materialize ideas born in the world of dreams. The pixel is the new brush in a practice that moves through algorithms, systems, texts and images, shaped by synesthesia and by an interest in sacred symbolism, mathematics and the link between the oneiric and the real.