Working with Austrian artist Michaela Putz on “Phantom of a Garden” was a truly unique and inspiring experience. Her work explores memory, digital traces, and the fragility of our environment. For this piece, she envisioned a virtual 3D space inhabited by digitally resurrected extinct plants.
My role was to help bring this vision to life by creating the 3D environments, animations, and video sequences. The process was a deep collaboration, existing somewhere between technical execution and artistic partnership. Together, we experimented in Blender, building atmospheres that felt haunting and poetic. We explored how plants that no longer exist might move and feel in a digital limbo, and I designed the camera sequences and soundscape to complete the installation.
It was incredibly rewarding to see the final video piece exhibited at venues like Burgenland Offen and selected for the Tricky Women/Tricky Realities International Animation Festival. Seeing this conceptual work resonate with international audiences was a powerful moment.
For me, this project was more than just a design task. It was proof of how digital tools can expand the possibilities of art, using technology to reflect on profound themes of memory, loss, and beauty.
