Dao Echoes from a Transhuman Era is the first in a series of Motivas by Michel Platnic, intertwining profound quotes from Laozi’s Tao Te Ching with a visual narrative. Inspired by Picasso’s Claude et Paloma Drawing (1954), this piece combines hand-made drawings, videos, paintings, and photographs, depicting two children playing as a sunflower blooms and fades before them, with an atmosphere that feels both familiar and uncanny.

Through AI-generated reinterpretation, Platnic introduces layers of fragmentation and distortion, capturing a moment when technology’s imperfections remain visible. Allowing the AI to create excessive repetitions and malformations, this Motiva documents a stage in AI’s evolution where its limitations subtly disrupt the image, reminding us of Laozi’s timeless insights on balance and the incompleteness of human understanding, especially in a world driven by relentless technological progress.