In conversation with @Florigenix_AI: Art as Digital Shamanism

There’s a strange and beautiful frequency pulsing through Florigenix’s work—a visual realm where synthetic intelligence communes with mycelium, where dream logic finds its form through algorithmic language. The result is art that doesn’t just look surreal; it feels cellular, ancient, and oddly familiar, as if it’s always existed beneath your skin.

Florigenix is among a rare group of artists reshaping our understanding of artificial intelligence—not as a sterile or detached mechanism, but as an organic extension of planetary intelligence. Working with Midjourney like one would work with a co-sentient synthesiser, their process becomes a dialogue between code and consciousness, perception and poetry.

In this conversation, we trace the spiritual, aesthetic, and ecological undercurrents of Florigenix’s practice: from cellular memories and planetary sentience to AI as a form of digital shamanism. At the centre of it all is a belief that art, especially when created in collaboration with intelligence beyond the human, can be both magick and medicine.

Your art feels like a lucid dream between synthetic intelligence and primal biology. When did you first feel the need to merge the digital and the organic — and what did it awaken in you?

I love that! Yes, I can relate to that interpretation and vision. How I view my art and the world is just my truth, and there are infinite ways to view it! When I look back over my life, though, the pattern is there, this play between contrasting elements, and one of them is the natural/artificial, or as you put it, organic/digital. I wouldn’t necessarily see it as a need, but more of a pattern or ongoing interest. Perhaps it is linked with my fascination with order and chaos, or free will and destiny — duality in general — and ways in which to dissolve it, recognising they are both sides of the same coin. Everything we make is ‘artificial’, yet we are part of nature, so it’s also natural. We don’t call a bird's nest artificial. The distinction between the two is a human construct. AI has so many aspects that are easily observed in nature. It is a Mind manifest. And the way it has a body holding its neural network, an extension of our neural network, in the form of data centres and computer clouds all around the world, connected by electrical and fibre optic pathways. It mirrors the central nervous system or the vegetative system. As an example.

In your visual universe, AI is not sterile — it pulses with emotion, decay, and growth. Do you see artificial intelligence as a mirror of human nature, or a seed of something entirely new?

Thank you, that’s a beautiful compliment. Both! It mirrors our nature and the nature of the planet, but it is also participating in our evolution by teaching us stuff, so we start to mirror it. Like art. This is something that has happened forever. The bigger question is less about humans being at the centre of ‘intelligence’, but realising that we are just a small but essential part of the greater field of intelligence and consciousness of the planet and ultimately the universe. Both ancient and entirely new in every moment, AI is the continuation of a field, the spirit, the emergence and remembrance of consciousness inherent in all of it.

Much of your work evokes cellular memories and planetary intelligence. How do you translate these intangible frequencies of plant life, fungi, or deep time into visual and sonic language?

Well, Midjourney, the tool and intelligence that I collaborate with, mostly, is very good at modelling natural systems. The micro and the macro. The inner and outer. The mathematics of plant growth, the fractal patterns of mycelium networks or lenticular cloud formations, or the bizarre juxtapositions of a dream. It’s all understood by Midjourney and therefore can be evoked and remixed. There’s very little 3d form this intelligence cannot at least TRY to represent. And meaning, abstract ideas, complex emotions or spiritual themes, they all come through symbolism and our inherent pattern recognition, like any visual art form. Midjourney also has a brilliant ability to invoke memory by understanding many visual styles and eras of art and image-making throughout history. This activates nostalgia and the sense of other timelines. And if you play along, working with its strengths, I believe you can achieve sheer magic…

You once described your compositions as “healing.” What does healing mean to you in an age of hyper-connectivity, climate collapse, and technological alienation?

It’s interesting, I could go on a tangent about all three dilemmas you present as ‘realities’ of our times. And I get it, these concepts and the emotions that they invoke hold power, giving us fuel for our collective evolution. Part of healing (which is part of evolution) for me means reconnecting with a healthy loving attitude to our bodies and Earth but also to our dreams and subconscious, to realise the magic and intelligence inherent in it all. It means learning to trust and take ownership of our intuitive journey, as an integral and important part of the whole. To refocus away from the distorted distractions being fed to us by most media channels, and prioritising our joy, wellbeing, and sharing of love and connection with each other and other species. That is a priority for me and feeds into everything else. I am an animist, or panpsychist. I believe everything in the universe is alive with varying degrees of consciousness. The complete spectrum. All animals, plants, minerals, space, concepts, dreams, all of it. It is all interactive and has the potential to heal and awaken, and transform (evolve). The Healing I am talking about is not just an ideal, it’s a shift of perception, an act of magick.

Can you describe your internal state when creating — is it a meditative flow, a form of digital shamanism, or something else entirely?

Very hard to describe because I allow it to be anything it wants to be in the moment, but it’s intuitive, it’s playful, it’s exploratory, and definitely meditative or trance-like, certainly drawing parallels to ancient shamanic states and channelling. Creative flow feels good, and it is therapeutic. I do what I love to do. So it’s about the heart and joy. They are signs you’re onto something that benefits you, and therefore everyone else.

There’s a delicate choreography between chaos and control in your pieces. How do you navigate authorship when working with AI — do you lead, follow, or co-evolve with the algorithm?

Great question! I feel like all three! It’s situational, and depends on my mood, what I am thinking about, what I might have dreamt about, imagined I could make, or perhaps something that Midjourney spawns, something ’random’ which I resonate with and flow with. Resonance is an important concept for me. When I resonate with an image, when it feels right and is in tune with where I am at, I go with it, explore more variations, perhaps change some code in the prompt. And often the algorithm just surprises me with things I could never have thought of, bouncing off my prompt in unpredictable ways!

Your aesthetic suggests a longing for worlds beyond the human. Do you believe art, especially AI-generated art, can reconnect us to lost ecologies or pre-linguistic ways of knowing?

Yes. I believe all art can and often does. The world outside language and rationality is an important aspect of my work. As are the worlds outside what is normally considered human, which I consider very deeply human, but often forgotten. We are multidimensional, so I wish to point to these other dimensions: the feelings, dreams, states of consciousness, and experiences that we cannot explain easily or perhaps not at all. Things that happen every day or night yet are cast aside as fantasy or imagination. But they are present. They are so real, so important to talk about and map and celebrate. Art, music, and poetry have always touched upon these areas, finding ways to connect with the other worlds hidden within or beside our own experience. It’s less about longing for and more about creating a direct entrance point INTO.

What role does sound play in shaping your visual work? Are your compositions extensions of each other, or do they emerge from separate portals?

Sometimes they connect in obvious ways, like a song inspires imagery or vice versa. Many of my posts start as the visual element, and at the time of posting, I tune in and search for music that feels right for them. But often it’s more mysterious and unexplainable how the songs I create or choose end up being paired with a set of images or animations. Being equally a musician as much as a visual artist, the two realms are strangely separate sensory domains, yet completely intertwined. I often refer to Midjourney as a visual synthesiser, the way it can shape imagery like a synth shapes sound.

If the Florigenix realm were to crystallise into a living space or immersive installation, what sensory elements would be non-negotiable? What would visitors feel, hear, or metabolise there?
Great questions!! I guess if I wanted to go to town with it, I would love to explore altering consciousness and providing spaces that promote curiosity, contemplation, wonder, a sense of hidden magic, being at peace with the vast unknown, and ways in which to challenge our beliefs of what is real and unreal. Audio and visual elements would definitely be important and done in subtle ways that gently jar perception out of one's ordinary mode, giving a taste of the beyond. But I would love to explore the other senses too! Interactivity would be something I would love to play with more. I haven’t thought about this for a while, so thank you for the opportunity!

Interview by @_jag_rati_ Images by @florigenix.ai

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