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At the end of the nineties, illuminated by the apocalyptic news about the “Y2K effect,” I was working on the photographs that I would exhibit in “Interior Ulterior.” These were large-format panoramic photographs in which the human figure had been replaced by new characters created with 3D techniques. We were already in the internet era, and I only remember Miao Xiaochun, a Chinese artist who was beginning to do something similar to mine, inaugurating an era and generation of new artists encompassed in posthumanism, post-photography… In the catalog of the “Interior Ulterior” exhibition, Pablo Pérez-Mínguez wanted to name it “The New Photography,” referring to the acclaimed section of the Nueva Lente magazine, where the portfolios of the most current and novel photographers were presented.

That intention to distance from orthodox photography was present in “The Strangeness of Existing,” “Blue Blood,” and “Latent.” In reality, all my works, even from the Copy Art series in the eighties, have aimed to experiment and reflect on the photographic act and its language.

In “Blue Blood,” the characters are plastic sculptures intended to reveal family structures, specifically to strip the royal family and particularly the father. The connections of this work are many and easy to find.

“Latent” was a homage to portrait and traditional photography, but with all the characters created virtually. It was a way to show the world through which I traveled, recalling the emotion of glimpsing the images developed in the films that I hung in the shower to dry as a child. I spent so many hours in front of the computer that I had no choice but to turn that situation into a photographic act to again show who I am and what I do when I distance myself from reality. Now I understand that those images anticipated what would come with Artificial Intelligence.

Around 2016, “Ray Gropius” was the name I gave to my alter ego, alter portrait, before that concept existed. Every day I would visit Second Life and take portraits of the characters who roamed there. The portraits were very particular because they showed the mesh with which the avatars were constructed. It was very successful on social media. On one occasion, when Cristina García Rodero asked me what I did, I replied that I did the same as her but in the Metaverse (with all due respect, of course, hahaha). She could understand little because the Metaverse, as such, had not yet been named.

Some people might think that I am obsessed with technology, etc. In reality, in a way, I detest it for its alienating capacity. But in my work, there is always a critical spirit towards those worlds I photograph. I simply do it this way to be coherent with the present and with who I am. The raw material of my photographs is what occupies my life and is in front of my eyes. I only show what I have seen and photograph it honestly to give clues about my existence. This is what artists have always done and what my admired Cindy Sherman exemplarily does when she takes selfies with phone filters.

Genesis of the Metaverse by Ray Gropius is an exhibition project with which we can approach, touch, and name the novel idea of existing in different dimensions. It arises from the need to photograph and project the alter ego of our existence. The simulation of the human represented in an immaterial, immortal but ephemeral space. The new world arises from the need to expand the soul, expressing conscious and unconscious yearnings.

What is the Metaverse? people ask. Now that big companies bring it to the present as a new way of life, from the construction of the word “Metaverse,” which some of us chose to name the virtual world, to its implementation and relationship with the economy and art, this metaversal exhibition is a good opportunity to review its genesis and chart new routes of thought.

The creation, exhibition, and sale of new immaterial formats such as the novel NFT files, or cryptocurrencies with the appearance of artwork, today provide a clear example of the existential challenges of the time we inhabit.

The old alchemist’s dream of transmutation between the material and immaterial is already the faithful portrait of our virtual nature.

The exhibition arose from the idea of Ray Gropius; “Genesis of the Metaverse (chapters for a future book).” In this possible book, Ray Gropius develops his particular exercise of documentary photography in the Metaverse.

The Invisible City, Alter-Portraits, Creatures of Nature, Objects of Desire, Virtual Eternity… are some of the chapters or stations through which the work of Gropius and Sampedro will transit.

In the presentation by Magali Dumousseau Lesquer, “Reflections on the concept of alter-portrait in digital art based on the analysis of the LATEИTE videos by Martín Sampedro and Metaversal drawings by Ray Gropius” at the XVII Congress of the International Institute of Sociocriticism at the Paul-Valéry University of Montpellier, she proposes a reflection and analysis around the new possibilities of representation generated by digitalization as a language of artistic creation. She brings together the work of Martín Sampedro and Ray Gropius as exponents of the new representation, based on the concept of “Alter Portrait” developed by photographer Martín Sampedro.

Metaversal Drawings, Portraits, Photographs.

Ray Gropius, a new way of representing the silent metaverse reality. Situations with clear lines interpreted by alter egos of people connected to the network in real-time. His work, based on digital creation with experimentation in virtual environments, besides offering an unmistakable style, approaches photography from a new horizon. The connection of representation methods such as photography, 3D simulation, and perspective drawings make his work the most contemporary media hybridization. The experience of representing by means of drawing, precise lines with mathematical perspective, attending to the structure of objects and people in a virtual world, makes the work of Ray Gropius a reference for what he calls “Metaversal Photographs.”