The territory of Magical Realism
Anyone scrolling through short-form video today will increasingly encounter a particular kind of imagery. In this context, magical realism in AI art takes on a new form: strange figures, hybrid bodies, fluid transitions, and dreamlike movements that never quite come to rest. At first glance, it feels familiar. There is something in it that touches the territory of magical realism.
But what exactly are we looking at?
For a deeper understanding, see my page on magical realism painting.
A touch of magical realism?
KELLY BOESCH
Magical Realism in AI Art: A contemporary example
This video by AI artist Kelly Boesch presents a series of “strange characters”: figures that continuously shift in form, move rhythmically, and never fully settle into a fixed state.
a different way of seeing.
What struck me personally is that I wasn’t just watching, I was being drawn into a different way of seeing. The images are so carefully constructed and stylized that they linger. Not because they tell a story, but because they open something.
Take, for instance, the female figures with enlarged head forms, sometimes almost like screens, sometimes as closed surfaces. I noticed that I began to search for meaning almost automatically.
What is being shown here? What is withheld? Where is the gaze located, and where is it absent?
This search did not emerge from a narrative, but from the visual choices themselves. That is what makes it compelling.
recognizable world
Magical Realism and reality: A shifting ground
Magical realism traditionally unfolds within a recognizable world: a kitchen, a street, a body, a moment in time. And within that grounded reality, something shifts, gently, almost imperceptibly.
A well-known example is The Waiting Room by George Tooker, where an apparently ordinary space slowly becomes estranged.
In the video above, that balance is different.
There are figures, often human-like, anthropomorphic, but they are not anchored in a specific place or situation. There is no stable environment, no clear moment in which the viewer can situate themselves. The world itself is already fluid.
Instead of:
reality + subtle disruption
we see:
continuous transformation without a fixed base
The role of the figure in AI art
The figures immediately draw attention. Stylized, symmetrical, sometimes unsettling, yet always visually compelling.
They do not function as characters:
- they do not develop
- they do not act with intention
- they do not carry a narrative
They exist as visual presence.
And yet, something else happened for me: despite the absence of a story, I found myself making connections. The forms evoked associations, repetition created emphasis, and precisely through that openness, space emerged to project meaning.
By comparison, in the work of Frida Kahlo, symbolism is consciously constructed and directed. Here, meaning arises more in the encounter between image and viewer.
Movement as the primary language
What defines these images is not what they are, but how they move:
- repetitive motion
- rhythmic pulsing
- morphing forms
- seamless transitions
The editing follows the rhythm of the music, not a storyline.
In literary magical realism, as in the work of Gabriel García Márquez, meaning unfolds over time and through context. In this video, something else occurs: meaning is not constructed, but evoked.
The link to magical realism
Where the connection still exists
The link to magical realism may not lie in structure, but in experience:
- the merging of the familiar and the strange
- the appearance of “impossible” bodies
- the sense that reality is not fixed
And above all: that moment when, as a viewer, you think, something is off, yet it feels entirely coherent
A new visual territory
What emerges here does not replace magical realism, but moves in a different direction.
A shift from:
- meaning embedded within the work
to - meaning generated by the viewer
The image is no longer a closed narrative, but an open field.
An open question
If magical realism subtly shifts reality to reveal meaning,
what happens when images are so open that the viewer begins to generate meaning themselves?
Perhaps this points toward an interesting development:
not less meaning,
but meaning distributed differently.
The dialogue between these worlds, the grounded, the symbolic, and the digital, fluid image, is still unfolding. And within that movement, something remains with me: a new way of seeing.
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