The Digirealism Manifesto
Digirealism is an art movement that blurs the boundaries between the handmade and the machine-made. Rooted in deception, but not deceit, it invites viewers to question what they see. At first glance, Digirealist works appear digitally generated, printed, or rendered. Upon closer inspection, however, they reveal the laborious precision of traditional craft: textureless brushstrokes in paint, ink, pencil, gouache. This tension between surface illusion and hidden humanity lies at the heart of Digirealism. Artists emulate the visual language of technology, its gradients, glitches, and geometries, using analogue methods, turning craft into a kind of code. Mistakes are honored, then hidden, forming a convincing illusion of perfection. Viewers must look again to discover the truth, confronting their assumptions about authenticity in a simulated world. Digirealists are the “glitch in the matrix”. They infuse soul into the soulless, while asking: What if the most digital-looking image was, in fact, entirely human? In every careful movement made to manipulate the material lies a meditation, and in every illusion, a deeper truth.
The 7 Objectives of Digirealism
1. Put the Ghost in the Machine.
We put the ghost in the shell. We strive to remove the human hand but transfer a bit of soul. The intangible deference that causes pause, the second glance.
2. We Draw Out Something Greater from the Material.
To the untrained eye, our works seem printed, rendered, generated, or manufactured. On closer examination something else shines through. We put soul into the pencil, paint, ink the slow, the manual, the human. We mislead with intention, not to trick, but to awaken.
3. Craft Is Our Technology.
We do not reject the digital. We study it. We emulate its gradients, its lighting, its geometries and glitches using analogue tools. We reproduce the uncanny smoothness of vector graphics with a brush. We render “3D” in gouache. We refine skill with meditative repetition. Skill encodes the spirit of our software.
4. The illusive Brings Truth.
Digirealism plays with assumptions:
If it looks digital, it must be digital.
We break that logic. Our work asks: What is authenticity in the age of simulation? What is handmade in a world that assumes automation? We make them second guess and look deeper for the truth.
5. The Viewer Must Do the Work.
Digirealist art resists passive consumption. It invites close inspection. The revelation—that it is hand-made—comes only through attention. Our works reward patience, scrutiny, and doubt. We demand that the viewer look again.
6. We Honor Mistakes—Then Bury Them.
Our lines waver, our hands tire, our mediums bleed. We correct, conceal, revise. Perfection is our illusion, not our state. The more convincing the mimicry, the more human the process beneath it. This tension is the beating heart of Digirealism.
7. Our Work Is the Glitch in the Matrix.
We are the moment of pause. The uncanny resemblance. The dissonance between what is seen and what is real. In a world of generative images and machine-made content, we carve out space for doubt, wonder, with the irreplaceable human touch.
We are Digirealists.
We confuse, we challenge, we decode.
We render by hand what machines have taught us not to see.
We are the soul beneath the illusion of soullessness.