Art and technology
Selected works
As a researcher and author of digital art projects for over 15 years, I’ve realized that my work has been useful to many scholars and professionals seeking inspiration, help, or advice. I decided to gather some of this here.
As an academic, my work in art and research has been presented in Barcelona, the UK, and at MIT. Artistic works have been curated by festivals such as VideoKILLS Berlin, Rhizome Artbase New York, the blog of SF MoMA, and many others.
I play with the intersections of society, culture, art and technology—what is it like to inhabit today’s technological thriller world?
FICTION / NOVEL
A psychological thriller on the edge of the map — and the mind
After surviving a violent accident, a woman feels something irreparable: she is no longer the person everyone thinks she is. Stricken by a deep, inescapable fracture, she leaves her home, her husband, and her child behind.
Sun-soaked, dust-bathed, and deeply unsettling, Capricornia is a descent into disappearance, identity, transformation, and what remains when we lose everything we were supposed to be.
This was my first novel, published in São Paulo in 2015 (Editora Patuá), and released in English in 2025.
(...) An epiphany that closes by degrees—the hallucinatory thriller of Capricornia falls perfectly into place"
Helena Machado, award-winner author of Memória de Mim.
FICTION / SHORT STORY
Protester
The Brazilian writer Sérgio Tavares invited authors for an exchange of postcards and short stories inspired by these correspondences.
My short story "Manifestante" is inspired by a postcard sent from China by the writer and diplomat Mário Araújo.
At the height of the pandemic, a political protester wakes up in what seems to be Wuhan. Is it mental confusion, a collective hallucination, or a conspiracy?
Lutav, Sérgio.
“Protester.” Antologia Postais por Sérgio Tavares. The Quarentena, 2020.
Short story now available in audio!
"The sirens continued, they left the neighborhood, the masked observers made way for them to pass, and he spotted the mutt again as they moved out of the ant nest. He felt the temperature drop, seeing the gray sky and electrical wires through the windows, syncing with the astronauts' breathing."
Read / listen to the short story Apartment 101
FICTION / SHORT STORY ANTOLOGY
Conjuring spirits
The editor Paulo Sandrini brought together ten authors from Paraná for a literary collection.
My twelve short stories explore the horror of displacement: figures adrift in absurd, hostile, and inexplicable worlds.
The flirtation is between horror and existential thriller—an alien invasion in a slum, an infinite supermarket, a ghost ship lost at sea, and the broadcast of a space mission on TV.
In collaboration with the artist André Kitagawa (illustrator of graphic novels and director of the play Gravidade Zero), twelve demons emerge, along with an interactive project featuring some of the stories available for free reading: lutav.com/Invocar.
The project is interactive, and users can summon spirits for their foes—from Tinder crushes to the Bolsonaro family.
Illustrations by André Kitagawa.
Como Invocar o Diabo e Conjurar Espíritos Baixos. Geração PR10. Edited by Paulo Sandrini, Kafka Edições. Curitiba, 2019.
THEORY / ARTICLE
What Did Yoko Ono Have for Breakfast?
This provocative essay explores the elements found in celebrity Twitter accounts in contrast to those of the “ordinary” user. On social media, authorship is a concept that shifts depending on how each poster perceives their own “work.”
Presented at the latest edition of Media in Transition, one of the world’s leading conferences on media and technology, held at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge, MA, USA.
This piece is part of my doctoral research in Culture and Technology, but its implications go beyond academia—raising questions that are deeply relevant to the evolving relationship between art, digital platforms, and contemporary notions of authorship.
Seleção oficial
Media in Transition 8
Tavares, Sérgio. “Media in Transition 8.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, What Did Yoko Ono Had for Breakfast? Authorship and Social Media, 2012.
ARCHIVE DIGITAL ART
Images of the Digital Unconscious
A new media art installation developed using Macromedia Flash, this piece invites viewers to engage with abstract words displayed in full screen. Upon clicking any term, users are presented with a series of Google Image search results, creating an evolving dialogue between language, technology, and collective perception.
The work challenges the traditional boundaries of meaning and interpretation. For instance, clicking "God" may reveal an image of a motorcycle, while "Human" presents a distorted figure adapted for car accidents. The installation's dynamic, collective nature prompts a deeper inquiry into how our search history, the sequence of interactions, and the ever-shifting digital landscape shape the images we encounter.
With each interaction, new visual panels emerge, reflecting the fluidity of collective imagination. The work raises critical questions about the impact of digital culture on meaning-making, and the ways in which shared concepts are influenced, reshaped, and understood in an increasingly fragmented world.
Presented at the Keski-Suomen Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Soile Ollikainen.
DIGITAL ART
Ergodic Fiction: Narratives Activated by Tags
This innovative work presents two literary narratives that unfold through interactive markers, defining a new paradigm in ergodic literature. In this form, the reader's engagement is essential: the narrative is activated and reshaped by the selection of "tags," creating a dynamic and participatory storytelling experience.
Featured in the Rhizome Artbase collection (New York) and acclaimed by Folha de S. Paulo as a pioneering example in the genre, this project challenges traditional boundaries of authorship and reader interaction.
By decentralizing the linear structure of storytelling, it invites exploration of how meaning is generated, manipulated, and co-created by both the text and its audience, reflecting the evolving nature of digital and interactive literature.
