THE CURATED LOG XVII
By MITO Universe - @mito.universe
Welcome back to MITO Universe.
Veo 3.1 is about to expand what’s possible on screen, YouTube keeps redrawing the borders between creator and algorithm, and AI-made clips are no longer experiments — they’re part of the feed.
What used to feel like a distant future is now just… interface.
A model update becomes a filmmaking tool. A Shorts camera becomes a studio. And creators, somewhere between curiosity and fatigue, are learning to direct the invisible.
This week, we look at those who still treat image-making as exploration — not automation.
SELECTED CREATORS
Monica Menez / @monicamenez
German visual artist, fashion photographer, and filmmaker represented by Cosmopola. Menez began in stills and expanded into short fashion films that have won at festivals like ASVOFF and the Berlin Fashion Film Festival. Clients include Hugo Boss, Porsche, Nivea and editorials for titles such as Vogue and Elle.
Her visual world is a masterclass in controlled chaos — where humor, sensuality, and surrealism coexist with surgical precision. Each frame feels choreographed like a theater piece, with bodies, fabrics, and props arranged into absurd elegance. Her short films (Odditory, Hors D’Oeuvre, Business as Usual) move like dream logic dressed in couture: part satire, part fantasy, all design.
Menez’s work challenges fashion’s seriousness. Through exaggeration and irony, she builds worlds where perfection unravels — proving that beauty becomes more powerful when it laughs at itself.
X.Machina.Flora (Yasmin Gross) / @x.machina.flora
X.Machina.Flora is the artistic alias of Yasmin Gross, a German-born creative based in Paris. She works across sustainability, luxury, beauty and art, offering visual branding, photography, AI prompt design and graphic direction. After a BFA in Visual Communication at Parsons Paris (2015), she managed the visual department for jewelry designer Betony Vernon and has since freelanced for agencies and clients around Europe, including Landor Paris, Sürpriz, Dunan Jardins, Groß & Partner, Bureau Badass and 1.618 Paris.
Her work explores the tension between organic purity and artificial creation. Through AI and 3D synthesis, Gross grows floral architectures that seem alive — moist, luminous, translucent — hovering between sculpture and digital organism.
Every petal is engineered, every texture breathes. Her visual language evokes the intimacy of nature filtered through the precision of machinery. It’s as if the digital realm had learned to feel.
What defines X.Machina.Flora is not just her aesthetic coherence, but her ability to turn biomorphism into emotion — crafting visual ecosystems where biology meets design and sensuality meets code.
WHAT’S NEW
YouTube CEO begins working on “likeness detection” to protect creators
In a recent podcast, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said the platform is developing tools to detect AI-generated likenesses (faces, voices) and give creators control over content that replicates them.
Veo 3.1 coming soon — longer stories, tighter control
Google is preparing to launch Veo 3.1, an upgraded AI video model that supports multi-shot workflows, higher fidelity, and better scene continuity. Built-in cinematic presets and longer video durations are expected. Initially, access will roll out via third-party tools like Higgsfield and ImagineArt — full Gemini integration is likely forthcoming.
DirecTV to display AI-generated, shoppable scenes as screensavers
DirecTV is partnering with Glance to bring personalized AI-generated scenes to TV screensavers. Users can upload photos, scan QR codes, and voice-control the visuals — and even click directly to buy products seen in the imagery. It aims to turn passive TV into an interactive, commerce-enabled space.
KEY VISUAL
Andrés Gil / @andrees_gil
Andrés Gil is a creative director and designer who also describes himself as an AI teacher. He works independently for brands and agencies, blending design craft with generative systems to push visual language and texture. He is a mentor and instructor at Madrid Content School, where he leads the Laboratorio IA Audiovisual, a program that connects generative tools with production workflows across image, video, music and brand systems. Through intensive workshops he teaches fluency with tools like Midjourney, always with an emphasis on intention and experimentation.
Gil’s visual work moves between cinematic stillness and architectural abstraction. He constructs vast, symmetrical spaces — highways swallowed by fog, facades repeating into infinity, figures that seem both monumental and fragile. The scale is psychological as much as visual: loneliness rendered as composition, silence as design.
His practice merges the logic of industrial photography with the sensitivity of fine art. Each piece feels suspended between realism and simulation, like a memory half-remembered or a dream rendered in pixels.
In an era of flashy outputs, Gil’s work reminds us that clarity can be as powerful as spectacle — and that the future of AI imagery might be quieter than we expect.
That’s all for now — we’ll be back in your inbox next week.