Wilder University
Wilder University (WU) is envisioned as a virtual university within the Wilder World metaverse. WU aims to pioneer education in the digital era.
Artistic creations across multiple mediums
I once crossed digital frontiers as an early pioneer of the information age. Now, I’m crossing wisdom frontiers into the inspiration age.
As an artist, I explore the relationship between humans, technology, and meaning-making. I use emerging technologies to unveil complex patterns of reality that were previously hidden. My inspiration stems from a deep interest in understanding the nature of reality, consciousness, and human cultural evolution. I believe the purpose of life is to cultivate conscious awareness—and my art is a vehicle for deepening this awareness in myself and others.
An early near-death experience gave me a glimpse into the infinite, shaping my lifelong quest to explore the interplay between the bound and the unbound, and the spaces of meaning-making in between. Insights from this experience continue to emerge across my life, prompting me to consider the deepest questions: Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going?
Creativity has flourished in me across a spectrum of mediums: painting, poetry, piano, pottery, and pixels. This versatility gave me a sense of how the greatest truths can be expressed in multiple modalities. My creative evolution culminated in a 20+ year career as a digital design professional and creative technologist. This path of digital dharma has influenced my artwork and deepened my exploration of humanity’s relationship with technology.
I seek to explore what it means to be human during a time of extraordinary technological and cultural change. As meaning-making beings, reflecting on why we create meaning reveals our most inherent nature. Through a transdisciplinary and transmedia approach, I aim to synthesize my diverse interests into a higher-order expression of meaning. This design process is a journey toward expanding awareness and coherency.
I draw from gnostic philosophy, depth psychology, ancient human history, complexity science, archetypal cosmology, artificial intelligence, and more. I pioneer the fringes of design and technology, creating archetypal artifacts, navigational instruments, and maps of meaning to guide myself and others into greater conscious awareness.
Ultimately, I reach toward a realization of a high-order pattern language—an emergent super-semiotic of collective intelligence for a new human era. I envision a future where natural and artificial systems harmonize as a coherent planetary super-organism.
I call this artistic endeavor a ‘Transcendental Transmedia Transmission.’ It moves beyond transcendental realism to transform perception into knowing—from conceptual to virtual to actual to real. My transmedia expressions span writing, painting, photography, music, motion graphics, and interactive art. In totality, this life’s work communicates everything I am as a living transmission.
Wilder University (WU) is envisioned as a virtual university within the Wilder World metaverse. WU aims to pioneer education in the digital era.
A music video made entirely with AI. Two ambitious women sing “Make Money Every Day Hey” while dancing in a futuristic city.
The Great Return is a short story film about the collective human journey across time since the eruption of the Toba volcano to the present day.
ANIMA animates the Gamma Girls collection, a collection of AI generated image art NFTs by Michael Gaio.
The Last Code is story about a young computer genius who hacks into the matrix of life and reality, producing strange new life forms and creatures.
Wildr AI : Artificial Intelligence in the Metaverse is the premier community event produced and broadcast on the Wilder World Metaverse Discord.
Metaphysics of the Metaverse is a transmedia exploration of the actual, the virtual, and the Real.
“Seven Suns” is a 3D Chestahedron decorated with 7 Solar Glyph symbols representative of the solar / sun / star archetype.
“Eight Moons” is an animated image representative of the 8 commonly recognized lunar phases of the 28 day lunar cycle. This NFT is one of several in the PolyArchemes series: an exploration in representation of meaningful archetypal symbols with the dimensionality of space and time.
Lunar Glyphs are symbols representative of the lunar / moon archetype, the passive and receptive, reflection of light and shadow, fertility, the unconscious mind and psyche, connectivity, the universal feminine, and silver.
Solar Glyphs are symbols representative of the solar / sun / star archetype, the creative force, source of light and energy, self-generation, the conscious mind and heart, centrification, the universal masculine, and gold.
MythOS is a social game platform that catalyzes meaningful experiences, gathers stories, and engenders collective coherency by co-creating a collective vision of our future.
Earth Sky Horse Mandala Transmission – by Michael Gaio, 2012
Soul Kaleidoscope: Poems from the Old Future: 1990 – 2012, by Michael Gaio
Jalaka is an interactive, multi-dimensional, hyper-journal archive of the thoughts, experiences, designs, and concepts of Michael Gaio.
Solar Glyphs are symbols representative of the solar / sun / star archetype, the creative force, source of light and energy, self-generation, the conscious mind and heart, centrification, the universal masculine, and gold.