At his immersive new exhibition, “Diffused Reality,” artist Dan Marcolina invites visitors at Montgomery County Community College to breathe life into static images. By scanning the artwork with their smartphones, guests unlock animated and interactive versions on their screens, transforming traditional photography into a living experience.

The Montco Cultural Center will host the immersive, generative image exhibition on the Blue Bell Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422. Visitors will be able to scan the images on their smartphones and watch an animated version of the piece come to life on their screens.

The exhibition will be on display at two campus locations:

Tuesday, Aug. 26 – Saturday, Oct. 4: Montco Cultural Center Fine Arts Center Gallery

Tuesday, Oct. 7 – Saturday, Nov. 8: Montco Cultural Center Theater Gallery in the Science Center

Visitors are welcome to attend an opening reception at the Montco Cultural Center Fine Arts Center Gallery on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 5-7 p.m. In addition, Marcolina will give a lecture, “Guiding Generative Media with Artistic Instinct & Intent” in the Montco Cultural Center Theater in the Science Center Thursday, Oct. 9, from 7-8 p.m.

The exhibit, reception and lecture are free and open to all, but tickets are required.For tickets, visit the Culture Events landing page.

“The Montco Cultural Center is delighted to host this unique exhibit that merges traditional photography with the latest technology,” said Tiffany Bregovi, Director of the Montco Cultural Center. “We are focused on bringing experiences to our community that highlight the many forms art can take. By inviting Dan to our stage with his lecture, we hope to give art lovers a deeper perspective on the work.”

“Dan Marcolina’s exhibition is a wonderful opportunity for visitors to engage with photography and design in a new and innovative way,” said Patrick Rodgers, Manager of the Montco Cultural Center. “Through this immersive AR experience, visitors can feel like they have a hand in bringing the show to life.”

Marcolina brings more than 45 years of expertise in traditional and digital image creation. His design firm, Marcolina Design, co-founded with his wife, Denise, launched in 1990 as one of Philadelphia’s first all-digital studios, producing creative work for clients such as Adobe, Apple, AT&T, and Discovery Channel. His personal images and corporate collages have appeared in scores of international publications and exhibitions.

The “Diffused Reality” exhibition mainly features Marcolina’s current interest in AI hybrid imagery, featuring more than 60 images, spanning a broad emotional range of ‘living’ AI-enhanced imagery. In addition to this interactive, generative work, the exhibition includes a retrospective of Marcolina’s award-winning traditional photography, his mobile photography from the landmark 2010 book, “iPhone Obsessed,” and his striking corporate photo composites created for major brands.

“My AI photo-synthesis process always starts with an original camera image (many you will see in the retrospective part of the show) that is used as a base input,” said Marcolina. “That is combined with one or more image prompts and then the resulting combination is nudged with simple text prompts. I then refine the story through further editing in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. The final piece retains the DNA of the original image, transformed through an intentional, artistic metamorphosis.”

In his lecture, Marcolina will pull back the curtain on a wildly inventive set of real-time creative workflows that fuse photography, mobile apps, and generative AI for creative stills and video, he said. Attendees will be introduced to an expansive toolkit of unexpected methods—tools that transform images in surprising and often serendipitous ways. Rather than relying on automation, Marcolina demonstrates how intuition and artistic intent can guide machine learning to produce deeply personal and imaginative outcomes.

A nationally recognized speaker, Marcolina has presented for Adobe, Apple, National Geographic, and numerous universities, sharing how emerging technologies can be shaped by human taste to extend creative possibility.

The Montco Cultural Center Fine Arts Center Gallery is free and open to the community. The building is open Monday-Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday: noon to 5 p.m. and is closed Sunday. The Gallery will be closed on holidays. View the College Calendar for details.

For more information about the “Diffused Reality” exhibition, contact Patrick Rodgers,  Manager of the Montco Cultural Center.