By Cansu Peker

When we set out to create Making Our Miracles, a collaborative digital art project inspired by the tradition of ex-voto paintings, we knew we wanted to explore the boundaries of what was possible with AI. So when DeepAI came on board as a sponsor and creative partner, it opened up a whole new world of experimentation for our artist cohort. Each of the artists approached the tool with different ideas, methods, and expectations — but one thing we all shared was curiosity.

For our digital art exhibition, Making Our Miracles, we brought together a group of international artists to transform anonymous stories of extraordinary events from all around the world into contemporary digital ex-voto artworks. Our co-sponsor and creative partner in the process was DeepAI, a generative AI platform that offered the tools we needed as well as the openness to be surprised.

DeepAI is free to try, requires no sign-in, and runs entirely in your browser. This accessibility lowers the barrier for experimentation. One artist described it perfectly: “It is my favorite AI tool at the moment for writing and for code. I prefer it to other conversation AI models, as it doesn't require a sign in... It has advertisements but they are very small and situated at the top of the page, so not too distracting.” That artist was Cari Ann Shim Sham*, who also added something we didn’t expect to come up in this project — a tiny animated dolphin. “The animated swimming dolphin emoji was so delightful to see when they added it and it is so endearing how it follows your mouse around.”

That simple charm coexists with some playful unpredictability. “The Drunk AI chat that showed up from time to time was very surprising and a bit confusing at first. It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on... Funny at first and annoying at best.” And yet, Cari Ann continued using it as a go-to writing assistant. “It is a very polite model, well trained, and if you are short, or not nice, it will say goodbye.”

Beneath those quirks is a tool that extends creative thinking: “For me using AI creates efficiency and allows for more time to focus on my artmaking. It also allows me to do things in ways never before realized and helps me to create things I couldn't have otherwise created, which is very exciting.”

That excitement is something Clayton Campbell felt, too. He used DeepAI’s text-to-video tool to create visuals directly from submitted miracle stories. “I was pleasantly surprised by the creative results produced by the text to video feature in DeepAI. The prompts I used were lines taken directly from the miracle stories.”

For one piece, Clayton relied entirely on DeepAI’s output, something he hadn’t done before. “This total reliance on an AI program for a finished digital artwork was new for me, and trusting DeepAI to get me there was a worthwhile process.” That process, he emphasized, is often more important than the outcome.

“You often don’t know where things are going when you are using an AI application, and that is much of the interest for me.” He compared it to abstract expressionism — embracing the accident as part of the aesthetic: “Much like abstract expressionism did for previous generations, AI plays a major role in terms of accidents and unexpected outcomes in the creative process.”

There’s a spiritual parallel there, too. When creating work about miracles, there’s always a tension between intention and surrender. AI mirrors that. You guide it, but it surprises you. You try to control it, but it reveals something unexpected. The outcome is neither wholly yours nor wholly other. It exists in the in-between.

For Lasergun Factory, the simplicity of DeepAI was part of its appeal. “The platform was straightforward and easy to navigate. Its simplicity made it intuitive to use from the start.”

“I use AI at different stages of my workflow. For this project, I used text-based tools like GPT and Perplexity to refine the language and explanation of the works, helping to clarify the message.” It’s a reminder that AI doesn’t need to do everything. Sometimes its role is to sharpen the story instead of telling it.

The cohort found something different in the platform. For some, it was a writing partner. For others, a video generator. For some, it was an ignition to build on. For others, it became the foundation itself. But across all our experiences, AI didn’t make the work. It shaped it. And in that shaping, we were able to hold space for real, soul-driven stories — submitted anonymously; rendered with care.

As Making Our Miracles opens as part of the 7th edition of The Wrong Biennale; a global showcase dedicated this year to the potential of AI-generated art, video, and sound, we’re reminded that these tools are still new, still in flux. But they are already reshaping how we approach creativity. They don’t replace the artist. They challenge us to go deeper, ask better questions, and sometimes let go of the need to know what will happen next.

Miracles, after all, aren’t things we plan. They’re things we witness.

Presented in partnership with DeepAI

Making Our Miracles is a collaborative project by Clayton Campbell and Cansu Peker, created in response to anonymous miracle stories submitted by people from around the world. It is part of the 7th edition of The Wrong Biennale, which runs from November 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026.