Cave art reimagined: paleo-environments from virtual reality to artificial intelligence

The article investigates the unexpected re-emergence of prehistoric caves within technological imaginaries, focusing in particular on virtual reality and AI-enhanced contemporary artworks. It starts from the question of what decorated caves and advanced digital technologies may have in common, and proposes the notion of pseudomorphism, or «false resemblance», as a conceptual tool for analyzing their anachronistic affinities. The contribution first discusses the discovery of deep time and its impact on modern and contemporary conceptions of temporality, extinction and technological futurity. It then examines how immersive media have reactivated the cave as a latent space in which imagination and reconstruction overlap. Through selected artistic examples, the article considers virtual caves and AI-generated cave images as epistemic devices that approach a lost visuality while producing new virtualities. In conclusion, it argues that these contemporary paleo-environments reveal both the persistence of archaic image-making and the ideological tensions embedded in our current condition.