There’s something deeply unsettling—and oddly thrilling—about staring at a CD cover that doesn’t quite make sense. I’m not talking about the usual suspects: the cryptic alien landscapes of early 90s grunge or the surrealism of a certain British electronic act. No, this is different. This is a world where Billie Eilish is drowning in octopus tentacles, and a walrus in sunglasses is the star of a concept album that never existed. Welcome to the UltraHive 4 exhibit in Oakland, where the sacred relic of physical media is being weaponized as a canvas for the absurd. It’s not just art—it’s a provocation, a middle finger to the idea that album covers are ever meant to be static.
What makes this particularly fascinating is how it forces us to confront the paradox of nostalgia. We grew up with CD cases as objects of reverence, those glossy rectangles that felt like portals to another dimension. Now, here they are, repurposed as grotesque, glittering sculptures. One piece, a three-dimensional mask of an android emerging from a CD case, makes me wonder: Are we mourning the physicality of music, or the idea of it? The exhibit doesn’t just celebrate the demise of the CD—it revels in its decay, turning it into something that feels both familiar and alien. It’s like watching a childhood pet grow up to become a horror movie monster.
The artists in this show aren’t just playing with aesthetics; they’re mining the cultural subconscious. Take that ‘Sanpaku Cthulhu’ piece. Billie Eilish, already a symbol of Gen Z’s aesthetic anxiety, is now a victim of cosmic horror. It’s a commentary on how pop icons are co-opted, distorted, and recontextualized by the internet age. But what I find especially interesting is the way it mirrors our own relationship with fame. We consume these figures, then dissect them, then reimagine them as something unrecognizable. It’s not just art—it’s a mirror held up to the way we consume culture in the 21st century.
And then there’s the walrus. A simple, almost comically literal reinterpretation of the Beatles’ ‘I Am the Walrus’—but with sunglasses. It’s the kind of piece that makes you laugh, then think. Why is this so effective? Because it’s a reminder that absurdity is often the purest form of truth. In an era where everything is curated, filtered, and optimized, the walrus in sunglasses is a rebellion against the noise. It’s a statement that says, ‘Here’s something that doesn’t need to make sense. Just look at it.’
This exhibit isn’t just about CD covers; it’s about the death of the medium and the birth of something new. The artists are using these physical objects as a bridge between the analog past and the digital present. But what’s striking is how little the medium itself matters anymore. These pieces could just as easily be 3D-printed sculptures or augmented reality experiences. The CD case is just a vessel—a relic that gives the work a certain gravitas. It’s like taking a typewriter and using it to write code. The tool is outdated, but the message is still legible.
If you take a step back and think about it, UltraHive 4 is a microcosm of our current cultural moment. We’re living in a time where the boundaries between art, technology, and commerce are dissolving. These CD covers aren’t just art—they’re statements, provocations, and sometimes even advertisements for a world that no longer exists. And yet, they feel more relevant than ever. They remind us that even in the age of streaming, there’s still a hunger for the tangible, the physical, the thing you can hold in your hands. Whether that’s a CD case, a sculpture, or a dream, I suppose it’s all the same. What matters is that we’re still trying to make sense of it all.
