Currently enrolled in the prestigious Royal Academy Postgraduate Program, Swiss artist Pascal Sender developed his digital practice through time-based painting in VR, hosting collaborative livestreams and designing popular Spark AR effects. Pascal also uses Unity3D to create interactive virtual galleries where visitors can paint, shoot, destroy and deconstruct the artworks around them. A former master’s student of Peter Doig at Düsseldorf Academy, Pascal’s work has always extended into physical space and also includes oil painting and street art.

Pascal’s practice is defined by a cryptic playfulness with uncanny characters and complex physics embedded within his virtual worlds.

In the app, Pascal presents Catstill and Nelson which were both made in VR: 

“After sculpting the dog, I made two animated versions in which I distorted the sculpture, by hand in the first case, and moved it with my whole body-force second. This creative gestural engagement allowed for new mistakes. Through that I found a new digital warmness in the challenge of painting immersively over time.”

Pascal is currently based between London and Dussledorf and has previously exhibited with The RA, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, König Galerie, Setareh Gallery and Galerie Walbröl.  Sender will be the inaugural exhibition at the Saatchi Yates gallery opening in Mayfair in October, with pieces on sale from £50,000.

Keiken are a collaborative practice, co-founded by artists Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori and Isabel Ramos in 2015, they frequently work with multiple collaborators. Based between London and Berlin, they come from mixed diasporic backgrounds (Mexican/Japanese/European/Jewish). Keiken, Japanese for experience, create speculative worlds. They merge the physical and digital, “phygital”, using moving-image, CGI, gaming software, installation, virtual/augmented reality, programming and gamified performance. Simulating new structures and ways of existing they explore how societal introjection governs the way we feel, think and perceive.

Recent projects include Augmented Empathy at FACT, Liverpool (2020), We are at the end of something for Mira.Mov, Ideal, Barcelona (2020), Feel My Metaverse with gamified performance for transmediale at HKW, Berlin (2020), Feel(s) 360 for Image Behaviour at ICA, London (2019) and Feel My Metaverse alongside long term collaborator George Jasper Stone for Jerwood Art’s Collaborate!, London (2019), Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2020) and for König Digital’s The Artist Is Online (2020). Keiken have shown work at HEK, Basel [online]; IMPAKT Festival, Utrecht; Block Universe; Hervisions at LUX Moving Image; Space Art + Technology, London and Tate St Ives.

For Diorama, Keiken shares Mega bot and securitytounge - two 3D assets created in collaboration with CGI artist and designer Ryan Vautier.

“Since lockdown, we've been building new CGI virtual worlds. In one of these worlds is a subverted airport, The Metaport. We made several robots which do different checks whilst people are travelling through the Metaport. Two are featured in Litho; one which takes people's temperature from their tongues and the other is a micro bot which scutters on the floor and allows people to pass or not. “

Ryan Vautier is a CGI artist and designer based in London who creates animated worlds exploring the fractures between digital and physical. Focusing on the concept that we currently have access to two separate planes of existence, he seeks to explore information of evolution from the digital realm, whilst simultaneously developing works inside the digital realm inspired by physical existence. Recent projects include a residency with Keiken, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth (2020), Digital Spar, Dazed Beauty Wellness Week, Sex Quiz results and Which Crystal are you with Rifke Sadleir, Dazed Beauty (2019), Axel Arigato Socials (2019) and video for Rhumba Club (2020). He has worked on projects for 1975, Ms Banks, Grimes, Ben Ditto and Lucy Hardcastle. Vautier also exhibited work at Future Late, Tate Modern, London (2016).

Sean Rodrigo is an Australian immersive artist based in London who works with VR and 3D printing.

Sean’s obsession with VR began at an arcade in a small town in Australia where he first played with Google’s Tilt Brush - a room-scale VR painting application. Having worked as a writer-director in TV and Advertising as part of large teams, Sean was amazed at VR artists’ ability to create complete artworks in unlimited space in a relatively short amount of time. 

Sean honed his VR painting skills and started performing in VR in front of huge audiences at events around the world. 

His style is bold, colourful and playful, revolving around the creation of magical worlds for characters to inhabit. Sean recently collaborated with LADbible to create a luscious natural landscape in VR which was based on a grandpa’s description of his happy place. 

For Diorama, Sean presents Robots which were created as part of a Robo Rave project using cogs, gears and pistons from open source models of tanks. Sean used VR program Gravity Sketch to assemble the figures and then designed the lighting and texture in VR animation app Tvori. 

Sean has presented at MIT Media Labs, TATE Exchange, the BFI and UCL. His recent commissions include work for Adobe, Framestore, LadBible and Digital Catapult.