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How can digital tools translate images into virtual worlds?
• 6. Nov. - 4. Dec. 2025
• Online!
• Five-weeks, Thursdays, 6-8pm CET
• Small class of participants
• Certificate of Completion
Artist / Student (Full Time)
€225* (Reg. €245)
Freelancer
€245* (Reg. €265)
Professional
€275* (Reg. €295)
Generous Supporter Ticket
€295* (Reg. €305)
*Early enrollments (by 19. Oct.) keep our courses sustainable and help us plan ahead. Thank you for supporting!
course
description
In this class we will work with the virtual environment, focusing on image-making, digital architecture, and video game engines.
A virtual environment is a constructed space and can be treated as a studio or stage where pictorial strategies are still central. Painting positions the viewer outside the frame, looking into another world, while virtual space functions as a shifting picture-world that changes with the viewer’s position. Virtual space moves as we move. A person can inhabit the image, moving through it, and the act of painting can be rethought as world-building, a dialectical space where different perspectives meet.
Virtual space and pictorial space are deeply connected because both rely on visual construction to shape perception. The way we see things is affected by what we know or believe. Seeing is never objective, and images are not neutral: the way they are framed, composed, and presented influences how we understand the world.
Now we are extending the world we live in, which is always an invention, an arrangement of seeing.
In this course you will be introduced to
Unity Game Engine
World-building and the architecture of virtual environments
Bringing traditional painting practices into digital space
Compositing and animating models
Exhibition-making in digital space
course
outline
Week 1: Virtual environment as pictorial space
The first class introduces the historical relationship between image-making and virtual space, showing how pictorial strategies have evolved into interactive forms. Special emphasis will be placed on various aspects of painting. We will examine the work of Erwin Panofsky and Merleau-Ponty in the context of embodied cultural perception. Participants will also begin working with basic tools for creating pictures and simple 3D worlds, while reflecting on the politics of space and its role in shaping world-building and collective experience.
Week 2: Not all images are pictures
In this session, we will continue to explore how drawing and painting practices relate to digital space, taking cues from the works of Avery Singer, Laura Owens, Ian Cheng, Sara Sadik, and Oscar Murillo. Participants will explore how digital space makes images navigable and participatory, extending the world as an ongoing invention and arrangement of seeing. The workshop emphasizes that technology is not just an instrument but an extension of social relations, making space for personal experience to be expressed. Finally, we will examine how perception in these environments is embodied, making space not an abstract grid but something lived and experienced through the body.
Week 3: Forms and Actions
In the third part, the class will take a collaborative approach to building digital environments, with participants combining their own digital images, photographs, drawings, paintings, or collages in a virtual space. The session emphasizes that virtual environments can function as studios or stages,
where pictorial strategies remain central. We will explore how the technosphere enables narratives and gestures that foster resilience within the blind spots of our interconnected lives. Finally, we will examine the coexistence of diverse digital spaces and the political impact of curated content, where each creation gains resonance through dialogue with peers.
Week 4: Composition
You’ll learn to set a scene, composite and animate models, and experiment with the camera in Unity Game Engine. Through perspective, light, color, framing, vanishing points, and composition, participants will see how traditional visual tools extend into digital and simulated spaces such as VR, games, CGI, and computer-generated architectures. While reflecting on the practices of Gustave Courbet, Francisco Goya, Joan Mitchell, Philip Guston, and Marlene Dumas, we will learn to think about worlds that are made with images. How can we inspire innovative strategies for collective coexistence using pictorial language and virtual environments?
Week 5: Politics and World-Building
We will explore the characteristics of world-building in context and through group discussion. Image-making will be reconsidered as a form of world-building, moving beyond the flat canvas into spatial and immersive environments where multiple perspectives intersect. Together, we will design and build a collective exhibition space that reflects both individual and shared perspectives. By bringing spatial perspectives together, we can learn how to seamlessly merge with our digital histories, inviting time as our companion while nurturing a gradual and affectionate connection with the mundane world, and composting our online sediments. This collective process will help us imagine and situate many different worlds existing simultaneously.
who is this
class for?
This class is for artists, designers, and creative makers interested in translating traditional painting techniques into virtual and interactive environments. It is aimed at those who want to explore how perspective, composition, light, color, and framing can shape immersive, time-based digital spaces. Participants should be curious about world-building, dynamic virtual ecosystems, and the interplay between interactivity and visual storytelling. The class is also suited for anyone looking to experiment with VR, game engines, CGI, or computer-generated architectures as tools for creating living, evolving pictorial worlds.
about online classes
Classes are 'live' meaning that you can directly interact with the instructor as well as with the other participants from around the world. Classes will also be recorded for playback in case you are unable to attend for any reason. For specific questions, please email us and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
about
scholarships
We are offering a limited number of reduced fee scholarships for this online class for those facing financial hardships. These allow participants to pay a reduced fee and are reserved for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ who otherwise would be unable to attend. To be considered for one of these scholarships, please use this form.
To apply for a reduced fee scholarship, you must fill in the form no later than two weeks before the course begins. We will not accept any class sign-ups or scholarship applications after this date, as our regular sign-ups will determine the amount of scholarships we can accommodate. We will notify you only shortly thereafter if your application has been approved.
We are a small organisation with no outside funding and like many, we are also in survival mode. We depend on tuition fees for reimbursing class instructers, space fees, and operational costs. We ask you to consider this when applying for a reduced fee scholarship. <3
meet the
instructor
Mario Mu
Visual Artist, Director
Mario Mu is a visual artist and director living in Berlin, Germany.
Mario works on various research projects which are often constructed as extended gaming platforms. Apart from frequently incorporating sound and drawing, his practice mainly shifts between game design, 3D animation, and performance. He received a BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, and an MFA from the University of Arts in Berlin, Germany. He has been working on a series of events as an author and collaborator in the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb; Singapore Art Museum; TAP-Théâtre auditorium de Poitiers, France; V2 Rotterdam, The Netherlands; MGLC Ljubljana, Slovenia; MAAT Lisbon, Portugal; Play Co and Seager, London, UK; Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Research Center for Proxy Politics, Ufer Studios, Galerie gr_und, and Silent Green in Berlin, Germany; in Croatia Pogon and GMK in Zagreb, Metamedia Pula, Manus Split, among others.
Digital and online projects include collaborations with AVYSS, Mizuha, The Killscreen, The Carillon, BoCA Biennial, Milan Machinima Festival, Gamescenes, Itch.io, Gestalten Publishing, FACT Magazine, Wrong Biennale, The School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe, STYLY, Lima Sky, Pivilion, and Inquiry Inc.