First Look at SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render at Artechouse NYC
Yesterday, ARTECHOUSE NYC opened its doors for the very first look at SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render, presented by ARTECHOUSE and powered by the Render Network.
From 12pm to 5pm, the space transformed into a media hub as artists and the Render Network team sat down with outlets like PCMag, Fox News, the Associated Press, Even Now Media, FEVER, and many other prominent local and national press. Influencers and content creators also joined in capturing works on site.
Guests were among the first to experience the 12 immersive digital pieces projected at a groundbreaking 18K resolution, a feat made possible in weeks (rather than months) thanks to the decentralized GPU rendering power of the Render Network.
Each work showcased not only artistic vision, but the technical leap of scaling generative and immersive content beyond what was previously possible.
From LATTICE by Mhx to The River Remembers by Blake Kathryn & Maalavidaa, 1685 by David Ariew & Chelsea Evenstar featuring music by Zedd, Protopica by Will Selviz & Manuel Sainsily, White Rabbit by Emmy-winner Emily Yang (pplpleasr) and Maciej Kuciara, and new works by FVCKRENDER, Gavin Shapiro, Woosung Kang, Josh Pierce, and more, the media day was a living preview of how creativity and computation converge.
The day closed with an invite-only cocktail reception, where artists like Woosung Kang, Emily Yang, Will Selviz, FVCKRENDER, and Gavin Shapiro mingled with guests and press. Even the cocktails were themed to match the artwork. Watching the artists see their pieces in this new scale and format for the first time was unforgettable, especially Woosung Kang, who proudly documented the night behind his camera.
The exhibition officially opens to the public Friday, September 19th (tomorrow) through December 14th at ARTECHOUSE NYC. Tickets are available now — use code FIRSTLOOK this weekend only for 25% off.
Fun fact: 18K resolution at ARTECHOUSE represents a 44% increase in pixels compared to the Las Vegas Sphere’s 16K display.
Here’s a sneak peek into each piece featured in the exhibition:
LATTICE | MHX
About the Work
LATTICE is an immersive exploration of how ideas emerge, whether human or artificial. The piece unfolds as the space is knitted from the filaments of a lattice structure, semi-formed lattices that resemble fragmented human thought. These shimmering structures oscillate between solid and networked states, blurring the line between stability and collapse, intelligence and architecture, identity and idea. Built entirely with procedural systems in Houdini and GPU-based rendering, the work evokes fragility, emergence, and complexity, inviting viewers to reflect on how creativity takes form — layered, fragile, and endlessly interconnected, born of both carbon and code.
About the Artist
Muhammet Altun, known as Mhx, is a self-taught visual artist and generalist based in Istanbul. His work focuses on 3D generative art and experimental motion design, constructed through procedural systems and simulations. By fusing algorithmic processes with aesthetic storytelling, Mhx creates works that balance fragility with emergence, precision with play. His practice reflects a deep curiosity about how generative systems can echo human creativity, illuminating the porous boundaries between natural and artificial forms of thought.
1685: Immersive | David Ariew & Chelsea Evenstar
About the Work
1685: Immersive began as the centerpiece for Zedd, GRAMMY-winning, multi-platinum DJ and producer, at Coachella 2025 encore and has since evolved into a standalone artwork. Vast stained-glass windows glow with cosmic imagery (sunbeams, comets, planets, rockets, and starfields) animated by sweeping light and sound. Blending celestial storytelling with architectural scale, the piece evokes the awe of stepping inside a galactic cathedral where music and light converge. What started as concert visuals now invites audiences into an environment where joy, serenity, and wonder refract like light through glass.
About the Artists
David Ariew is a renowned 3D artist celebrated for his hypnotic infinite mirror animations, serene abstract geometry, and collaborations with top global institutions and musicians. His works have been exhibited at Sotheby’s, The Sphere, Artechouse, Beeple Studios, and the Digital Art Fair Asia, with collaborations ranging from Beeple x Madonna to artists like Katy Perry, Calvin Harris, and Zedd. A beloved educator, his tutorials have empowered thousands of digital artists worldwide.
Chelsea Evenstar is a digital artist known for dreamy, emotional landscapes rooted in celestial imagery. Her work has been collected by Paris Hilton, auctioned at Sotheby’s, and featured at Art Basel Miami, Beeple Studios, and MakersPlace. She co-designed the massive digital stained-glass installation for Zedd’s Coachella performance, drawing on her childhood watching her mother handcraft stained glass. Her practice captures the invisible threads of feeling — suspended in story, light, and stars.
White Rabbit: Immersive Adaptation | Maciej Kuciara & Emily Yang (pplpleasr)
About the Work
Emmy winners, Kuciara and Yang adapt their acclaimed anime White Rabbit into a spatial installation, rendering key scenes at 18K resolution to push the boundaries of immersive animation. Visitors step inside memories reimagined as dreamlike environments where anime’s lyricism fuses with cinematic pacing and atmosphere. Bespoke pipelines and custom digital tools expand detail and scale while retaining full creative authorship. The result is a hyperreal anime world brought to life across walls of light, blending emotion, memory, and speculative storytelling in a way that could only exist in an immersive format.
About the Artists
Maciej Kuciara is a Polish artist and director whose two decades in visual storytelling span concept art, animation, and world-building for The Last of Us, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and more. He co-directed White Rabbit, an Emmy award-winning anime, as well as films such as MECHA and Linkin Park’s “Lost”.
Emily Yang, professionally known as pplpleasr, is a multidisciplinary artist and technologist whose work bridges anime, video games, and traditional Asian art. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, she co-founded Shibuya, a next-gen entertainment platform. Yang co-directed the Emmy award-winning anime, White Rabbit, and has collaborated with the likes of Kering, Sotheby’s, Steve Aoki, and Vogue, expanding cultural identity and entertainment into new digital frontiers.
Protopica | Will Selviz & Manuel Sainsily
About the Work
“Sin Agua No Hay Tiempo” unfolds as an immersive chamber shaped by Caribbean cosmology, where the ocean emerges as both archive and oracle. Ancient petroglyphs and symbolic carvings ripple across the walls, as majestic flora and fauna reveal themselves, carrying participants through a continuum where ancestral memory dissolves into speculative futures. The installation fuses emerging technologies with Caribbean storytelling traditions, casting water as the connective tissue between past and future. Protopica reframes the Caribbean not simply as geography but as a symbolic center of transformation, reminding us that without water, there can be no time.
About the Artists
Will Selviz is a Venezuelan-born, Canada-based immersive media designer and Afro-Caribbean technologist. As co-founder of Protopica, he has created EEG-driven installations, XR experiences for Nike, Meta, and Microsoft, and the Sónar-debuted Neurogenesis. A Clio Award winner, OpenAI Forum Fellow, and TED speaker, he champions culturally driven innovation across AI and immersive media.
Manuel Sainsily is an award-winning TEDx Speaker and lecturer at Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and Stanford. Born in Guadeloupe and recognized as a Mozilla Rise25 honoree, he works at the intersection of worldbuilding, storytelling, and cultural heritage preservation. He co-created MasterClass’s first Generative AI course and co-founded Protopica, where his installations merge XR, BCI, haptics, and AI. He has collaborated with Adobe, Meta, NVIDIA, and OpenAI to advance responsible, culturally rooted approaches to technology.
CYCLE RESET | Jess Wiseman
About the Work
In her first immersive short, Jess Wiseman transforms the mundane into the uncanny with a three-minute journey that begins in a laundromat. A robot idles quietly at the side before springing to life, pulling the viewer into a chain of dreamlike transformations. Suddenly, the perspective flips — audiences find themselves inside a microwave, looking outward as popcorn bursts all around in playful chaos. Surreal textures, hyper-real surfaces, and unexpected narrative turns create a sequence that feels equal parts familiar and fantastical. As with her broader practice, the work blurs the line between product, environment, and imagination — inviting viewers into a space where everyday objects awaken into strange, spirited worlds.
About the Artist
Jess Wiseman is a 3D artist, creative technologist, and founder of lifestyle brand Figuregot. Known for her surreal product designs and hyper-real textures, she has worked with Samsung, KSI, Lil Nas X, Doja Cat, and Snoop Dogg. Her work has appeared at TIME PIECES, ComplexCon LA, Comic-Con London, the National Art Museum in Beijing, MOCO Museum Amsterdam, Dart Museum Milan, and more. With hundreds of millions of impressions across digital platforms, she exemplifies the reach and ingenuity of a new generation of digital creators.
Gravity Tomb | Saad Moosajee
About the Work
Moosajee’s new work presents a cyclical metal sculpture that reveals itself across ARTECHOUSE’s walls as if it were a physical object. Drawing on traditions of classical wall painting and diorama sculpture, the piece fuses contemporary digital pipelines with the sensibilities of film and motion design. Its collage-like approach incorporates narrative, metaphor, and symbolic references from the artist’s lived experience, while cinematic lighting and rendering make the digital feel tangible. The result is a contemplative exploration of memory, material, and imagination that bridges classical traditions with contemporary digital craft.
About the Artist
Saad Moosajee is a visual artist and director whose work blends film pipelines, animation, and classical design. He has collaborated with Wu-Tang Clan, Thom Yorke, Sampha, and Lil Nas X, with exhibitions at The Hammer Museum, the Sharjah Art Museum, and the Museum of the Moving Image. His works have earned recognition from SXSW, Cannes, and The Webby Awards. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and ADC Young Gun, he was also named an Emerging Master by The Talks. His practice explores intricate, emotional, and surreal worlds that challenge and expand visual storytelling.
VJ WOOO: Nebula Junkyard | Woosung Kang
About the Work
Woosung Kang’s Nebula Junkyard transforms the ARTECHOUSE canvas into a surreal VJ performance space. His virtual character, VJ WOOO, conducts a layered spectacle of visuals that respond to sound and light, drawing viewers into a constantly shifting world. Objects scatter across infinite depth, harmonized with music to heighten immersion. What began as a spatial experiment for XR became a personal journey, as Kang repurposed elements from past projects into new forms — merging memory, identity, and performance. The result is a kaleidoscopic audiovisual environment that doubles as both spectacle and self-portrait.
About the Artist
Woosung Kang is an art director and motion designer based in Los Angeles. Inspired by music, he crafts impactful visuals across TV shows, music videos, games, and commercials. His work includes visualizers and stage visuals for ODESZA and an Emmy-nominated title sequence for True Detective. Currently part of Apple’s Vision Pro team, Kang is expanding into XR, exploring how immersive content can merge sound, memory, and design into new forms of digital performance.
The River Remembers | Blake Kathryn & Maalavidaa
About the Work
This collaboration between Blake Kathryn and Maalavidaa unveils a hyper-stylized realm of color, digital surrealism, and glossy dreamscapes. Flowing streams of Maalavidaa’s vibrant abstractions fuse with Kathryn’s pastel-toned architectures, producing an otherworldly environment that is both hypnotic and bold. Designed through the lens of femme energy, the work embodies self-expression and subtle rebellion against traditionally masculine digital aesthetics, offering a space where softness, strength, and imagination coexist. More than a meditative refuge, it becomes a radiant declaration of presence. This immersive dreamscape soothes while empowering, inviting viewers to lose themselves in color and rediscover the freedom of play, emotion, and identity.
About the Artists
Blake Kathryn is a Los Angeles-based digital artist working fluidly across the digital landscape. Fusing vibrant palettes with ethereal undertones, her practice incorporates art deco, nouveau, and solar punk influences to craft dreamlike worlds. Her work has been exhibited globally, with select commercial collaborations including Aespa, Jimmy Choo, Lil Nas X, Porsche, and the Venetian.
Maalavidaa, the artistic persona of Alycia Rainaud, is a French digital artist based in Montreal. Known for highly saturated abstractions inspired by Jungian therapy and meditation, she focuses on translating emotions into color as a pathway to well-being. She has led projects for LUSH, BMW, and Burton, and defines herself as a designer of emotions who places mental health at the core of her practice.
Satori | Josh Pierce
About the Work
Satori takes audiences on an imaginative journey through vistas of light, a valley of dancing lights, designed to evoke mindfulness and presence. Abstract energy forms flow seamlessly through natural environments, blending the ethereal with the grounded. The work reflects on the experience of pure awareness — stepping outside habitual thought and into awe. In its immersive scale, the piece aims to create a sudden moment of enlightenment — satori — where gratitude and wonder naturally arise. The work embodies a belief that art can help reorient humanity toward connection, presence, and higher purpose.
About the Artist
Josh Pierce is a digital artist known for his surreal landscapes and visionary imagery that blend natural environments with luminous, abstract energy forms. Working across Cinema4D, Octane, and AI-enhanced workflows, original sound design, Pierce creates ethereal worlds that suggest the presence of the beyondhe beyond in the here and now. His practice is rooted in a desire to translate moments of stillness and awakening into large-scale immersive environments, inviting audiences to step outside the noise of daily life and into a state of presence and wonder. Exhibited internationally and celebrated for his unique synthesis of spirituality and digital craft, Pierce’s work has become emblematic of a new era of visionary digital art.
The Adventures of the Toy Maker | Amrit Pal Singh
About the Work
For the first time, Amrit Pal Singh brings his beloved Toy Maker series into the immersive format. Known for his toy-like 3D illustrations, Singh’s work unfolds as a whimsical visual design. Each scene is playful yet contemplative, inviting audiences to see the world through the lens of childlike wonder. The series reflects on imagination as both craft and philosophy — reminding us that storytelling, like play, is essential to the human spirit.
About the Artist
Amrit Pal Singh is a visual artist and designer recognized for his acclaimed Toy Faces and Toy Room series. His works have been exhibited worldwide and featured by Forbes, CNBC, and Business Insider. Since minting his first NFT in 2021, he has created more than 100 artworks with sales exceeding $1.5 million. His commercial clients include Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Adobe, and Snapchat. Singh’s practice balances independent artistry with commercial collaborations, all rooted in his distinctive toy-like aesthetic that turns digital art into a space of wonder and play.
INFINITE FIELD// | FCKRENDER (Frédéric Duquette)
About the Work
Montreal-based artist FVCKRENDER presents a new work that embodies his ethos of using art as therapy. Working primarily in Cinema4D and Octane, he creates crystalline, futuristic environments that serve as visual journals of emotion. The piece continues his exploration of digital surrealism as both spectacle and reflection, designed to transmit feelings directly into the immersive medium. Expansive yet intimate, it invites audiences to pause, relax, and reconnect with what they already have.
About the Artist
Frédéric Duquette, known as FVCKRENDER, is a Montreal-based digital artist whose experiential works have been exhibited at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and the Las Vegas Sphere. His clients include Ledger, Supreme, Swarovski, Dior, Spotify, and TIME. In 2025, he co-founded Foil Gallery, bridging digital and traditional art. Self-described as therapy, his art translates emotion into futuristic landscapes that merge technology with introspection.
Wingin’ It | Gavin Shapiro
About the Work
Wingin’ It parodies the conventions of contemporary performance art by staging a fictional museum show inside an immersive canvas. Penguins are on view doing performance art inside the art gallery, flamingos ride conveyor belts watching, whilst visitors suddenly find themselves swept into an absurd celebration where joy takes over. Originally presented as a tongue-in-cheek installation inspired by a Japanese contemporary art museum, the piece reflects on stress, performance, and expectation. By reimagining the museum as a space of humor and delight, Shapiro turns critique into celebration, offering an experience where audiences can’t help but smile.
About the Artist
Gavin Shapiro is a digital artist best known for playful, conceptual works featuring surreal penguins and flamingos. Working across New York, Osaka, and Paris, his projects span television, commercials, stage visuals, and casino games. His personal works have been exhibited internationally at dozens of galleries, events, and music festivals, including a 2025 exhibition at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art. With NFT sales at Sotheby’s in New York and Paris, and hundreds of millions of online views, Shapiro’s ultimate goal remains profound yet straightforward: to create art that makes people smile.
From intimate reflections on fragility (LATTICE) to cosmic cathedrals of light (1685) to playful dreamscapes (Wingin’ It), each piece redefines how stories can be told when powered by decentralized GPU rendering. The 18K resolution and the speed made possible by Render Network proved that immersive art doesn’t have to be constrained by time or infrastructure, it can scale as quickly as imagination.
As the exhibition opens to the public on September 19th, the invitation is clear: come experience what’s next. This is more than an art show; it’s a convergence of artistry and computation, belonging and imagination, fragility and power.
SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render runs at ARTECHOUSE NYC through December 17th. Tickets available now here. Use code FIRSTLOOK this weekend for 25% off.
