frame:work meetups
we host community gatherings around the world
our next meetup:
London | Community Meetup
Hosted by:
MEETUP:
May 14th from 18:00 – 22:30
Pixel Artworks – The Light House
14 St John’s Sq, London EC1M 4AH
London Pixel Professionals! frame:work:europe and Pixel Artworks are hosting an evening meetup May 14th. Join us!
Meetup Presentations
The Immersive Illusion: Intent, Impact and Who’s Actually in the Room
This panel takes place at The Lighthouse, Pixel Artworks’ studio in Farringdon and one of London’s most forward-thinking spaces for immersive work and collaboration. It follows a candid session from our hosts, in which Pixel Artworks share honest stories of projects that went genuinely wrong (i guess we say “were challenging’). That session sets the tone for the evening: unspun, reflective and straight-talking. The panel picks up where that honesty leads.
Immersive experience is having a moment. It’s attracting serious investment, cultural legitimacy and growing audiences. But beneath the surface, the sector is grappling with some uncomfortable questions that rarely get asked in public. “Does any of this actually matter to the people in the room?” Who decides what success looks like: the artist, the brand, the critic, the algorithm, or the audience standing in the room? And is the rapid commercialisation of immersive experience, driven by IP-led spectaculars, scaled activations and brand budgets, crowding out the work that actually pushes things forward? This panel brings together voices from across the ecosystem: creative practitioners, cultural programmers, academics and commercial producers. The aim is to have the conversation the industry tends to avoid. Not to reach consensus, but to get somewhere more honest.
Pod Bluman
Bluman Associates
Pod Bluman is founder and project director of London based entertainment technology and production consultancy Bluman Associates. Prior to that he was a freelancer in the industry working across the spectrum of live, including touring music shows, live theatre and opera, TV, raves, corporate and everything in between.
Bluman Associates specializes in video and digital
technologies and workflows, and their use in live events. Innovation is at their core and being brave and foolhardy enough to take on projects that have not been done before is a key driver of their success. A prime example of this is the performance the by “Dave” at the Brits 2020, providing technical production and technically direction, in addition to creating all the 3D content for the worldwide 1st use of XR technology on a Live TV Show.
Pod also completed a Masters in Design Research at the Royal College of Art in 2021 and as part of his thesis designed and produced a unique art installation called ‘THE GUT.” The installation was an experience that immersed 2 participants, unknown to each other, into an environment that encouraged them to use their intuition and used a combination of psychology and real-time motion graphics to create a connection and build a shared experience. Pod has since gone gain Arts Council funding for another multi-disciplinary project and is furthering his connections in the world of academia and looking for the intersections between these two worlds.
Carolina Vallejo
Marshmallow Laser Feast
Carolina Vallejo has spent over two decades working at the intersection of art and technology, producing large-scale immersive experiences that engage with the natural world, science, and the human body. For six years she was Executive Producer and Head of Creative Production at Marshmallow Laser Feast, one of the world’s leading experiential art collectives, where she shaped work across creative direction, business development, and operational strategy. She now works with Journey delivering multidimensional experiences, and maintains an independent practice consulting with creative studios. She is drawn to the questions immersive work keeps failing to answer: who it is made for, who gets to make it, and what it actually does to the people in the room.
Maruša Levstek
Maruša is a psychology researcher and creative collaborator working at the intersection of creative industries, emerging technology, and social impact. As User Research Lead at CoStar National Lab, Lecturer in Technology and Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London, and co-lead of the XR for Social Change action group hosted by MIT Open Documentary Lab, she explores how immersive experiences can be designed with intention, centering people, rather than technology. Her work focuses on how XR can impact individuals, culture, as well as systemic structures. Notable project collaborations include The Green Planet AR Experience (Factory42 & BBC), The Keeper of Paintings (National Gallery), and StoryTrails (BFI, BBC, Niantic). Across her work, she embeds values of inclusion, connection, and environmental responsibility.
Sheena Patel
Sheena Patel is a Creative Director, Strategist and Producer with over 15 years experience building immersive worlds at the intersection of narrative, space and live interaction. As Director of YonderBeyond, she works across location-based entertainment, experiential campaigns and real-world interventions for global brands, original IP and emerging companies. She co-created the award-winning Time Run and Sherlock: The Game is Now, a 30,000 sq ft playable episode of the BBC series, bringing narrative, cinematic environments and interactive design together at scale. A co-founder of the Immersive Experience Network, and named one of the Blooloop 50 Immersive Influencers 2025. Be it a cruise liner or crematorium, misinformation or magic, Sheena brings a practitioner’s eye to the tensions between creative intent, commercial constraints and what actually lands with the people in the room.
Keri Elmsley
Keri Elmsly is a global curator based in London and Los Angeles. Her roots in underground culture led to a collaborative and expansive practice ranging from artist development and the world’s largest immersive destinations to designing and curating museums. In 2025, Elmsly founded PACT (Planetary Art Culture Technology), a collective of international artists, curators, and inventors. PACT exists to amplify artists’ unique utility as engines for imagination, agency, and change.
She recently served as Executive Director of Programming at ACMI, Australia’s museum of screen culture; Senior Vice President of Sphere Studios (Sphere, Las Vegas); and Chief Creative Officer at Second Story.
As a commissioner and executive producer, Keri works with leading artists in digital, contemporary, and immersive practices, including Ayoung Kim, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Katie Paterson, Liam Young, Marshmallow Laser Feast, Quayola, Serwah Attafuah, United Visual Artists, and Universal Everything. Her practice was shaped by formative years within global, culture-shifting DIY underground movements, including the Mutoid Waste Company and Spiral Tribe. In 2014, she produced the world’s first live drone orchestra with John Cale (The Velvet Underground) and Liam Young for the Barbican, London, years before automated drone control became commercially available.
Keep The Wheel Spinning
Haaziq Farook, Senior Technical Director
Pixel Artworks
16 pods – 16 installations in one day. One chance – no technicians allowed inside. An honest breakdown of what it took to deploy a real-time interactive installation across the London Eye, and the messy middle – where the real learning happens.
