When Sandro Kereselidze and Tatiana Pastukhova founded ARTECHOUSE in 2015, their goal was simple but ambitious: to create a virtual space for digital art where innovation at the intersection of creativity and technology can flourish. Since opening the first location in a former retail store in Washington, DC in 2017, ARTECHOUSE has expanded its reach with locations in Miami (2018), New York (2019) and most recently, Houston (2024). With more than thirty art exhibitions, multi-sensory art, 150 XR implementations and ten live shows under their belt, produced with their in-house studio and in collaboration with more than forty artists, ARTECHOUSE has made a mark. Some of today’s most popular digital artists—notably, Refik Anadol, Daito Manabe, fuse**, Zach Lieberman, NONOTAK and Adrien M & Claire B—have benefited from the early collaborations that ARTECHOUSE helped them build their jobs.
From the beginning, Kereselidze and Pastukhova’s goal was to provide a high-quality exhibition platform for technology-driven artists exploring new forms of storytelling and expression made possible by the digital realm. There was a real need, as in those days, immersive digital art was heavily focused on festivals and brand events. “Museums were not interested because they are at a high level and difficult to maintain. The galleries were not interested because it is difficult to sell,” Kereselidze told the Observer. We talked about the last days of “FLASHBACK 5,” the fifth anniversary celebration of ARTECHOUSE in New York. Kereselidze recalled running the “Art Soiree” festival in DC, an event that supports local artists through the use of multiple senses—it was through that work that he found an entire community of creative innovators looking for a platform.
From its inception, ARTECHOUSE aimed to be more than just a museum of digital art—it was designed as a comprehensive platform for the production, research and preservation of new media works. Many exhibits are produced in-house, with artists able to use the expertise of a multidisciplinary team to bring complex immersive installations to life. Kereselidze emphasized the cooperation of these efforts: “Like a Hollywood studio, it’s not just one director or a few actors. The whole team is behind you, making those things happen.”
The company’s talent/skill ecosystem came together organically as it began to pull producers and creative minds under one roof to create something truly collaborative, but another key factor in ARTECHOUSE’s success has been its unwavering investment in the technology infrastructure needed to support digital creativity. Real-time interactive art requires a complex combination of sophisticated software and precisely designed hardware, and ARTECHOUSE’s commitment to providing this support has been instrumental in establishing its place as a leading institution in the emerging field.
ARTECHOUSE software and hardware requirements are complex—powerful custom tools, Python libraries and APIs for 3D cameras, lidar scanners, traditional cameras, custom-built hardware using Arduino or microcontrollers and even sound sensors and effects like projectors and high-resolution LED displays. , lasers, transparent OLEDs, spatial audio systems and haptic devices. At the heart of it all are high-performance computers with custom-designed signals to minimize latency and maximize immersion. And if an artist needs more energy to bring their vision to life, the company figures out how to get it.
In a way, ARTECHOUSE works like an incubator or production studio, working closely with innovators to create new commissions or rethink previous works in ambitious ways. “Although we support many artists, we also increased our own skills,” said Kereselidze.
In the beginning, ARTECHOUSE was the only company that exhibited high-quality, structured digital art. But ten years later, as Kereselidze points out, institutions are beginning to recognize the importance of this type of storytelling. “It’s an exciting time right now to be in this industry because people are finally seeing what digital art or technology can be.”
All in all, the art world has grappled with the challenge of defining what digital art is and what it is. We asked Kereselidze what digital art means to him, and he said that, to him, it’s not just about taking a still image and putting it into a computer. “For us at ARTECHOUSE, digital art must first become a moving image and create a cinematic experience. It’s about the possibility of full immersion in content. A static image on a screen feels outdated—it’s not how we feel in the world today. Digital art should create something memorable, stimulate our senses and our imaginations.”
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Kereselidze also emphasized digital art immersion—a key feature of the ARTECHOUSE experience. Digital art, he added, should transcend the boundaries of the technology it uses.
“FLASHBACK 5,” which just closed, offered a look at how the company’s use of technology has evolved over the years, from the floating, repeating fractals that combine math, geometry, and nature in Julius Horsthuis’ “Geometric Properties” to data-driven audio-visual explorations the continuity of past and future historical records of “TRUST” by fuse* in the Afro-surrealist cosmogonies of “Ase: Afro Frequencies” by Vince Fraser with poet Ursula Rucker.
There’s also a deeply moving demonstration of “Life of a Neuron,” discovered in collaboration with the Neurological Association using the first real-life 3D model of a prefrontal cortex neuron to explore the human life journey at the cellular level. And “Beyond the Light,” co-produced with NASA, delves into the mysteries of the universe using the latest images from the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes.
Notably, the last two projects are examples of how ARTECHOUSE has collaborated with research centers and laboratories in various scientific fields, using its expertise in digital imaging to create immersive storytelling experiences that make complex scientific data easily accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds.
Although production support is an important part of what ARTECHOUSE offers to creators, it also plays an important role in maintaining these works, which Kereselidze told us is actually a big challenge because of how fast technology changes and how artworks can be shared again. displayed on loan, traveling exhibits and joint productions. “The fact that these works of art exist first and foremost because of files and data raises other possible conceptual and legal questions: What is the original work? Does it still exist if it’s just a file sitting on a server or in the cloud, or only when it’s activated and presented as something that people can see, hear and interact with?”
Although there are technical and legal problems, Kereselidze believes that it is important to continue showing this art. “As we live in a semi-digital and semi-physical world, I think the experience of things is very important.
As our conversation with Kereselidze drew to a close, we asked for his thoughts on the future of this art form. He told us that he is excited about how artists will interact with the new opportunities offered by artificial intelligence but he is not afraid that AI will replace human intelligence. Visualization is a tool for expanding imagination and creativity. “I like to talk about cooperation. It is an amazing tool for anyone to create their imagination through collaboration and machine learning. It’s here to stay, but while we continue to educate the machine, we also need to continue to create new content and art to feed its system,” he said.
The ARTECHOUSE studio team has confirmed that advances in hardware—improved pixel density, image quality and scalability—are imminent, but hardware innovation takes time, and while advanced developments will improve the tools available to artists, the real evolution is elsewhere.
According to Kereselidze and his team, it’s the content, not the technology, that will shape the future of the industry—how digital art is conceived, designed and shared with audiences. “The stories we tell and how we engage consumers will play a more important role in shaping the landscape than any technological advancement. The question is not only what technology can do; it’s about how we use it to create meaningful, meaningful emotions.”
