WATCH: Sean Rodrigo: Dreaming With Your Eyes Open, Virtual Worlds in Physical Spaces

MFA Visual Narrative and SVA Library West present “Dreaming With Your Eyes Open, Virtual Worlds in Physical Spaces,” a talk by London-based digital artist Sean Rodrigo (a.k.a. Continuum), as part of their Storyteller’s Lecture Series. RSVP here.

“Virtual reality is like dreaming with your eyes open,” says Rodrigo whose current work specializes in using VR as his primary creative tool. Rather than using a traditional mouse and keyboard setup, Rodrigo uses a VR headset and controllers to design, paint and animate in a completely natural freehand style whilst inside a virtual environment.

Currently, virtual reality is popularized by it’s gaming and entertainment applications, but there is a growing list of powerful VR native creation tools which have the potential to open up more natural ways of communicating spatial ideas quickly and easily.

Rodrigo is passionate about looking at ways this new medium might help to solve design problems of the future and telling stories as experiences that feel just like the real thing. He’s also an advocate for how the medium can allow artists to have moments of focused creativity, free from the “tyranny of technical” and the modern world.

This talk will be of interest to anyone who is looking to the future of how technology is being used by innovators to extend their existing practices and for those who simply wish see how these tools might be complement existing skills and conventions.

The Storyteller’s Series at the School of Visual Arts invites visual storytellers from all walks of life, careers and media to share their work, professional practice, personal development and creative approach to visual narrative. This series is free and open to the public.

Sean Rodrigo is a London-based virtual reality artist and speaker working with innovative XR technology such as virtual reality as a core creative tool to achieve engaging insightful and meaningful experiences.

Over the last 12 years, Rodrigo has worked in film, television and advertising for brands such as MTV and Fremantle Media with extensive experience in technical and creative brand campaigns. His current work ranges from live-painted VR installation artwork to designing prototype products and VR storyboards in super-fast timeframes – sometimes mixing technology with traditional tools such as augmented reality, spacial computing, 3D scanning, motion capture and interactive realtime.

He recently visited MIT Media labs in the US after being accepted into the world’s biggest XR Hackathon, has instructed lecturers at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia, has spoken at the British Film Institute (BFI) and is now working at University College London (UCL) as associate staff and UCL360 VR Artist in Residence School of Anthropology.

Rodrigo’s recent projects include commissioned work, teaching and installations for Seagate, Adobe, Framestore and Digital Catapult London.