Together we (Sandra Pulina and Stephanie Sczepanek) founded the Digital Studiospace Laboratory for Performance (DSLP) in 2022, a virtual studio and virtual presentation space in the metaverse of the platform Spatial.io, which enables artists to interact with digitally connected visitors and to develop hybrid formats in analog and digital reality. The current digital spatial development was funded by the Deutscher Künstlerbund, program NEUSTART Kultur, with the collaboration of the artists Malte Frey and Julian Reiser. We explore questions of accessibility to art, as well as power and ownership in the digital space.

Communication today takes place primarily in the digital space. In recent years, our perception has evolved to process image or text information in a matter of seconds and to evaluate it as relevant or redundant. The digital space has also influenced artistic production and reception. What is special about art is its seismographic ability to recognize trends and developments even before they become tangible or formulable. The digital realm is not exempt from this. Since the invention of photography, artists have been pioneers in redefining the use, application and significance of newly developed techniques and media. The DSLP focuses on the relevance of the practical and theoretical examination of communication processes in digitally influenced art processes and links positions from art and reality to form a work network.

Who creates and rules over digital spaces and how can artistic actions reclaim virtual spaces? We build our own virtual spaces into already existing formats and create a “digital studio space” that enables a community of artists and interested people to experience and question supposedly set formats and perceptions of digital space in a new way. We are one of the first artist collectives to explore these questions of power and space discourses in virtual space through artistic cooperative actions.

The first cooperation was with the artists Malte Frey and Julian Reiser. Their virtual exhibition space was adapted for the metaverse from the platform spatial.io. Together we developed the space into a virtual studio and implanted the first DSLP Front Gallery into spatial.io, which serves as a platform to elaborate performative actions and processes. During this process, each artistic setting and encounter is transferred into the virtual space – the Digital Studiospace Laboratory for Performance. Performances, exhibitions, tours, lectures and other virtual formats are made accessible and tangible in this space.