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About Me

Experimental digital artist using emerging technologies to create artworks exploring the dynamic interplay between technology and human experience, as well as dreams and states of consciousness. Works with a variety of tools and processes, including: movement, live-drawn and animated large-scale projections, VR, AI and programmable blockchain art, chance processes, interactive townscale public artworks, and international collaborative artmaking.

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Contact


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Email: [email protected]

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Address: 23-25 Gwydir St, Unit 1D, Cambridge, UK CB1 2LG

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Phone: +44 (0)7746 077811

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Inst/X: @oculardelusion

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Links

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Website

www.karenfranceseng.com

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portfolio page coming soon

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Education

University of California, Los Angeles (1990)

Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, specializing in Creative Writing/Poetry

Skills

digital art, live large-scale projected animation, VR art (Tiltbrush, Open Brush), AI art, NFT/blockhain-based art, metaverse space and event production (Voxels), collaborative creative production, still photography, experimental moving image, photo & video editing, workshop facilitation, programmable art, letterpress printing, print and online writing & editing (books, zines, long-form feature articles, blogs, social media) interviewing, project management, content development, rollerskating/movement

Exhibitions/live performances

B.AIT WEST (1 February 2025) London

Conversaciones Visuales, 15th Havana Biennial (January 2025) Havana, Cuba Colchester EMOM (2023) Colchester, UK Any Gleeful God (2023) Crow Perch, Berlin DADA Persepctive (2023) MEET Digital Culture Center, MIlan Upon This Bock (2023) Peterborough, UK Art//Tech//Play (2022) w/ Fraser Merrick, King’s Lynn, UK Open Ealing (2022) London NFTNYC (2022) FELIX FELIX FELIX, Art Basel Miami (2022) Dreamverse (2021) New York Festival Arte é Inovação (2020) São Paulo, Brazil Le Shed Centre d'art contemporain de Normandie (2021) Rouen, France ART//TECH//PLAY (2021) w/ Loula Yorke, Norwich Arts Centre MORE THAN GLASS (2020) Voxels Graffiti Queens (2020) Voxels SHEART (2020) Voxels Cambridge Wide Open (2020)

11tHour festival (2019) King’s Lynn Ars Electronica (2019) w/ OMAi Brainwave Scanner, Linz, Austria

Breathing the Kite (2017) Clare Hall, Cambridge UK The Craft of Photography (2012) Williams Art, Cambridge

Residencies

Ranghata (2021) Le Shed Centre d'art contemporain de Normandie, Rouen, France Guest artist at weeklong residency, working alongside Thierry Pécou’s experimental classical Ensemble Variances and guest Indian classical musicians Rishab Prassana and Mosin Khan Kawa.

The Head Exchange Program (2019) Libušín, Czech Republic Weeklong OMai Tagtool residency developing art piece for exhibition at Ars Electronica later that summer.

Co-founder

105 Collective // a group of UK-based artists bringing their work to the digital, VR and crypto spaces.

The Platform // decentralized cooperative publishing platform, owned and operated by artists & writers

HEADROOM // digitally native magazine focused on the edges of blockchain-based arts & culture

Women of Cryptoart (WOCA) // founding member

11tHour // experimental festival of light & sound in King's Lynn, Norfolk

Associations & Fellowships

Kernel Fellowship

A virtual Web3 fellowship program emerging from the Gitcoin community that aims to improve the web through peer-to-peer learning. The program connects people from a variety of backgrounds to help them build the web through collaboration. Kernel0x Fellow: Kernel Block 7 (2022) Kernel Block 8 (2023) + Kernel Block 9 Peer (2024)

Outlands Network

Network supporting producers of experimental music and interdisciplinary performance

DADA Collaborative art network where people worldwide speak through drawings. Building a blockchain token economy for the arts.

GroundWork Gallery King’s Lynn, UK Contemporary art gallery dedicated to art & environment

CODEX Foundation

Berkeley, California Nonprofit organization promoting the book as a work of art through lectures, exhibitions, publications and more. Includes the international Book Art Fair & Symposium.

George Washington William Fellowship Independent Press Association fellowship for journalists of color Awarded in 2002

Speaking

NFTLondon (2022)

Organized and spoke on a panel representing Women of Crypto Art (WoCA), with fellow artists who helped establish the cryptoart space from the beginning. Panel moderated by WOCA cofounder, art collector and advisor, Bitcoin Madame.


Metaverse builds

Gallery Oculardelusion // Voxels

Personal gallery site built on onchain metaverse platform built by and for artists. Hosts changing exhibitions of artworks.

Current exhibition:

Heiratage Studio prototype: Ebony Test Kitchen (2024)

Prototype VR exhibition funded by University of Cambridge Shape Hub, a 12-month programme of the Department of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences supporting its researchers to explore creative industry collaborations and develop digital technology applications and opportunities for their work. This interactive, virtual gallery space onceived and built for Myesha Jameson, a University of Cambrige PhD candidate who is developing ways to preserve African American cultural and design heritage and bring it to mainstream. Worked with Jameson to conceive of a prototype virtual exhibition accessible by the public, using the historic Ebony Test Kitchen as our subject.

Visit >>>

Project >>>

Previous exhibition:

Jon Lowenstein: The Advocate (2020)

Guggenheim Fellow and National Geographic Explorer Jon Lowenstein commissioned a gallery to showcase his work docomenting the Black Lives Matter movement in Chicago’s South Side and beyond. Curator: Museum of Contemporary Digital Art (MoCDA) curated.

Centre for Collaborative Investigative Journalism (2021) Voxels

Consulting, building and training for metaverse hub for CCIJ. Globally accessible space for journalists to showcase, sell, and give further context to their work. Serves as a gathering place for virtual meetings, education events, and so on. First journalism hub in metaverse. Cobuilt with Lenara Verle. Build has since been handed over to CCIJ’s inhouse artists.

Visit >>>

Video of the launch event (video tour begings at 8:49) >>>

Teaching/workshop facilitation

Digital Graffiti (2023) Norwich University of the Arts Daylong workshop teaching Tagtool and cocreating a collective artwork to students.

MANIFESTO* (multiple sessions over several months, 2022):

Skills taught included:

Historic NFT (2022), the world’s first historic NFT conference, hosted by DADA.art at Real Cercle Artistic in Barcelona.

I taught artists to use Tagtool to paint and animate live projections, both individually and in collaboration. Artists also beamed in remotely from the UK.

Wysing Arts residency with CRUNCH Ramsey youth club (2022)

Skills taught: psychogeographic mapping, Tagtool, Tilt Brush, sound art (in collaboration with Philip Cornett)

Project on Wysing website >>>

Introduction to Cryptoart & NFTs

Outlands Network (2021) Workshop educating member artists of experimental arts network Outlands

Norfolk Coast Biodiversity Poetry Retreat GroundWork Gallery (2021)

The Norfolk Coast Guardian asked me to convene a group of poets to consider five key species of the region, to generate poems in response for publication.

Video introduction to Tagtool (Art//Tech//Play series, Collusion) 2020 >>>

Doorstep Environment Poetry Retreat (2020) GroundWork Gallery

Weeklong online virtual poetry writing retreat.

Write on the Edge (2019) GroundWork Gallery

One-day writing retreat at GroundWork Gallery.


Work Experience


Projects


In Progress

Dancing with the Collective Unconscious (2024–present)

Exploratory work integrating movement and real-time generative AI. Exploring the integration of technology and live movement with rollerskating as a central medium. The project is currently in its initial research phase. Project >>>

0xquisite Corpse (2022–present) 105 Collective