Spinning In Fluid Dreams
ESPRONCEDA presents Spinning in Fluid Dreams, a VR installation and Artist Talk with Nacoca Ko within NUBIA Labs 2026
On Thursday, July 9, 2026, from 7:00 to 9:30 PM, ESPRONCEDA – Institute of Art & Culture presented Spinning in Fluid Dreams, an immersive art project by Geneva-based artist and curator Nacoca Ko, within the framework of the 4th edition of NUBIA Labs 2026, under the theme Spatial Computing and the Transversal Power of Digital Art.
The evening offered a meeting space where physical sculpture, virtual reality, and soundscape interacted as territories of creation, sensitivity, and transformation. Initiated in 2022 by a collective of Switzerland-based artists and curators, the project takes the hydroelectric power stations of the Swiss landscape as its starting point, interrogating the flows of energy that sustain both ecological life and our increasingly digital existences — recalling how water flows through turbines to power the digital world. Throughout the project, participating artists installed sculptures at hydroelectric sites, captured through 360° imaging and 3D digital scanning, which were then transformed into the immersive virtual worlds presented at the opening.
Artist Talk
The evening began with a half-hour Artist Talk, in which Nacoca Ko shared with the audience the creative process behind Spinning in Fluid Dreams, her artistic practice, and the role of the virtual in the experience of contemporary art. The conversation invited the audience to reflect on the relationship between the natural, the technological, and the unknown — the threshold of the Singularity where, in the artist’s words, prediction gives way to uncertainty.
The VR Experience
Once the talk concluded, the audience was able to immerse themselves in the project’s interactive VR world, composed of 360° captures and 3D-scanned sculptures installed at hydroelectric power stations across Switzerland. Visitors moved through these layered landscapes, encountering sculptural apparitions and soundscapes that responded to movement, with a circular orientation reflecting the rhythm of the turbines. A data-generated hydrological map of Switzerland served as the navigational framework, reimagining water systems as poetic models for online networking — a fluid ontology between nature and technology, the analog and the virtual, the human and the non-human.
Guided Tour with the Artist
As the culminating moment of the opening, Nacoca Ko led a guided tour of the exhibition space, accompanying the audience among her original sculptures presented at ESPRONCEDA and explaining firsthand how each piece relates to its digital twin within the VR environment. This direct dialogue between artist and audience allowed for a deeper reading of the work, connecting physical matter with its virtual transformation.
The session closed with a very positive response from the public, who filled the space throughout the evening and actively participated both in the immersive experience and in conversation with the artist, confirming Spinning in Fluid Dreams as one of the standout presentations of NUBIA Labs 2026.
About the Artist and Curators
Nacoca Ko is an artist and curator based in Geneva, Switzerland, working across sculpture, moving image, performance, and virtual environments. Engaging with non-human and artificial intelligence, her work explores how technological systems reshape the personal psyche, collective consciousness, and the environment. Through her virtual worlding practice, Ko creates immersive environments where digital and physical realities intersect, sculpting with polymers and concrete to examine the materials humans leave behind — those that persist long after our disappearance. Her recent projects include exhibitions at Museu Futuros – Arte e Tecnologia (Rio de Janeiro, 2025), Museu Eva Klabin (Rio de Janeiro), Art Genève, and Photo Basel.
Spinning in Fluid Dreams was developed with Antoine Félix Bürcher, a Swiss sculptor working with fused glass and altered materials to construct layered temporal strata, whose work has been shown at the Werkschau at Museum Haus Konstruktiv (Zurich) and the Swiss Triennial of Sculpture, Bad RagARTz (2024), and who is a recipient of the Prix Arts Visuels Vaud (2025); and with curator Monic Unser, a Swiss curator and art historian whose recent projects include Plattform25 at CAN Centre d’art Neuchâtel (2025), and who currently serves as Assistant Curator at Cabaret Voltaire Zurich.
About NUBIA Labs
Spinning in Fluid Dreams is presented within the framework of NUBIA Labs 2026, ESPRONCEDA’s professional incubation and support programme dedicated to projects in digital art and spatial computing, including XR technologies (AR/VR/MR), creative artificial intelligence, real-time interactive installations, and immersive environments.
About ESPRONCEDA – Institute of Art & Culture
Founded in 2013 in Barcelona, ESPRONCEDA – Institute of Art & Culture is an independent international center dedicated to artistic research and cultural production, promoting critical and interdisciplinary thinking through contemporary art, new media, science, and education.
