My first solo show, Bridging Worlds, just wrapped up at Whitespace Gallery in Edinburgh (3 – 8 January 2026). It was a real thrill to bring together pieces from different corners of my practice: works that almost always start digital (generative visuals, code-driven systems, interactive setups) presented as physical presences in the space – think prints, projections, sensors picking up movement, real-time responsive installations, and more.
The exhibition tied my developer background to my artist side, blending solo experiments, collaborations, and those more research-oriented or playful projects. Bridging Worlds was about those overlaps: digital versus physical, online versus IRL, tech and art, different communities and ways of working, rather than being pinned to one medium or output style.
People encountered Bridging Worlds in different ways.
Some visitors started by reading the posters, following the threads between projects, tools, and timelines. Others went straight to the interactive systems or the work on the walls and then circled back to the context. In practice, most conversations moved between all three.
The posters gave people something concrete to point at when asking questions about process, decisions, and constraints. That often shifted discussion away from surface description and towards how the work had been made.
The interactive pieces created a different kind of entry point. When a system responded in real time, through sound, motion, or behaviour, it gave people something immediate to talk about.
Included in this was a mixed reality experience using VR headsets where visitors could still see the gallery space around them, but with virtual bubbles floating in the room. People could move through the space and pop the bubbles, blending the physical environment with a simple, playful virtual interaction.
One of the nicest parts was how the wall pieces held their own next to the more dynamic, real-time elements. These were high-quality aluminium dibond prints and giclée editions pulled straight from the digital originals – large-scale, vibrant, with sharp detail and weight. Visitors would stop and stare, and when I’d chat about how they came to be (the generative code, the high-res rendering, the choice of materials to translate screen to surface), it often helped them see the pieces in a new light, and spot the subtle or hidden elements I often incorporate into my work. Seeing my artwork hanging there as gallery pieces felt genuinely moving – what started as digital turned into physical, enduring and thoughtful.
During the week, visitors had the opportunity to see themselves captured and re-rendered as bubble-packed figures in real time. In a quieter moment, I stepped in front of the webcam myself and took it a bit further. The system captured me dancing live, turning me into a bubble-packed alien.
The result here is closer to a music video than some documentation of the exhibition. It pairs a deliberately playful song I made for it, “Bubble Alien”, with that live-captured performance, and places the bubble-packed version of me on a series of different worlds, including the Bubble Planet mentioned in the lyrics.
I also got involved in a coffee collaboration with Little Havana (The Coffee Store Leith Ltd), with a custom blend available in bags featuring my bespoke artwork.
I hoped the coffee would sell, and it did (and needed restocking). What surprised me was how well other things moved too: artworks, coasters, t-shirts, books, cards. I have done plenty of art and craft fairs, often as part of artist groups and collectives, where sales have sometimes been slow or non-existent, so seeing people buy my work during the week genuinely caught me off guard, in a good way.
More than anything, the week functioned as a way of putting my work in front of people and saying: this is me, this is what I do. Having the space open, being there to talk things through, and letting people spend time with the work meant those introductions could happen properly, without trying to compress everything into a single explanation. The conversations that came out of that are already carrying on beyond the exhibition.
Posted: January 11, 2026 by David Oxley
Written by
David Oxley
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