Jaco Schilp (1989) is a contemporary artist, curator and light designer, specialised in multidisciplinary projects within immersive art, installation art, performance, animation and art objects.

I call my art philosophy Transliminal: work that re-interprets its context, often as an abstract multi-sensory experience in which the visitor forms their own narrative. Using digital techniques I record places and objects and turn them into something physical: installations, light sculptures, and works I make together with machines, such as my laser-cut pieces.

I was born in The Hague in 1989 and I work from Utrecht. I'm largely self-taught, but I did not start from nothing: I'm the third generation to work this way. My mother is a decor designer, visual artist, clothes maker and singer. My father is a sound engineer and technical theatre maker. One grandfather was a photographer, and this studio carries his name from the one he ran in the 1950s; my other grandfather was an in-house architect. Picture, sound, and the room they happen in were simply what was around.

My own hands learned first. I trained as a blacksmith at the Georg Petau Kunstschmiede in Polle, Germany, from 2008 to 2011, and for a time I was one of the youngest traditional steel makers in Europe. I spent much of my youth living and sleeping in Iron Age houses and open-air museums. Light and code came later.

When I enter a space I think in three dimensions. I can hold a room, turn it, and see the physical thing that could stand in it and how it would be lit, before anything is built. The core of my work is one question I have carried for ten years: what does a place become once it is only measurement and light? Panorama Utrecht turned 1.1 billion LiDAR points into a light sculpture on the Stationsplein for Utrecht 900. Points of Light brought that research into the Grote Kerk in The Hague with fourteen laser projectors, made with LiGHT-UP Collective. In Mexico the same material became Aquí y Ahora and my own scans of Mexico City.

My interest in immersive, video-projected environments was sparked by the underground rave scene and club culture of the Netherlands. Since 2017 I have been the resident light artist of Club WAS in Utrecht, and I have played and designed light for festivals, clubs and shows: Le Guess Who?, the 3FM Awards, Dekmantel.

The work is often live, and lately collaborative. With Ibero-American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri I made Points of Inaccessibility, released on Black Knoll Editions. With choreographer Alejandra Metztli I made Somnia, where dance drives real-time visuals through digital scanners. With painter Santiago Pani I made Archive Mirror, where an AI trained on his own archive draws the people standing in front of it. I made the visuals and light for Circle of Live at MUTEK México and at Cervantino, and I have projected on buildings from the Kunsthal Rotterdam and the Van Gogh Museum to the St Bavo in Haarlem and the Grote Kerk in The Hague, and inside the Gashouder in Amsterdam. The work has been shown at museums, galleries and festivals including the Van Gogh Museum, the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, MUTEK México, Le Guess Who? and Dekmantel.

Curation is the other half of the practice. I am co-founder and curator of Uncloud in Utrecht, with Skander Jaïbi: residencies, exhibitions, concerts and education. With Alejandra Metztli I co-founded and co-direct Data Uotan in Mexico City, a platform for physical-digital work focused on Dutch-Mexican exchange. I have been a member of LiGHT-UP Collective since 2016, and I sit on the board of Stichting Art Utrecht.

In 2016 I graduated from the Reinwardt Academy with a BA in Cultural Heritage and a minor in Exhibition Design, and I was a guest lecturer there until 2017. My practice is hybrid, and it is precisely because I work across different art forms that I can make a full living from my art.