Member Spotlight: Glasseye at SXSW & Outernet London

SXSW

Janet Beck, CEO at GLASSEYE, capped off a high-profile start to 2026 by speaking on the panel “Real-World Immersion at Scale: The Future of Spatial” at SXSW, the world renowned festival of innovation, technology, and culture. GLASSEYE is an award-winning creative technology studio based in Kilkenny, specialising in the production of immersive experiences at architectural scale. Working across large-format LED environments, XR and interactive media, the agency is known internationally for combining technical innovation with strong creative vision and narrative depth, creating experiences that are both memorable and meaningful.

At SXSW Janet shared how GLASSEYE designed 'The Intelligence Garden' at Outernet London (see below), along with some of the new experiences they currently have in production, and her thoughts on the future of spatial design.

Moderated by Muki Kulhan WIIT UK Ambassador, Janet’s fellow panelist was another Eirmersive member, Michael Guerin of Imvizar. Together with Shawn C. Barrett they discussed how spatial design and XR experiences are transforming the way organisations connect with audiences across cultural, brand, and enterprise spaces. The panel discussion was hosted by Enterprise Ireland USA

The Intelligence Garden

In February, following the success of the multi-sensory masterpiece The Summer Palace, acclaimed digital artist Agustín Vidal Saavedra, Creative Director at GLASSEYE, returned to Outernet London with his most ambitious project to date: The Intelligence Garden.

Through spectacular visuals on Outernet’s free, 4-storey high, 16k screen surface screens, The Intelligence Garden guides audiences on a journey from simple, early forms of intelligence to human consciousness, framing intelligence as an emergent property of complex systems.

Agustín said: “The way we think about intelligence is changing. The Intelligence Garden is not only a large-scale visual and technical work, but a reflection on how intelligence and artistic creation itself, is being rethought today.”

Using the metaphor of a garden - a site of growth, interconnection and transformation - the experience visualises the evolution of thought, perception and creativity. Moving fluidly from microscopic life to abstract human cognition, the work unfolds as a visually rich, living and evolving digital ecosystem.

Commissioned by Outernet London - the most visited cultural attraction in the UK - The Intelligence Garden has been conceived specifically for The Now Building, a landmark 23,000-square-foot, four-storey, 360° LED environment with wrap-around walls and ceiling, rendered at ultra-high 16K resolution. Located in the heart of London’s West End, the building offers one of the most ambitious and technically advanced immersive canvases anywhere in the world.

Produced using a hybrid creative pipeline that combines real-time, game-engine-based systems with cinematic animation and compositing techniques, The Intelligence Garden blends architectural-scale visuals, spatialised sound and responsive systems to create an experience that is at once technically mesmerising, emotionally resonant and conceptually rich.

Agustín Vidal Saavedra’s previous work, the hugely popular The Summer Palace, was a beautiful combination of Renaissance paintings, animation, particle simulations and 3D visuals.