With more than 25 years at the intersection of digital art, live visuals, and immersive installation, Gnomalab Estudio has built a reputation for transforming light, sound, and space into living, participatory experiences. Their curiosity for new technologies has always gone beyond mere tools, seeing them instead as languages in their own right, capable of reshaping how stories are told and environments are felt. So when Gaussian Splatting emerged, with its ability to reveal places in painterly, atmospheric textures, it was a natural extension of Gnomalab’s practice.

In this conversation, we explore how the studio discovered 3DGS, why it resonated so deeply with their approach, and how they’re pushing its expressive potential across art, heritage, and immersive media.

How did you first discover Gaussian Splatting?

We came across it at the end of 2023. We were fascinated by the possibility of generating almost instant 3D reconstructions, but with a very different aesthetic from the typical mesh: something more atmospheric, with a painterly quality. Gaussian Splatting felt like a kind of digital fog that, instead of concealing, revealed forms and spaces with a living texture.

At Gnomalab, we’ve been working with photogrammetry since the early 2000s, when we used it as a foundation for our large-scale video mappings. We’ve always been interested in incorporating techniques from other domains—engineering, scientific visualization, or simulation—into artistic expression. Gaussian Splatting fits perfectly with that philosophy: not only is it technically precise, but it also offers a visual language of its own. From the very beginning, we saw its enormous potential to bring together art, science, and immersive experiences, and that’s where we knew we could contribute something unique.

What motivated you to start experimenting with it?

At the time, we were searching for new ways to capture and reinterpret architectural spaces—not just to document them, but to transform them into immersive experiences. Gaussian Splatting offered exactly that: a tool capable of producing visually powerful results with an agile, resource-efficient workflow.

From the start, we understood it wasn’t just a “beautiful” technique: it had the potential to open up an entire field of applications, from artistic creation to heritage preservation or content production. That combination of aesthetic and functional value was what pushed us to dive in, knowing we could bring a unique approach that combines technical precision with creative sensitivity.

How has it helped you as a creative medium to explore and create?

It has allowed us to explore narratives that are more sensory and less literal. Because it isn’t a “perfect” photographic representation, the perception of space becomes much more emotional and evocative. That ethereal, fragmented quality that might seem like a flaw is, in fact, a very distinctive visual language.

On top of that, Gaussian Splatting opened the door to working with much larger and more complex scenes without the usual bottlenecks of traditional 3D reconstruction. This means we can now approach everything from immersive installations to large-scale virtual tours, heritage recreations, or XR environments with a smoother workflow and striking results. For us, it’s a tool that not only inspires but also expands the type of projects we can develop.

Can you tell me about the project at the Esglésies de Sant Pere in Terrassa?

The project at the Esglésies de Sant Pere in Terrassa (Barcelona) was one of our first experiments combining Gaussian Splatting with ambient sound. We captured the interior of the churches with an Insta360 Ace Pro, a compact and versatile camera that allowed us to record the environment immersively and with great detail.

The idea was to maintain a sober, elegant aesthetic, so we processed and refined the material in Postshot and After Effects, adjusting color, lighting, and detail to build a solid visual foundation, while letting the particles float softly and create a sense of living space.

One moment that really surprised us was the hand sequence: it wasn’t planned as a “highlight,” but once we saw it reconstructed in 3DGS, it felt very expressive and impactful. We immediately understood that this kind of dreamlike texture is impossible to achieve with traditional methods.

Can you tell me how the ISE opportunity came about and why you chose Gaussian Splatting?

The ISE opportunity came through Catalan Arts, a public entity that promotes the internationalization of artists working in Catalonia. They invited us to be part of the group of artists represented at the event. They were looking for something immersive and impactful but different from the usual. We proposed using Gaussian Splatting on a large scale, combined with immersive projection of a natural environment.

3DGS turned out to be the perfect fit for that context. At the time, we were recording natural spaces near our home, and this technique allowed us to transform them into immersive environments, maintaining their real textures while giving them a painterly reinterpretation. 3DGS enabled us to generate highly detailed and atmospheric scenes without hours of rendering or heavy equipment. Plus, the flexibility of the workflow let us experiment with spatial storytelling and real-time sound synchronization.

How long did it take to develop the ISE exhibition? How long was the final piece, and how did people interact with it?

Developing the ISE exhibition took about three weeks of intense work. The final piece lasted around a minute and a half, since we were sharing the space with other artists.

It was projected in an immersive space where the audience could step inside and experience it from within, accompanied by a custom-designed soundscape created specifically to enhance the sense of immersion.

How was the exhibition received?

The reception was excellent, especially because it surprised visitors with something poetic in a context that was mostly technological and commercial. Several attendees told us it evoked dreams or blurred memories. Hearing people’s impressions live was wonderful—and actually sparked new ideas thanks to their feedback.

The ISE experience allowed us to test our approach to 3D Gaussian Splatting in a real-world setting with a wide audience, helping us identify both technical and narrative points of improvement. These insights will be key as we refine future works, like the piece we’re currently developing, which will premiere this November at the Mira Mov Festival in Barcelona—where we’ll continue exploring the immersive and expressive potential of this technique.

How does having full autonomy over a 3D scene enhance your storytelling capabilities, and how does access to realistic visuals help?

Having full autonomy over a 3D scene allows us to control rhythms, silences, and details—in other words, to build the narrative at every level. When visuals get close to reality, but without being a literal copy, they create a space with huge potential—somewhere between memory and hallucination. That’s precisely the territory we’re interested in exploring.

Access to realistic visuals also gives us freedom to explore ideas that would be impossible in physical settings, or that would require enormous resources. This opens opportunities not only for artistic projects, but also for cultural installations, brand experiences, or heritage tours—contexts where narrative and emotion combine with cutting-edge technology to create tangible, differentiated impact.

What’s your typical workflow? I know you use Postshot and TouchDesigner, but can you tell me a bit more about how you capture and explore reconstructions?

Our workflow combines accessible tools with advanced exploration processes, allowing us to turn ideas into immersive experiences quickly and effectively. We usually capture spaces with cameras, but often just an Android phone with apps like Scaniverse or Polycam is enough—free and intuitive tools that make scanning easy.

We then export the captures and process them in Postshot, later optimizing the models in SuperSplat. This last tool even lets us create invented models, by combining fragments from different scans to generate entirely new landscapes or structures. Right now, we’re exploring this technique to create invented landscapes, mixing and modifying real models—which significantly expands our visual language.

Once the models are ready, we bring them into TouchDesigner, which allows us to work in real time, fine-tune the narrative, rhythms, and details, and experiment with sound, light, and immersive projection. This workflow gives us the freedom to create infinite worlds, explore unique narratives, and deliver experiences that combine technology, aesthetics, and emotion. And because we rely on accessible, efficient tools, we can design scalable projects for artistic, heritage, or commercial collaborations without losing creative control or technical quality.

The visuals you’re creating with TouchDesigner are stunning. Is there anything you’d still like to try with Gaussian Splatting that you haven’t been able to yet?

Yes—there’s so much more we’d like to explore. For instance, integrating Gaussian Splatting with augmented reality or generating walkable live environments, where audiences can move through the space without the need for pre-rendering. We’d also love to experiment with microscopic models, based on footage captured through high-resolution microscopes.

We also want to push its expressive potential further, especially that “mutant painting” effect, to create experiences that evolve in real time, responding to the audience or to sound.

What other creative media do you think will emerge from realistic 3D?

We believe we’ll see many hybrid creative forms, where narratives are generated in real time and the audience plays a more active role—moving from being mere observers to becoming participants in the experience.

For example, I’ve recently been reading about Morpheus, which focuses on 3DGS stylization via text prompts, and it perfectly illustrates the idea of process hybridization.

We also think these “almost real” environments will increasingly be explored for poetic or introspective purposes—not only for video games or technical simulations. There’s a highly sensitive and experimental future to be explored, one that will allow artists, developers, and brands to create immersive experiences that are unique, personalized, and emotionally resonant.

More info:

We explore light and space as expressive media, investigating how they interact with materials, surfaces, and architectures to transform each environment into an active element of the work. We are a curious team in constant exploration of new technologies, which we understand not only as creative tools but also as languages in their own right, capable of generating unique discourses. This vision has led us to integrate techniques from diverse fields, from VJing and live cinema to video mapping, photogrammetry, and advanced 3D visualization, always with the goal of pushing the boundaries of artistic and technological creation.

We frequently collaborate with festivals, cultural institutions, and commercial projects, offering proposals that combine technical innovation, conceptual clarity, and strong audience impact.

• Triptych Study for Vase of Flowers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLfpm_Kt280