Pascal Sender：游离的当代性与技术视觉的重塑
Pascal Sender：Dispersed Contemporaneity and the Reshaping of Technological Vision
Pascal Sender：Dispersed Contemporaneity and the Reshaping of Technological Vision
Interviewer: steffi
Date: 05/07/2025
Keywords: contemporary life / everyday experience / AR
Date: 05/07/2025
Keywords: contemporary life / everyday experience / AR
帕斯卡·森德(Pascal Sender) 曾在德国杜塞尔多夫艺术学院(Kunstakademie Dusseldorf) 学习，师从彼得·多伊格(Peter Doig)，后移居伦敦，就读于Roval Academy of Arts。Sender对当代生活的一切感兴趣，并常常以此作为他的作品主题。沉迷于玩手机的前台接待员、正在摆姿势自拍的健身爱好者、等待公交车的男人... 他笔下人物形象呈现出的复杂性，都是基于对当代生活日常场景的深入研究。除了绘画，Sender还积极创新，借助增强现实技术为观众带来独特的观画体验。他参与了诸多展览，并于2020年在伦敦萨奇雅茨举办个人展览，以及2023 年在威尼斯的贝威拉瓜·拉玛萨基金会(Fondazione Bevilaqua La Masa)举办个人展览T人机验证 2826，(Captcha 2826)。
Pascal Sender studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Peter Doig before relocating to London to continue his education at the Royal Academy of Arts. His practice reflects a sustained engagement with the quotidian dimensions of contemporary life, which he transforms into recurring subjects of his work. Receptionists absorbed in their phones, fitness enthusiasts posing for selfies, men waiting for buses—these seemingly banal scenarios are rendered with striking complexity, grounded in Sender’s meticulous observation of everyday experience.
Beyond painting, Sender actively explores new modes of spectatorship by incorporating augmented reality technologies, offering audiences an expanded and hybrid visual encounter. His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at the Saatchi Yates Gallery in London in 2020, and Captcha 2826 at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice in 2023.
Pascal Sender studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Peter Doig before relocating to London to continue his education at the Royal Academy of Arts. His practice reflects a sustained engagement with the quotidian dimensions of contemporary life, which he transforms into recurring subjects of his work. Receptionists absorbed in their phones, fitness enthusiasts posing for selfies, men waiting for buses—these seemingly banal scenarios are rendered with striking complexity, grounded in Sender’s meticulous observation of everyday experience.
Beyond painting, Sender actively explores new modes of spectatorship by incorporating augmented reality technologies, offering audiences an expanded and hybrid visual encounter. His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at the Saatchi Yates Gallery in London in 2020, and Captcha 2826 at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice in 2023.
Pascal Sender在工作室
Pascal Sender in the Studio
A: Welcome to Artisle! Could you briefly introduce yourself? How do you perceive and position the identity of being an “artist”?
P: 其实我从来不觉得“艺术家”这个词是个特别准确的定义，它有点太广了。我更喜欢把自己看作是一位创意工作者。我的创作更像是设计一个棋盘，而非下棋的那个人，这是我一切工作的起点。对我来说，创意和自由是并行的，这可能就是我体内“艺术家”部分的体现。
P: I have never considered the term “artist” to be a particularly precise definition—it feels far too broad. I prefer to regard myself as a creative practitioner. My practice is less about playing the game than about designing the board itself, which for me is the true point of departure for all my work. Creativity and freedom unfold in parallel, and it is perhaps within this intersection that what others might call the “artist” in me is most clearly revealed.
A: In your work Dhalsim, you reference a character from the video game Street Fighter, and in other pieces we can also see visual languages drawn from gaming and manga—such as the lightness of the airbrush technique and the bold contours reminiscent of comic-book aesthetics. What role do these visual strategies play in your practice?
P: Dhalsim这个名字确实来自《街头霸王》里的角色名，他可以无限伸展手臂，作为一个爱打乒乓的人，我可能希望自己也做到像他那样，还有那么长的手臂。这幅作品更多表现了一个人身体里的“猛兽”：在体育运动中，你经常需要让自己体内的猛兽出笼，但又控制住它。某种角度上，我试图用一种漫画的方式去视觉化这个瞬间，然后没有任何草稿、计划的自由发挥，使作品自然诞生。
P: The title Dhalsim indeed comes from the Street Fighter character, who can infinitely extend his arms. As someone who plays a lot of ping pong, I may have wished for such arms myself. More importantly, the work seeks to capture the “beast” within the human body: in sports, you often need to unleash that inner beast, but at the same time keep it under control. From a certain perspective, I was attempting to visualize this moment in a comic-like manner—working without drafts or preconceived plans, allowing the piece to emerge through spontaneous, unmediated gestures.
关于流行文化，我一直试图以一种坦率而直接的方式运用它。我曾经做过一个《辛普森家庭》的系列，我画了其中辛普森家的角色形象来探讨童年是什么样的，并且试图摒除一切社会既定规则去想象家庭和童年的概念。虽然我有时候也会觉得如此大幅创造辛普森一家略有“羞耻”，但我并没有简单复制他们的风格，而是从记忆中提取灵感，再用我自己的方式呈现。例如看到辛普森一家，我会立刻联想到家庭的形象。在当代艺术市场中，我努力让自己的创作不至于太过扁平、难以接近。这些流行文化形象为观众提供了一个象征性的切入点，引导他们进入我的画作。
With regard to popular culture, I have always sought to engage with it in a frank and direct manner. For instance, I once developed a series around The Simpsons, painting the characters in order to reflect on the nature of childhood, and to imagine family and childhood outside of the pre-existing social frameworks that usually define them. At times, I felt a certain “shame” in producing such large-scale works featuring the Simpsons, yet I never simply replicated their style. Rather, I drew inspiration from memory and reinterpreted it through my own visual language. For me, encountering the Simpsons immediately evokes the idea of family. Within the contemporary art market, I try to prevent my work from becoming overly flat or inaccessible. These pop-cultural images function as symbolic entry points, guiding viewers into the deeper layers of my paintings.
Dhalsim, 2023, Oil on canvas, 300 x 200cm
Lisa Marie Simpson, Oil on canvas, 190 x 290cm
A: Your paintings are charged with a strong sense of motion—for instance, the back-and-forth trajectory of a ping-pong ball. While these fleeting moments are fixed within the two-dimensional frame of a static image, you have also developed your own AR software, enabling viewers to perceive dynamic elements beyond the canvas through an app or installation in the exhibition space. How do you integrate augmented reality with painting as two distinct media? And in what ways does this allow you to extend the notion of “time” beyond the pictorial surface?
P：这也是为什么我会称自己既是艺术家、又是软件开发者、摄影师。今天的创作往往是跨领域的。我的 AR app 虽然是程序，但我以艺术的方式开发它。我对时间性的创作很感兴趣，总在尝试连接不同的层次。对我来说，创作像一个游乐场。我把画作当作草稿，再通过 3D 软件叠加时间维度。我所有的画作都在探索“时间的游乐场”——将静态图像、拼贴与图像识别、追踪等要素连接，让一种混合的动态得以维持一段时间。
P: This is precisely why I describe myself not only as an artist, but also as a software developer and photographer. Contemporary practice is, in many ways, inherently cross-disciplinary. Although my AR app is a piece of software, I approach its development through an artistic lens. I am deeply interested in temporality, and I am constantly experimenting with ways of connecting its different layers. For me, creation resembles a kind of playground. I treat painting as a draft, upon which I superimpose the temporal dimension through 3D software. All of my works are, in a sense, explorations of a “playground of time”—linking static images, collage, image recognition, and tracking in order to sustain a hybrid dynamism across a certain duration.
这些层级是互动的、随机的。我的作品里有用程序设定的动画片段，观众每次观看看到的内容都不同，是非线性、回应预期的反馈机制。它产生了一种“接近现实”的感受，并形成我展览的主线之一。
These layers are interactive and inherently random. Within my work, certain animated sequences are programmed into the system, yet each viewing produces a different outcome for the audience. What emerges is a nonlinear feedback mechanism that responds to expectations in unpredictable ways. This process generates a sensation of being “close to reality,” and has become one of the central threads running through my exhibitions.
Pascal Sender 自主研发的 AR 应用
Pascal Sender’s Self-Developed AR App
Pascal Sender在工作室
Pascal Sender in the Studio
A: In this sense, your works seem to exist in a state of perpetual “unfinishedness.” Does this dynamic alter the degree of control you hold as a creator, and how does it reshape your relationship with the audience?
P: 我非常痴迷于“未完成”的状态——变化中的事物、运动中的状态。互动可能已不足以描述这类作品，它们处于数百万种可能性的状态中。虽然我的项目听起来可能更简单，但我现在可以上传一个视频到自己设计的网站，所有 app 用户就能立刻看到。视频还会不断更新，即使没有观众也一样。我可以随时修改、替换或改变它们。
P: I am deeply fascinated by the condition of the “unfinished”—by things in flux, states in motion. The term “interaction” may no longer be sufficient to describe such works, as they inhabit a field of millions of possible variations. While my projects might sound deceptively simple, I can now upload a video to a website I designed, and it immediately becomes accessible to all users of the app. The video continues to evolve and update, regardless of whether there is an audience. At any moment, I can modify, replace, or transform these elements.
Scootari, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 180 x 130cm
Rollanada, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 200 x 160cm
A: In the works presented in Happy Hour, modes of transportation appear frequently. What particular significance do they hold within this series?
P: 我想到的还是运动，这次展览中确实有很多作品里都有移动工具的出现，不过从三、四年前开始我就在为这次展览做准备，而这次展出的是从中挑选的一部分。我并不刻意安排这些交通工具的出现，但像电动滑板车这类元素非常当代，它们容易使用，也很好玩，已经成为我们生活中的一部分。我希望通过画面呈现出这些有趣的瞬间与人物的状态，让大家都能体会其中的趣味。
P: For me, it always comes back to the notion of movement. It is true that many of the works in this exhibition feature vehicles or means of mobility, though the preparations for this project began three or four years ago, and what is shown here is only a selection. I did not deliberately plan for these transport motifs to appear, but elements such as electric scooters are highly contemporary—they are accessible, playful, and have become part of our everyday lives. I wanted to capture these moments of lightness and the states of the figures involved, so that viewers might also experience the sense of enjoyment embedded within them.
Detailed Shot of Skatoni, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 190 x 150cm
A: Compared to the other works in this series, Pleasure Hunter conveys a markedly different atmosphere—quiet, transcendent, with the vast expanse of blue across its monumental scale evoking both mystery and beauty. What role does this painting play within the exhibition, and how does it relate to the other works?
P: 通常我不是为某个展览特别创作作品，而是先创作大量作品，再挑选其中一部分。但这幅画是我有意识创作的。我知道它将在展览中起到平衡空间的重要作用。尽管当时我不确定这个大尺寸能否顺利展出，但我对这幅画有非常清晰的构想：画一个坐在鲸鱼背上的人。我的创作完全不依赖图像参考，而是从记忆中直接提取灵感，放任意识自由流淌。
P: Normally, I do not create works specifically for an exhibition; instead, I produce a large body of work and later select pieces from it. But this painting was conceived quite intentionally. I knew it would serve as a crucial anchor, balancing the spatial dynamics of the exhibition. At the time, I was not certain whether such a large-scale piece could be shown successfully, but I had a very clear vision: to paint a figure seated upon the back of a whale. My process here did not rely on visual references—I drew directly from memory, allowing consciousness to flow freely.
PleasureHunter, 2024, Mixed media on canvas, 500 x 250cm
Happy Hour, 2025
A: In works such as CryptoArenata, figures and architectural elements are layered upon one another, yet beneath this apparent fusion lies a sense of “glitch” or dissonance. Does this glitch-like quality emerge simultaneously in both your physical and digital works? And what does it signify for you?
P: 我觉得这种“故障”使作品更真实。尤其在今天 AI 广泛使用、图像变得越来越完美的背景下，我反而更关注“不完美”。我更愿意让作品永远不完美、永远在更新中。这些微小的“错误”构成了我作品的核心。数字领域允许你不断修正和完善，但我更愿意让作品停留在“未完成”的状态中，不断生成新的形态。
P: I believe that this sense of “glitch” renders the work more authentic. Especially today, in a context where AI is so widely used and images are becoming increasingly flawless, I find myself drawn to imperfection instead. I prefer my works to remain perpetually imperfect, perpetually in a state of revision. These small “errors” are in fact central to my practice. The digital realm enables infinite correction and refinement, yet I deliberately allow the work to remain “unfinished,” continually generating new forms.
CryptoArenata, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 300 x 210cm
Electron, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 190 x 140cm
A: You have mentioned that you are not an artist who works according to strict plans. Are there any forthcoming projects you can share with us?
P：即将在伦敦牛津街的沉浸式空间展出名为《SEVEN11》的项目。那是一个很酷的多媒体空间，我会把新完成的作品挂在巨大的 LED 屏幕上，并尝试用 CGI 作为背景。这是一次疯狂的实验，我非常期待。
P: I am about to present a project titled SEVEN11 in an immersive space on Oxford Street in London. It is a very exciting multimedia venue, where I will display newly completed works on massive LED screens while experimenting with CGI as a backdrop. It will be a kind of wild experiment, and I am very much looking forward to it.
同时，我也在尝试用 AI 工具来进行自画像的创作。我不指望它只是生成图像，而是希望它真正反映自我。我在思考：如何让 AI 成为像画笔一样可控的工具？这些问题都在我不断的“试验”和“游戏”中发展。我只是想更好地使用它们，成为创作的一部分。
At the same time, I have been experimenting with AI tools to create self-portraits. I do not expect them to merely generate images; rather, I want them to reflect something of the self. My question is: how can AI become a controllable tool, like a paintbrush? These inquiries unfold through ongoing “experiments” and “play.” What matters to me is learning how to use such tools more effectively, so that they become an integrated part of the creative process.
SEVEN11 @W1 Curates, 2025