The Romance of Technology by David Van Eyssen
Event Date:
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Time: 2:00 PM
Location:
The Wende Museum
10808 Culver Blvd.
Culver City, CA
Free with RSVP
What happens when technology becomes more than a tool — when it becomes a reflection, a counterpart, even a source of longing? In The Romance of Technology, artist and immersive storyteller David Van Eyssen invites audiences into a visually charged, deeply personal talk exploring the strange intimacy we’ve developed with machines.
Part memoir, part manifesto, this multimedia experience unfolds through video, sound, extended reality, and AI interventions. At its core is a question many of us feel but rarely articulate: how do the very tools that shape our digital lives mirror our inner ones?
Known for his genre-defying transmedia series RCVR and a career spanning campaigns for brands like BMW, Google, and Pepsi, Van Eyssen has long been at the forefront of interactive media. But this isn’t a retrospective — it’s an invitation into his creative psyche, where the alienation of technology becomes fertile ground for reflection, and distance gives rise to connection.
“Technology’s alienating qualities draw me to it. They heighten my awareness that reality is always just out of reach,” says Van Eyssen. “In that way, it becomes a mirror of my own isolation, and offers the critical distance I need to create. Over time, I’ve come to see its presence in every aspect of art-making. That’s why I fell in love with it: because it’s the counterpart, the reflection — inescapable, and brutally honest.”
Presented as part of the Wende Museum’s Art Across Boundaries series, The Romance of Technology reframes the machine not as a threat to our humanity, but as a way to understand it more deeply. With generous support from Skip Victor and in partnership with LAist, the event promises both conceptual boldness and unexpected beauty.
Whether you come for the visuals, the ideas, or the rare chance to hear from a pioneer of immersive storytelling, The Romance of Technology is a space to rethink how we feel about the technologies we live with and within.
About David Van Eyssen
David Van Eyssen is a multimedia artist whose work reflects his fascination with time, memory, and the beauty of impermanence. Originally from London, he started as a painter and installation artist, later expanding his creative journey to Los Angeles, where he made a name for himself in entertainment and advertising. His art practice combines his painterly instincts with his experience in filmmaking to create video-based work, site-specific projections, virtual and extended reality pieces, AI-infused photography, lenticular images, and 2.5D prints.
In his art, memory and impermanence intersect, inviting viewers to see transformation rather than loss. Through self-portraits that obscure his presence, videos that merge and reverse years of imagery, and lenticular pieces that compress time, David explores what he calls the “sensation of personal impermanence” — a poetic look at how time and identity can vanish yet continue to transform.
David's creative journey began early — he exhibited at Goldsmiths College of Art at just 14, two years after building his first personal computer. His work now resides in private collections across the U.S. and Europe, with support from technology sponsors like Varjo, LG Electronics, and Panasonic.
Read our interview with David to learn more about his art, creative process, and inspirations.
We share works by digital artists as well as digital arts exhibitions, events, and open calls daily on Instagram — follow us for more and subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss new blog posts.
