nl12 | lab
nl12 | lab is an interdisciplinary collaborative of creators working with IX. They have backgrounds in visual arts, music, literature, photography, film, theatre and other media. For this team, creation and research are inseparable. All members have hands-on experience with digital technology and build while developing. Diversity in backgrounds, disciplines and generations is their strength. The team works iteratively based on equality and the understanding that they need each other to progress and create stories that find their way in a world that’s on fire. In the 10 years of existence nl12 | lab has built a strong collective skillset in the IX field and has not only created its own IX stories but also supported other organisations, education institutions and projects.
nl12 | lab was founded in 2016 while working on their first immersive production ‘Frieda en het Ongedierte’, a VR for children. The collective gained international attention with the VR ‘Walzer’ that premiered at the BFI London Film Festival XR in 2022. Since that time nl12 | lab has grown and is now working on the last details of ‘The March’, a VR / exhibition project about the culture of war.
nl12 | lab currently consists of Cris Mollee, Geetanjali Khanna, Leo Erken, Olga Starostina, Jasmine Karimova, Marieke Ornelis, Paulina Cywoniuk, Kiriko Mechanicus and Ayşe Emre. Founding member Frieda Gustavs is presently working on other projects.
Paulina Cywoniuk and Frieda Gustavs.
Cris Mollee (Utrecht, 1999) is a creative technologist. She has been part of nl12 | lab from the start. Her work focuses on digital corporeality and is situated at the intersection of visual art, scenography, and systems design. Through her work, she explores how bodily movement is shaped by technology and computational thinking. She uses the human body as a medium to investigate the computer’s perception, and conversely, she employs the computer’s interpretation to rediscover embodiment.
She completed the Interactive Performance Design program at HKU Theater (Honours) in 2021 as an autonomous maker. At music venue EKKO and during her internship at studio Nick Verstand, she developed into a lighting technician and scenographer. She has collaborated with DGTL, Creative Coding Utrecht, Niek Vanoosterweyck, Ulrike Quade Company, Mainson the Faux, Altin Gün, Luwten, Coloray, Goonie Crew, Jaco Schilp, and SETUP, among others. She has presented her autonomous work at ADE, Uncloud, Freaky Dancing, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Rewire/Tactology Lab, and Lichtkunstfestival Vonk, among others.
Since 2023, she has been a guest lecturer at Immersive Media at the AHK and coaches interdisciplinary projects at the HKU. At Creative Coding Utrecht, she is an artist in residence developing workshops and teaching methods focusing on Artificial Intelligence, theatrical making, and visual arts education for young people.
Geetanjali Khanna (New Delhi, 1991) is a designer and researcher based in Amsterdam, working at the intersection of material culture, digital design and immersive experience. Trained in architecture (Jamia Millia Islamia) and textile design (National Institute of Design, India), with an exchange at ENSCI Les Ateliers in Paris, she holds an MSc in Digital Design (cum laude) from Hogechool van Amsterdam.
Her recent work, Echo, is a speculative immersive installation that transforms digital traces into an experience of memory, identity and loss. Echo was exhibited at Dutch Design Week 2025, Waag Futurelab, Society 5.0 Festival and ThingsCon, and presented at Seminar De Digitale Dood. Her product design work has earned a Red Dot Award, iF Design Award and Good Design Award Japan. Across her recent projects, she investigates how personal and cultural archives can be experienced through ethical, human-centred design.
geetageeta.framer.website
khannageetanjali.myportfolio.com
Leo Erken (Bemmel, 1964) is a visual artist working with IX, installation and (collecting) photography. A former photojournalist and filmmaker. He has hands-on approaches to creating and developing IX media working closely with a very young generation of artists. He is the founder of the nl12 studio and also teaches at St Joost School of Art & Design in Breda.
2026 (with nl12|lab team) Pilot version of ‘The March’ VR at NewImages, Paris. 2025 and 2024: The March at IFFR CineMart and Darkroom Rotterdam. 2023: VR The March receives funding from Immerce\Interact, Filmfonds NL and Stimuleringsfonds NL.
2022: (with Frieda Gustavs), world premiere of VR ‘Walzer’, BFI London Film Festival XR/Expanded. 2016: (with Frieda Gustavs), ‘Frieda en het Ongedierte’ VR film for children. Museum Hilversum, Fotodok Utrecht.
1999-2010 working as a documentary film maker.
1988-2003 working as a photojournalist all over the world, especially the former Soviet Union.
about-leo-erken
Olga Starostina (Kyiv, Ukraine, 1982) worked as art director and project manager at publishers in Kyiv developing interactive and animated projects for children. In 2022, circumstances brought her and her daughter Sasha (5) to the Netherlands, where she joined nl12 | lab to develop VR creation skills, specialising in 3D modelling. She is also a photographer.
Paulina Cywoniuk (Białystok, Poland, 2001) is a graphic designer and game developer. She graduated in 2024 with a virtual reality specialisation from Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
Marieke Ornelis (Antwerp, Belgium, 1999) is a writer and theatre-maker. In 2023, she graduated from the directing programme at the Toneelacademie Maastricht, and in 2025, she will complete her Master’s in Contemporary Theatre, Dance, and Dramaturgy at Utrecht University. She researches literary theatre adaptations and creates music theatre as part of the collective Drie Dagen Fris. She is currently working on her debut novel.
Jasmine Karimova (Colchester UK, 1998) is a Tajik-Australian composer and performer based in the Netherlands, finishing up a master’s in composition at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Her performance practice embraces a multi-faceted approach to musical expression, intertwining voice, organ, and performance art.
She has opened the International Organ Symposium in Amsterdam for three consecutive years and has performed at venues including Muziekgebouw, Koninklijk Theater Carré, and Moscow’s Olympic Stadium. Her compositions have been widely performed, with premieres by the Nederlands Kamerorkest, the CvA Orchestra, and the Capela Choir. Collaborations extend internationally, including work with Belgium’s Hermes Ensemble and Japan’s Hougaku Sannin-Musume trio.
Recent projects include the interdisciplinary performance AIR – 135m3 of Sound for organ and textile installation, the children’s piece ‘Mia en de Leeuw’, and ‘The Whale’ for electronics, soprano, chamber orchestra, and video. Her work ‘Boom Verzen’, awarded the Wonderfeel × Keep an Eye production prize, premiered at Wonderfeel Festival in Amsterdam in July 2025 and was subsequently restaged at November Music 2025. Most recently, she composed ‘Mispoes’, a children’s opera for Holland Opera.
Ayşe Emre (Leiden, 1997) is an installation artist based in The Hague. She graduated Cum Laude at St Joost School of Art & Design in 2023. Her work begins where photography falls short, in the space between what can be captured and what must be experienced. Using projection, reflection, fire and light, she creates environments that invite both observation and sensation. Ayşe is drawn to fleeting phenomena, to things that move, burn, shimmer and disappear. Her installations respond to their surroundings and are shaped by weather, time and presence. She works with image as a process, not a product. Influenced by early optical devices and her own manifesto against lifeless art, she creates spaces that invite attention, evoke presence and exist only for a moment. In a world that is both brutal and magnificent, Ayşe creates environments where fleeting moments are not captured, but shared.
2026 Vilnius Light Festival (Vilnius, LT), Museumnacht Alkmaar, Podium Victorie (Alkmaar, NL), Emergence Festival, Onderzeebootloods (Rotterdam, NL), Cinemachine, Het Werkwarenhuis (‘s- Hertogenbosch, NL), Scenography E-Live Nicolaïkerk (Utrecht, NL) 2024 Guest curator Lichtkunstfestival LUNA (Leeuwarden, NL), Group exhibition, Patch Studios (Den Haag, NL), The New Current, Brutus (Rotterdam, NL), Young Masters Lichtkunstfestival LUNA (Leeuwarden, NL)
Kiriko Mechanicus (Amsterdam, 1995) is a Japanese-Dutch documentary filmmaker, fiction/non-fiction writer, culinary historian, researcher, photographer and art director. Her graduation film ‘A Tomato Tragedy’ (2023) at the Netherlands Film Academy was screened at the Netherlands Film Festival and won the Filmfonds Wildcard. She directs music videos, short docs and experimental films
while contributing to Vice, Hard//Hoofd and Oerol’s daily paper.
Kiriko was commissioned to write a poem for Italian President Mattarella’s visit marking the EU’s 30th anniversary in the Netherlands.
2026 Her new film ‘How to Catch a Butterfly’ recently premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas, USA.
Advisor: Frieda Gustavs (Stralsund, Germany, 1996) is an Amsterdam-based composer, performer and virtual reality creator. She graduated cum laude with a Master’s degree in 2022 and a Bachelor’s in 2020 from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. During an Erasmus exchange in 2018, she studied at the Musikschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden. Her progressive and acclaimed music has been presented at ADE, Opera Forward Festival, Holland Festival, Gaudeamus Music Week, Dag van de Componist, Oranjewoud Festival, Wonderfeel, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Orgelpark Amsterdam, Tivoli Vredenburg Utrecht, Amare Den Haag and various other halls and festivals around the Netherlands. In december 2024 she released diepvriesfruit, an album of genre-bridging songs. She seeks to challenge conventional structures, also the boundaries between disciplines.
In 2016, at age 18, she created a VR for children with Leo Erken: Frieda en het Ongedierte, where she starred, composed and recorded the music/soundscape. In 2021 came Walzer, a non-linear virtual reality about women’s rights that premiered at BFI London Film Festival XR/Expanded 2022. That same year she won the Young Art Support Amsterdam Prize. This was followed by the VR The March (also with Leo Erken and the nl12|lab team), scheduled to premiere in 2026.
Frieda on Spotify
www.friedagustavs.net
Studio NL12 is located in the
Film Centre Amsterdam
Van Hallstraat 52
1051 HH Amsterdam
amsterdam@nl12.nl