When Does an Experience Become Sculpture?

For centuries, sculpture has been understood as something solid and permanent. Marble, bronze, wood, steel—objects occupying physical space, inviting us to walk around them, admire their craftsmanship, and perhaps reflect on their meaning.

But what happens when the artwork asks us to do more than simply look?

This week, Frieze London announced that the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award has been awarded to Greek artist Theo Triantafyllidis. His new commission, Feral Metaverse (Spider), is described as a climbable sculpture that also functions as the entry point to a live multiplayer video game. Rather than standing quietly in a gallery, visitors must climb, cooperate, balance, and interact with one another to experience the work. The project intentionally blurs the line between sculpture, performance, digital technology, and social interaction.

It's a fascinating development because it raises a larger question:

When does an experience become sculpture?

For much of art history, the object itself carried the work. The sculpture was the artwork. Today's artists increasingly ask whether the artwork is the object—or the experience it creates.

Installation art transformed galleries into environments. Performance art shifted attention from objects to actions. Digital technology expanded those ideas further, allowing viewers to become participants rather than observers. In many contemporary works, the audience is no longer standing outside the artwork; they are helping to complete it.

This shift reflects a broader change in how we think about creativity. The value of a work is no longer found solely in what it is made from, but in what it asks us to do, think, or feel.

Technology has accelerated that transformation. Virtual reality, artificial intelligence, multiplayer environments, and interactive installations are giving artists entirely new materials to work with. The canvas is no longer limited to paint, and sculpture is no longer confined to physical form.

Yet despite all this innovation, the questions artists ask remain surprisingly familiar.

How do we connect?

How do we perceive reality?

How do shared experiences shape meaning?

The tools evolve, but the human questions endure.

What makes Triantafyllidis' commission particularly interesting is that it doesn't appear to treat technology as the subject of the artwork. Instead, technology becomes one material among many—no different than steel, stone, light, or sound. The real artwork emerges through cooperation, physical presence, and the unpredictable interactions between strangers.

Perhaps that is where contemporary sculpture is heading.

Not away from objects, but beyond them.

The most memorable artworks of the future may not be the ones we simply look at. They may be the ones we inhabit, influence, and carry with us long after we've left the gallery.

As artists continue experimenting with new technologies and new forms of participation, one thing seems increasingly clear:

The definition of sculpture is expanding. Maybe just the act of play is where art is born.

And perhaps that's exactly what art has always done best—challenge our assumptions about what it can be.