Kalman Pool completed his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019, followed by his MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London in 2021. Concurrently he attended the Swatch Art Peace Hotel as an artist-in-residence, where he was invited to create a Swatch X You artist special watch. In 2023, he was invited to create a large-scale installation “WEAVVY 海宇” for Lincoln China, which was showcased at the biennial Auto Shanghai Show.

Inspired by BioArt, Natural History, and the inflatable dummies used by the U.S. top-secret “Ghost Army” in WWII, Pool’s interdisciplinary works combine VR techniques and inflatable to create installations and digital pieces. Kalman uses mechanical reproduction knowingly to question the authenticity of the original, whilst the vibrant aliveness of the sculptures themselves goes beyond the mundanity of simulacra.

“Despite being an artwork made using a mechanical reproduction method and a simulacrum simulated through utopian VR, each of my inflatable sculptures gives life in virtue of its physically inflated body with the possibility of interaction with its natural surroundings.”