Extend

Extend is a website designed to support a new generation of artists exploring the intersection of art and technology. Created for the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), the website acts as both a public-facing program hub and a growing resource for artists working across immersive and digital forms.

Our strategy for Extend brings together opportunities, ideas, and knowledge into a single, accessible platform connecting artists, technologists, and audiences around a shared ambition to expand how contemporary art is created and experienced, and making a complex and evolving field feel open, navigable, and inclusive.

Similarly, our design response is bold, reflecting the experimental nature of the program and PICA’s position at the forefront of artistic practice.

PICA has long been recognised as a leader at the intersection of art forms, supporting artists who challenge boundaries and explore new modes of expression.

Through Creative Australia’s Digital Specialist in Residence program, Distil partnered with PICA to explore how immersive technologies could play a more central role in the organisation’s future.

The ambition was clear. PICA wanted to create an immersive arts program that would support artists across Western Australia in experimenting with technology in ways that deepen artistic ideas and transform the audience experience.

The challenge was not simply to design a website. It was to help define a new program from the ground up, shape its vision, structure, and long-term direction, and translate that into a platform that could support both its immediate launch and its future growth.

Over the course of three months, Distil worked closely with PICA and its advisory board to give the Extend program form and direction. This process involved developing a draft multi-year digital strategy for the organisation, identifying how immersive practices could be embedded across PICA’s programming, and defining Extend's role within that broader vision.

Extend emerged as a three-year program designed to support artists at all stages of their careers in expanding their practice through technology. It provides multiple entry points for participation, encouraging experimentation across disciplines while building capability within the Australian arts sector.

At its core, the program explores how digital tools can deepen the concept, meaning, and impact of an artwork, bridging spatial and sensory boundaries to create experiences felt as much as seen.

With the program defined, Distil translated Extend into a digital platform serving both artists and audiences.

The website functions as a central touchpoint across two phases. At launch, it acts as a marketing destination, onboarding potential artists through an application funnel while communicating PICA’s broader vision for immersive art.

Once the program is underway, it becomes a complete platform, supporting artists to discover opportunities, access resources, and understand how to engage with the program. Content is structured for exploration, with video, imagery, and text woven together in a responsive interface that adapts seamlessly across devices, allowing users access program information, artist content, and supporting resource materials.

The design adopts a bold, digital glitch aesthetic that takes PICA’s existing brand into new territories, creating a distinct digital-first identity. Strong typography, dynamic layouts, and high-contrast visual treatments generate a sense of energy and experimentation while maintaining clarity and usability. A subtle interactive layer runs through the homepage, coded using the same shader tools available to artists in the program, producing a morphing, pixelated background.

PICA Extend positions the organisation at the forefront of immersive arts development in Australia.

By combining strategic thinking with a carefully crafted digital platform, the project establishes a strong foundation for a program that will evolve over multiple years: supporting artists, fostering experimentation, and expanding how contemporary art is experienced.

For Distil, the project demonstrates the value of working upstream and shaping not just the platform but also the program and the thinking that underpin it.