Research & development is the core practice of the Virtual Acting Studio. It is not a separate phase, but the way the studio works evolves and continuously deepens its understanding of performance. It begins with self-initiated questions around character, identity, presence, and believability and unfolds through hands-on experimentation across virtual reality, motion capture, volumetric capture, digital humans, emotionally intelligent AI systems, and embodied and expressive robotics.

The studio works in ongoing exchange with external labs, think tanks, and funded programs, while at the same time developing its own lines of inquiry within the emerging field of character creation and acting in the age of virtual worlds, AI, and robotics. At its core, the work explores how performance shifts when character is distributed across human, digital, and embodied systems—extending into its broader impact on humans and society.