Omar Gilani

Omar Gilani is a self-taught digital artist and creative director whose work bridges robotics, South Asian heritage, and speculative futurism. Originally trained as an engineer, he holds an MSc and MPhil in Robotics and Mechanical Engineering and began a PhD before transitioning fully into visual art. His technical background continues to shape his creative approach, bringing systems-based thinking and structural precision to projects that explore culture, memory, and technological acceleration. Gilani began his artistic journey in the games industry, where he developed expertise across digital painting, 3D environments, animation, and immersive media. His commercial portfolio includes contributions to globally recognized intellectual properties such as Star Wars and Transformers. Alongside this professional work, he cultivated a fine arts practice that would come to define his voice within contemporary digital culture. He is best known for his pioneering Pakistan+ series, which introduced a distinctly “desi sci-fi” aesthetic. Through cyberpunk reinterpretations of Pakistani urban landscapes, Gilani challenges Western-dominated visions of science fiction and asserts South Asian identity within speculative futures. Drawing on augmented reality, virtual reality, projection mapping, and animation, his work reimagines architectural forms, vehicles, visual motifs, and soundscapes as hybrid cultural artifacts—at once familiar and futuristic. Exhibited internationally, Gilani’s practice positions him as an important voice in Global South futurism. His work continues to explore how tradition, identity, and cultural memory evolve within rapidly shifting technological environments, asking what persists—and what transforms—when societies move into accelerated digital futures.