Rubén Grilo uses different media such as PowerPoint presentations, textiles, laser animation, sound, smell, raw materials, found and industrially produced objects. The work is normally sculptural and takes the form of installations in which complexity, analogies and the physical qualities of display play a major role. His point of departure is the problematic notion of ‘art as information’ from the 1950s and 60s —the alleged intangibility of art versus its necessary process of formalisation, reification and appropriation.

At Gasworks, Grilo continued his research and work on industrialist Samuel Slater, known in North America for making a replica of a British cotton weaving machine in the 1780's.  This focus on Slater relates to the artist’s broader interest in connectivity and the way it helps to shape cultural and technological evolution through the creation of networks. He used reversed engineering to reproduce a number of industrial chocolate moulds, which were assembled modularly.

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Rubén Grilo lives in Spain and Germany. Past shows include Mit eigener Hand at Kunstverein Hildesheim (2014), Twenty Thousand Years of Yarn (curated by Grilo) at Future Gallery, Berlin (2014), Drawings of Alien Control at V4ULT, Berlin (2013), The Need for Speed at CIRCA Projects, Newcastle (2013), Sudden Glory at Nogueras Blanchard, Madrid (2012) and Bioscope at Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam (2012). He was awarded the fellowship of the Botin Foundation, Santander (2013) and was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (2011-2012).

Rubén Grilo’s residency is supported by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and is hosted in The Roberts Residency Studio.