Creative Technologist.
live performances and interactive virtual worlds | spatial cinematic storytelling | immersive experience design | computer graphics and animation | game engines | iOS and visionOS mixed reality development | motion capture | volumetric video | AI-powered procedural worldmaking | video installation design and video production | direction and producing
Revolving Red Monuments
iOS augmented reality app, 2024
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Artistic and technical advising and research | Development in Unity engine for iOS platform | Coding | Interaction mechanics | Shaders and VFX programming | User interface | Game engine assets optimization | App Store distribution
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Art, academia, history
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Unity engine, C#, character animation, motion capture, ChatGPT, Apple iOS platform, Maya, MeshLab
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Collaboration with artist Meredith Drum
Revolving Red Monuments is an interactive augmented reality sculpture co-created by Meredith Drum with contributions from Bulgarian artists Albena Baeva, Eva Davidova, Slava Savova, Dessislava Terzieva, Martin Atanasov, Rositsa Getsova, Elena Kaludova, and Kalin Serapionov. Artist Nikita Shokhov served as a Creative Technologist and aesthetic advisor.
The work combines 3D virtual sculptures and poems about war as a way to explore the history and future of Bulgaria’s Soviet monuments. Poems included written by Zhivka Baltadzhieva, Ilya Kaminsky, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, and Wisława Szymborska.
In making this work, Drum is exploring the meaning of these monuments for the future of the countries of the former Soviet Bloc, the former U.S.S.R., and Russia. How do pro-authoritarian, pro-Russian, right-wing figures across Europe and the U.S. view Soviet monuments now, especially those who revere Putin, a former KGB officer? In the 20th Century, Soviet imagery was used by leftist activists in the U.S. to symbolize workers' rights and social programs that benefit the poor. Putin's autocratic behavior, oppressive policies (particularly toward LGBTQ+ communities), violent punishment of his critics, and invasion of Ukraine have rendered Soviet symbols unusable for the American left. Considering these divergent perspectives, might Soviet monuments be altered to reflect the many contradictions and shifts in our political and social zeitgeist?
Drum posits that Augmented reality projects, like Revolving Red Monuments, allow artists and their participants to reframe Soviet monuments with mutable, flexible, and playful media.
Revolving Red Monuments was made between 2022 and 2024 and supported by a CEC ArtsLink Art Prospect Residency in Bulgaria in 2022 as well as by Maria Vassileva, Structura Gallery, ICA-Sofia, and the College of Architecture, Arts and Design at Virginia Tech.
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9 minutes
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since 2024 — on the iOS App Store worldwide
Blockhouse Studios
Immersive Architectural Cinema — Apple Vision mixed reality app, 2024
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Technical research | Development in Unity Engine for Apple Vision mixed reality platform | Coding | Game engine assets editing and optimization | Shaders | User Interface | App Store distribution
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Audiovisual installations, projection mapping, production of architectural cinematic experiences
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Unity engine, C#, ChatGPT, mixed reality pipeline (Unity PolySpatial), Apple visionOS platform, MeshLab
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Commissioned by Blockhouse Studios
The app delivers a virtual version of the massive cinematic show Blockhouse Studios produced for the Palladium concert hall in Carmel, Indiana, to your space. In the App, there are two modes to experience the show: 1. a scaled model you can manipulate with your hands in mixed reality. 2. real-life scale of the building, which you can walk around in VR.
Blockhouse Studios about the digital story: We proudly present “EOS: The First Dawn,” a projection-mapped art installation. Immerse yourself in the ancient mythology of Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn who summons the sunrise in her enchanted gown. She is joined by her two siblings, Helios, the joyous sun god, and Selene, the goddess of the moon. Utilizing multiple industrial projectors, the Palladium is bathed in breathtaking visuals at ultra-high resolution in this unique display of Architectural Cinematography.
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25 minutes
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since 2024 — on the Apple Vision Pro App Store worldwide
Lydia’s Piloting a Hovercraft into Virtual Reality of Human Consciousness
A prototype mixed reality live performance, 2023
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Directing and screenwriting | Live volumetric video production | 3D scanning (Gaussian Splatting) | Development in Unity Engine | Wireless microphone setup | LED displays, video projector and multi-channel video setup, virtual multi-camera rendering | Steering wheel integration and interaction programming | Video documentation: cinematography, sound production, editing.
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Art, live performance, theater
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Unity engine, steering wheel game controller, video projector, LED wall units, live volumetric video streaming (Depthkit Studio), Microsoft Azure DK depth cameras, spatial sound system, wireless mic, photogrammetry scanning (iPhone Luma Gaussian Splatting), cinema lighting, ChatGPT, Windows platform, Nvidia RTX
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A computational theater R&D prototype. A live performance with one actor in a communal mixed reality experience.
The audience comes into the studio — which is a magical virtual ship. Video screens along the walls are windows into the outer, virtual, world, displaying the ship’s movement in real-time as the pilot-performer drives it with a steering wheel.
This prototype aimed to investigate the potential of live performance interacting with the procedural digital world and test the audience’s communal perception of virtual reality.
Collaborating with actress Lydia Li as a pilot of the virtual ship and a guide for the audience, we experimented with a live dialog of physical Lydia with her digital hologram — her unconscious self. The audience holograms appear live spatially in the virtual environment, and there is interaction between this virtual crowd and Lydia navigating that space.
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15 minutes
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2023 — ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program) Fall Open Studios, New York
Artist in the Studio
A metaverse experience - Spatial.io, 2023
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Creative direction | Acting | Scripting | Photogrammetry with Gaussian Splatting (NeRF) | Development in Unity engine for Spatial.io metaverse platform | Animation | Game engine assets creation | Distribution on Spatial
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Art, performance, webXR experiences, game
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Unity engine, keyframe animation, photogrammetry scanning (iPhone Luma Gaussian Splatting), Spatial.io, AR, MeshLab
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Collaboration with Ksenia Kadi
Have you ever wondered what an artist channeling in their studio looks like? This spatial cinematic experience gives a unique opportunity to witness Nikita Shokhov’s ideation process. You can virtually explore his studio in Brooklyn at the moment of creative conceptualization of his new artwork about the human condition in modern technology: quantum computing, machine learning, and human genome editing. ISCP residency, studio #202, Bushwick, NY, 2023.
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8 minutes
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2024 — Plexus Projects, New York
2024 — featured in Quantum Critic digital catalog
2023 — Myymälä2 Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, exhibition project "Quantum Critic"
since 2023 — on Spatial.io worldwide
Hip Hop Lit
Literature study augmented reality experience - iOS app, 2022-2023
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Creative direction, research, and producing | Photogrammetry (industrial handheld scanners) | Volumetric video production | Sound production and sound design | Management of production crew, technical artists, and programmers | Development in Unity engine for iOS platform | Shaders and VFX programming | Coding | Animation | Interaction design | Game engine assets creation | App Store distribution | Video documentation
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Academia, education, music, literature
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Unity engine, C#, animation, volumetric video (Depthkit Studio), Microsoft Azure DK depth cameras, iOS, film production and sound production equipment, MeshLab, Davinci Resolve Studio (video editing, keying, color grading), Premiere Pro (sound and export)
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Collaboration with Tyechia Thompson
Learn some of hip hop's key aesthetics through short augmented reality lectures delivered by Dr. Tyechia Thompson.
This AR app contains introductory lectures from the course "Black American Literature," taught by a digital hologram of Dr. Tyechia Thompson, an assistant professor in the Department of English at Virginia Tech.
This course explores some key aesthetics and some aspects of the philosophy and culture of Hip Hop. After each lesson, this course also features quizzes to evaluate knowledge. "The Sources" contains references made by Dr. Tyechia Thompson in this course. These AR lectures adopt new approaches to teaching and learning using technology.
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30 minutes
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2024 — FIVARS (Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories), Toronto, Official Selection
2023 — Virginia Tech's Department of English, in the academic course "Black American Literature"
since 2023 — on the iOS App Store worldwide
Dragzina
Holographic drag performance - iOS app, 2021-2022
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Creator, director, producer, researcher | Volumetric video production | Sound production and sound design | Management of production crew, technical artists, and programmers | Development in Unity engine for iOS platform | Animation | Coding | Game engine assets creation | App Store distribution | Video documentation
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Art, performance
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Unity engine, C#, keyframe animation, volumetric video (Depthkit Studio), Microsoft Azure depth cameras, iOS, film production and sound production equipment, Davinci Resolve Studio (video editing, keying, color grading), Premiere Pro (sound and export)
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Collaboration with Masha Vorslav and her Dragzina community
This immersive experience challenges your perception of space. The LGBTQIA+ community is often disoriented within heteronormative spaces, and this work reverses that dichotomy by disorienting the audience.
Through the poetics of augmented reality and cinematic holograms, the Dragzina community and I work together to amplify their voices toward freedom of human individuality. You are about to participate in this performance I created in collaboration with Masha Vorslav, a leader of the gender play community in Moscow. Besides Masha, you will see Lorina Rey, Anoche Xenon, Skinny Jenny with Robert, and the Home Drag Race collective of Vanessa Diziai, Ramona Vile, and Vannet.
This virtual magical environment represents a typical underground queer party that allows disruption of the state dictatorship. This is where an image of a better future is born.
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15 minutes
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2024 — CSD Leipzig (with DOK Leipzig film festival)
2024 — Bevhacks, The Brearley School, New York
2022 — Spring/Break Art Show, Los Angeles
2022 — Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, DOK Leipzig film festival, Official Selection
2022 — MEET Digital Culture Center, Milan, VRE22 Virtual Reality Experience, Official Selection
2022 — Athens Digital Arts Festival, Greece
since 2022 — on the iOS App Store worldwide
Pain
Holographic music video - iOS app, 2021
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Producer | Volumetric video production | Sound production | Development in Unity engine for iOS platform | Animation | Coding | Game engine assets creation | Spatial sound design with a sound engineer | App Store distribution | Video documentation
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Music, performance
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Unity engine, C#, keyframe animation, volumetric video (Depthkit Studio), Microsoft Azure depth cameras, iOS, film production and sound production equipment, Davinci Resolve Studio (video editing, keying, color grading), Premiere Pro (sound and export)
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Collaboration with singer Yevtya.
Pain is born inside. Its power depends on your relations with yourself and on how long and how intensely you want to torture yourself. Pain is like a rejected child, which will make you suffer until you adopt it. Pain is me; I'm the rejected child.
Nikita Shokhov is a visual artist, working with immersive environments, video, and photography. Developing new visual experiences using the volumetric video technique, he focuses on the multi-dimensionality of human nature. In this AR work, he portrays the ambivalence of mind together with Yevtya, a creator of a project "Stikhomuzika" (“Poetry-Music”) and a specialist in neurology.
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5 minutes
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2022 — QLD XR Festival, Official Selection, Australia
2021 — Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, Biennale "Art for the Future"
2021 — Cosmoscow International Art Fair (with InArt Gallery)
since 2021 — on the iOS App Store worldwide
Klaxon. My Dear Sweet Friend
360 VR film with interactive elements, 2017-2021
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Creator, director, producer, researcher | 360-degree cinematography | Sound production and post-production | 360-degree video stitching, editing, and compositing | Management of production crew, musicians, and programmers | Development in Unity engine for Meta Quest platform | Animation | Coding | Game engine assets creation | Video documentation
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Immersive film, art
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Unity engine, C#, Meta Quest (Windows PC) platform, Insta360 cameras, film production and post-production workflows, stop-motion animation machine, motion capture, various microphones, ambisonic audio workflows (Sennheiser Ambeo, Zoom Ambisonic, Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation), Mistika VR (360-degree stitching), Davinci Resolve Studio (color grading), After Effects (compositing), Premiere Pro (editing and export), Pro Tools (audio editing and ambisonic mix)
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A collaborative project that is produced with 8 key creators and involved about 160 people in total throughout four years of production.
A laboratory of self-liberation and understanding whiteness and the double consciousness of black people in the United States.
A poetic journey through the intimate world of memories and thoughts of a woman, going through several stages of her life and her different selves.
The audience puts on a VR headset and enters the intimate world of memories and thoughts of a woman. The experience is a journey through the mind and lifetime of the protagonist. This immersive story bridges cinematic and theatre experiences and employs gaze-interactive visual poetry.
The visual narrative unfolds in the subconscious state between dream and wake. In her childhood, she meets a girl, and they become close friends, but the girl suddenly disappears. This event dramatically affects the protagonist's life: she cannot escape the fantasies about her friend. Later, she moved to a big city to model for painters and had a successful career as an artist. However, getting older, she still struggles with obsessive ideas about her childhood friend. Eventually, she realizes that the stress of experiencing society's oppression at a young age forced her to extinguish her black identity to be accepted by an oppressive society. Therefore, a viewer contemplates the woman's life-long process of becoming.
This project, initiated by US-based artists born in Russia, addresses contemporary white immigrants in the United States. To reveal the harmful impacts of white supremacy on the level of sub-consciousness, creators draw from their research on US history, intersectionality, consciousness studies, and in-depth interviews conducted with black studies scholars, artists, and community members.
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75 minutes
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2024 — Bevhacks 2024, The Brearley School, New York
2022 — Loop Barcelona, Spain
2022 — FIVARS (Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories), Grand Jury Prize, Toronto
2020 — Gallery 11.12, Moscow
2020 — Cannes XR Development Showcase, France (with Kaleidoscope), Finalist
2019 — CYFEST (Annual International Festival of Media Art), St. Petersburg
2019 — CalArts Bijou Fest, Santa Clarita
The Last Dodo
Live performance and virtual reality theater hybrid, 2018-2019
[This spherical video is interactive on personal computers; on mobile devices, use Youtube app for proper spherical video playback]
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Immersive video artist | Synchronized remote operation of 12 wireless VR headsets in live performance | 360-degree cinematography | Ambisonic sound production and post-production | 360-degree video stitching, editing, and graphics | Management of production assistants | Video documentation
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Theater, performance
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12 x Oculus Go VR headsets, Wi-Fi video synchronization software, Insta360 Pro cameras, film production and post-production workflows, ambisonic audio workflows, Mistika VR (360-degree stitching), Davinci Resolve Studio (color grading), Premiere Pro (editing, export, sound), DMX theater lighting, spatial sound sustem
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Collaboration with Tom Rhodes and Flying Fire Collective at CalArts
VR fantasia The Last Dodo is a modern allegory that explores elements of fact and fiction within the environment of our given realities. Now an icon of extinction, the dodo as a flightless bird observed by humanity form 1507–1681 on the tropical island of Mauritius, its only natural habitat.
In the first act, the audience of 12 people seated around the stage, wear VR headsets and watch the pre-recorded 360-degree performance from the point of view of a dodo egg in the nest in the center. In the second act, they continue watching the live performance from their own point of view after they take off the headsets.
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25 minutes
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2019 — CalArts Winter Lab, CalArts Theater E400, January
2019 — CalArts Digital Expo, CalArts Theater E400, May
