Mikhail Maksimov’s practice focuses on programming potential worlds by testing the boundaries of digital media. He works in 3D video and modeling, machinima, video games, mobile apps, and neural network generators. His works are often expanded into installations, objects, and poly‑narrative situations.
His attention to the ontology of technological spaces, unusual for the Russian‑speaking art scene, is combined with an inter¬est in mysticism, religion, language systems, infrastructures of knowledge, and historical processes.
The Archive of Transgression, an installation version of his work Flyover (2024), offers a VR experience that combines a sense of flying with liminal states in a dream. “The mechanics of flight or, generally, of movement through the air reveal people’s curiosity and interest in learning, since despite the differences in flying techniques they are all essentially about collecting experiences or even real objects through which the flight takes place,” Maksimov says.
Viewers are invited on a journey over endless swampland using modified controller wings to explore elements of this archive (experiences stored on VHS tapes) at Life Collection Points.
- / Author