Maxim Zhestkov’s Visionary Art
Maxim Zhestkov is a pioneering digital artist and designer known for creating mesmerizing visual experiences that blend geometric precision with organic fluidity. With a background in architecture, his work spans video art, 3D animation, and interactive installations, exploring the dynamic relationships between shapes, colors, and movement. Maxim Zhestkov’s art delves into the underlying principles of the universe, such as gravity and magnetism, creating living, pulsating entities that fuse art and science. His innovative approach has established him as a leading figure in the digital art world, continually pushing the boundaries of visual storytelling.
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Your work seamlessly fuses digital design, physics, and motion to create immersive, almost meditative experiences. Can you walk us through your creative process? How do you balance the technical aspects of your craft with the conceptual and emotional depth you aim to convey?
Concept and image are always emerging first in my process. Mostly, inspiration comes for me from non-technical, and sometimes, non-digital sources: sculpture, illustration, philosophical ideas. I do not aim to dive immediately into developing digital environments — my process begins with words and sketches on paper.
I spend some time thinking about what I want to explore and look for, and only after that, do I move on to digital environments together with my team at the studio. During technical research and iterations, the idea might transform to a degree, but mostly it is defined from visual and experiential angles, while the concept stays at the core of the piece.
Your projects often play with a minimalist approach, yet they reveal an underlying complexity in movement and form. How do you achieve this delicate balance between simplicity and intricacy in your compositions? What are the philosophical or artistic influences that guide this aesthetic choice?
I like to explore the contrast of simplicity and intricacy in two ways. One can be called ‘horizontal’: it is when a minimalist background and a complex hero object or subject have the same scale and are present at the same level of perception. It is a relationship of a ‘universe within a universe’ — an intricate entity with its own principles gets inserted into the context, and this event results in new spatial and semantic relations, like a person in a room or a contemporary art piece in a white cube of a gallery.
Another approach is ‘vertical’: when we zoom in or out to see other layers of something that appears simple. Like in the Powers of Ten film by Ray and Charles Eames, we approach a seemingly uniform surface and see the hidden systems of molecules and atoms inside it.
From the philosophical standpoint, I like Wittgenstein and the idea that things I make help me understand the world around me better. My experiments are not necessarily a creation of something new, but a discovery of things and systems that already exist. I see all my projects as this search for what is possible in spatial and visual languages but is yet unknown to me.
Your art often feels like a living entity, with forms evolving organically and fluidly. How do you envision the evolution of digital sculpture in the coming years, especially as new technologies like AI and virtual reality become more integrated into the creative process? Do you see your work as a bridge between traditional sculpture and future forms of digital expression?
For me, digital explorations are similar to traditional sculpture, just happening in another medium that adds motion to the static sculptural form. These systems are based on natural rhythms and interactions, so they act similarly to living organisms, but they do not have any agency, and their behaviour is pre-defined.
With the advance of AI technologies, we might see how this changes, and digital subjects become presented in a way that we are used to in the natural world — not just a voice in a chat, but a digital lifeform that interacts with its surroundings and perceives the environment.
The physical properties of your digital objects—such as gravity, fluidity, and tension—play a significant role in your work. How do you approach the use of algorithms and physics simulations in your art? Do you view these tools as extensions of your creative mind, or are they co-creators that introduce elements of surprise and unpredictability into your work
Working with physics and algorithms is fascinating for me, as it shows how small changes in the initial conditions can cause a significant shift in the result, and how complexity emerges when simple elements and behaviours get combined in structures and feedback loops.
I definitely allow for a surprise in the process of working with simulations and treat algorithms as co-creators. As the end result is always somewhat unpredictable, lucky accidents can happen and give another dimension to the story or become a foundation for another idea.
Your installations and videos have a profound impact on viewers, often evoking a sense of awe and introspection. In your opinion, how does digital art influence the way we perceive reality and our emotions? Do you see your art as a medium that can alter or expand human consciousness, perhaps even redefining what we consider to be “reality”?
I create my artworks to explore something I care about, and I am happy they affect someone else and help them uncover things for themselves. I think digital art medium is especially interesting for communication with the viewer, since it can include interactivity and even deeper immersion into the art piece.
This is what I am currently interested in, as I am working on a game project and plan to create more interactive art installations, where the person is not just an observer, but an actor that can change the system inside the limits established by the artist. These dynamic relationships between art and people are, for me, a symbol of contemporary times, when we don’t have a centre that produces the content for everyone else but live in a structure where everyone can be a creator themselves.
As for the question of reality, I think that virtual realities already exist in art, as worlds in literature and music can appear even more real and deep that the reality in which we exist. Interactive worlds affect us even more, as they emulate the ability to affect the world that we have in physical reality. Sometimes, we are even able to create our own stories inside the ‘sandbox’ that game designers and artists build. For instance, in games that legendary game designer Will Wright called ‘software toys’, we are only given toolboxes, and the story itself depends on us. This way, we do not just believe in that reality, we act within it.
Maxim Zhestkov website: https://zhestkov.studio/
Maxim Zhestkov Instgram: https://www.instagram.com/zhestkov/
Digital Design Days: https://ddd.live/
