Playscapes
Playscapes 01: Dark Forest, 2026
An interactive sculpture and a part of the generative Playscapes series. Dark Forest depicts a forest-like biome with an electrified landscape of branching, tree-like forms inspired by neural connections. Flows of information pulse through this environment and shape it, building structures through perceiving and memorising the world.
Playscapes 02: Sentient Ocean, 2026
An interactive sculpture and a part of the generative Playscapes series. Sentient Ocean is an exploration inspired by underwater life. Perpetual transformation, led by unknown impulses and forces, brings a living, ocean-like ecosystem into bloom.
Playscapes 03: Tectonic Shifts, 2026
An interactive sculpture and a part of the generative Playscapes series. Tectonic Shifts draws from the language of grids and sharp edges, generating endless structures through the forces that shape our physical reality.
Playscapes 04: Superclusters, 2026
An interactive sculpture and a part of the generative Playscapes series. Superclusters depicts the formation of spaces on an immense cosmic scale. The interplay of abstract forms mirrors the vast structures of the universe along with complexity of membrane intersections and quantum fields of subatomic particles — collapsing the distance between the infinitely large and the infinitely small.
Maxim Zhestkov is an artist and director who uses emergent technology to explore simulated realities in a variety of mediums. Coming from the architecture and design background, he started working with the computer-generated imagery in 2001 to create behind the limits of the material world. Moving from illustration to animation and further to interactive mediums during the course of his career, Zhestkov is guided by his interest in the potential of the technology to support creativity and expand his visual language.
In his work, Zhestkov continuously imagines new worlds and expands the understanding of the phenomena present in our universe. He blends architecture, sculpture, and natural algorithms to form a distinct aesthetic approach that becomes a foundation for representing a variety of concepts — from physical phenomena and futuristic technology to philosophical ideas and embodied non-human agents.
As a founder and director of a game company Cosmos Interactive and a creative XR studio FUN AND AWE, Maxim is exploring different sides of interactive technology and its potential to tell stories that are not bounded by the linear narrative. By using real-time engines as his main tool, he expands his vision to build the entire new worlds and create stories based on emotional non-verbal storytelling.
