Maxim Zhestkov, born in 1985, is a visual artist and motion designer based in Russia. His main passions are animation, design and cinematography which he combines for clients around the globe including Google, Microsoft, Fox, MTV, IDEO, BMW, Ford, FutureBrand etc.

Along with his professional career he is constantly trys to shift the boundaries of visual language through his short films and animations. He studied architecture and received a master’s degree in graphic design and fine art. Working on films, advertisements and in the design industry he explores the new frontier of art, technology and design and is always looking for new challenges.

Optics is an experimental art film by Maxim Zhestkov exploring the behavior of artificial light and color in digital environments.

Blending architectural gallery space with computer-generated digital glass sculptures, they encounter animated refractions, chromatic aberrations, colourful reflection and other conditions which are impossible in reality.

A series of tests and explorations guided the studio crew through different optical conditions of the bright and colorful digital universe.

The film was initiated as an experimental series of tests in Zhestkov.Studio. After some research, they realized that the beauty and visual power of these explorations could be transformed into an art film rather than be a series of tests.

For a couple of months, programmers and artists at Zhestkov.Studio developed different approaches and played with the infinite possibilities of refractions and reflections.

“We developed over 1000 tools and principles of working with light and refractive/reflective surfaces. Coders wrote dozens of lines in Python to achieve some of the effects and behaviors of light.”

In the end, the produced some truly amazing results. Light and refraction in reality can behave only in one way in one condition, but in the digital world, where they didn’t have real-world restrictions, they could animate every condition and step further into the understanding of light and color.

“Zhestkov.Studio is a studio where I will continue to produce art films, four per year. It’s a crazy marathon, but it’s an important rhythm for us. With it, we will continue to try to push the boundaries of visual art, blurring the boundaries in interdisciplinary areas.”