I interviewed Sergey Prokofyev about Eternal Habitat on Monday, November 17, 2025 at IDFA DocLab in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series from IFA Doc Lab 2025, today's episode is with a piece called Eternal Habitat, which is an immersive dome piece by an architect named Sergei. So Sergei has got a history and background in architecture and kind of self-identifies as like a paper architect, exploring a lot of these kind of speculative architecture ideas and concepts. And so when he first graduated from grad school for like three years, he was entering in all these fields. speculative architecture competitions. And then as he starts to get into these architectural visualization through the lens of these different programs that he's able to then kind of also project onto a dome, then he starts to go back through his backlog of speculative architecture concepts and ideas and starts to actually prototype them out to be able to show them in a more of a cinematic experience for people to kind of explore these more abstract concepts of paper architecture and speculative architecture. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Sergey happened on Monday, November 17th, 2025 at IFA Doc Lab in Amsterdam, Netherlands. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:34.419] Sergey Prokofyev: My name is Sergei Prokofiev. I'm originally from Ukraine, but living for many years in Berlin. And I'm an architect, had master's degrees in architecture, got this in architectural university in Ukraine. But for the last couple of years, last eight, seven years, I'm more shifting to the more immersive film production and specifically for the planetarium format, full-dome format.
[00:02:02.318] Kent Bye: Great. And yeah, maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into working with immersive media for the Nome.
[00:02:09.998] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, after university, I was... During university, during my studies, I was passionate about conceptual ideas, architectural competitions, and rather something to be built in physical world. And I participated in many architectural competitions, and it was kind of... I did just the three years in a row, only competitions. I was addicted of competitions, of archery shows. So this is after you graduated, you're doing all these competitions? Yeah, two, three years after graduation. get my master and but all kind of this project was made for architect yeah basically it's not for people for citizens it just like open discussion about what is possible kind of speculation about architecture and all this project was remained just on the paper and never has to be built
[00:03:13.094] Kent Bye: And from my other interviews I've done before that there's a kind of whole branch of this more speculative architecture that people self-identify as paper architects. Maybe you could, you know, describe if that's something that you identify as like a paper architect or, yeah, I'm just curious to hear a little bit more elaboration of this term of the paper architect. Yeah.
[00:03:31.380] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, I think this paper architecture coming from 70s when kind of new wave of... But I'm not so... Well, it was historical meaning of this paper architecture. But it existing so many kind of... vector of architectural thoughts that, especially some project, doesn't have to be built. It's just more kind of utopian or dystopian and provocative ideas to question something in real life. But for me, now probably no one calls it already paper architecture, it's more speculative architecture. But for me it was always lack of information that I can share with people. Because it was just for competition and only jury can see it. And then maybe it could be published in some magazine, but who is buying architectural magazine are also architects. And that was not so much connection with another disciplines.
[00:04:44.471] Kent Bye: Yeah, maybe before we go into the kind of transition from this traditional forms of architecture and blueprints and paper and other ways that you communicate architecture into VR and other spatial mediums, maybe describe a little bit more like what drew you to this more speculative branch of architecture and like what was it around those conversations that you were interested in like pushing the edge of what was possible or really provoking or starting conversations?
[00:05:12.499] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, if I understand you right, basically, for me, it was kind of architectural storytelling was the most interesting part. And maybe because my kind of passion was always doing the architectural studies more about art and drawings and... Of course, when you have an idea and you realize this on paper, it's much faster than the building has to be built. When it's already built, it gets old and it already needs to be renovated or something like that. And for me, this time frame was too long. you know to realize the idea and all this kind of my ideas was very focusing on on one kind of presentation or sharing the ideas but not building the buildings yeah you can go a lot faster and generate a lot more ideas more quickly if you don't have to build anything around it what's that Yeah, and for me, I was more enjoying the process of thinking about and visualizing this building and not kind of all phases of architectural realization.
[00:06:33.614] Kent Bye: I guess part of the interesting thing around virtual reality and these more immersive formats is that I've had a chance to meet a number of different architects over the years. Some of them had been coming from more of this paper architecture or speculative architecture tradition where they found that they were able to start to actually build out some of these concepts and give people... more of an immersive experience of it without having to build the physicality of it, but still give people a spatial and experiential, like, or give them a spatial experience of those ideas. And so maybe you could talk a bit about like, where did either virtual reality or these immersive dome formats start to enter into your radar and as a, as a potential outlet for some of these speculative architecture ideas?
[00:07:18.277] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, that's happened. My shift from designing on the paper to more kind of new media or new tools become suddenly. I didn't thought about to create something for the movies or in virtual reality. But a couple of years ago, seven years ago, Unreal Engine become available for architects and it completely changed the way I'm working. Basically, I start... designing in real time and I've seen kind of the result and in hyper realistic environment and I don't need to render and it was completely uh another jump from the 2d world to to the 3d world but what i was found interesting because the architectural drawings sections plan when you look from above you have um kind of distinguishable idea or clear vision how building would look like how this layout of the building would look like but when you are in space that you kind of fell out of the dynamic environment and you kind of change in perspective from to human level eye and it was totally another for me experience to design the building from the human perspective from the human experience and that's why i kind of i get more more passion to start exploring what possible and what kind of format i can present projects
[00:08:48.342] Kent Bye: Yeah, I remember talking to architect Andrea Contacaru, who was talking around how the medium of architecture was actually transmitted through 2D photos or renders, where you would output a render of a building and put it up again. Um, so yeah, she was saying that, um, even though, you know, architects are building these buildings that a lot of the transmission of ideas and what the jury would be looking at, how it was being judged was how good could you make a 2d render of that building? And her perspective was that sometimes it may look good in that render, but it may not feel good or may not like the experience of it may be completely different. So it sounds like you're talking around something similar around wanting to do the architecture from, um, the human perspective, but maybe you could just elaborate on that, what that meant for you to, to have this kind of first person perspective of the architecture rather than this kind of omniscient third person, like photo render of it.
[00:09:46.940] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, for me, the process of design was mostly like as a fine arts. We're still drawing in two-dimensional or on the paper. And basically, we design as a sculpture or as a painting on the wall. But all this design was from outside in, from the big scale to small, small, small. And then... on the last moment or last stage, end user was appear as interior design. And I think this new media, new interactive, this kind of gamification of entire design process bring viewer or end user, people on the first stage. For me, very interesting now to design from inside out And the second very important, I think, aspect, because when it's drawings, usually static, but understanding of the space and for when we start moving through the space, the movement dynamic becomes very important to have this kind of, subjective understanding of space. And this video or the film become a design tool for the architecture.
[00:11:14.933] Kent Bye: So being able to take and build a building in Unreal Engine and then create a cinematic out of that, that's moving through the space?
[00:11:20.738] Sergey Prokofyev: Exactly, exactly. And sometimes even the movement is first. And then the space will edit. First, especially I'm designing buildings for the movie. and I become as a cameraman in the virtual environment and I set up the camera, I set up kind of speed and then I start adding architectural elements and that's kind of for me another perspective also to design the building and then I see how this pest is shaped by different forms.
[00:11:59.468] Kent Bye: Yeah, and then, so it sounds like that you're starting with the Unreal Engine, starting to create these more dynamic moving images through, or these camera tracks through the space that then creates a cinematic that kind of gives you a spatial experience of the space that then, when you start with that, you're building the building around that. Is there, at any point, did you start to use virtual reality to more fully embody yourself into the space? So to go beyond just the frame of the video, but to actually... feel what it feels like to be kind of immersed in the space from VR perspective. Just curious to hear if that ever came into your workflow.
[00:12:35.347] Sergey Prokofyev: And, yeah, the same time when Unreal Engine, I started working on Unreal Engine, there was purpose to show it for the big audience. And, actually, I was forced to do one film for the planetarium at the beginning. I even have no idea about this full DOM or planetarium format. And one project was a commercial project, and... our partners invite me to visualize this idea and this full dome project very addicted yeah when you start working on this become a little like a junkie of this immersive experience but I never did the videos for the VR glasses or because I think the architecture has to be perceived collectively we in VR it's It gives the idea of space, but we are missing that. It's not kind of... In the planetarium, in the dome, we see ourselves. It's a mix of physical and digital environment. We see our body, it's kind of our scale to the virtual environment. And I think it's very important to see our body, we are physical, and just a virtual background.
[00:14:01.454] Kent Bye: Yeah, so it sounds like that really the dome experience was a format and a way for you to start to use the affordances of the dome to then have these collective experiences. And there's two types of domes. The more concentric domes where it's more of like if you think of a 360 video, you're taking the top half of that video and then having like a concentric seating where people are kind of, And so they need to be able to see what is up on the screen from any perspective and for it to still make sense, which is hard because usually, you know, there's like a bias towards one direction or another for most ways that this kind of format exists. This kind of immersive media is created. There's also the front facing domes where people are facing towards a dome and it's a different slice. And so I'm just curious, as you've been exploring dome content for architecture, if you've worked in both formats of the more forward facing and the more where you're looking up in the planetarium, or if you work with both and if you prefer one or the other. And yeah, just curious to hear your thoughts on that.
[00:15:05.031] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, mostly I'm focusing on directional content, because it's still kind of next time for the new cinema, because you have kind of story, and not omnidirectional, because it's possible to do omnidirectional content, but it's a little bit limited, because you're always, as you said, looking upwards, and Dome has a sweet spot, And it's very crucial for the architectural presentation because if you're somewhere on the side of the dome sitting, everything would be banded in one way. And it may be just the best place has to be in the middle of the dome. But when it's omnidirectional, people sitting... on the edges of the dome because usually in the middle is its lens for the star projections and how kind of traditional plane traveling was designed. But now this hardware start like change the format and to more cinematic and directional storytelling.
[00:16:12.816] Kent Bye: Okay. Yeah. Cause at the doc lab this year, they, for the first time that I can remember, they kind of, um, blocked off a number of the seats that would be like, and you said there's a sweet spot and there's like the, the opposite of that, which would be like the worst spot to see it where you're at the opposite and everything's upside down or just doesn't make any sense. And so, uh, cause yeah, there is a sense of kind of a cinematic tracking as you're going through these worlds and, um, I wasn't in the sweet spot. I was more kind of like off to the side slightly. And so as I was looking up at it, there was still maybe, you know, from the translation into the more omnidirectional format there, there seemed to be like when you're in VR, you can see everything in its proper scale and balance. But sometimes on the omnidirectional, things kind of get warped in a way that I was like I was in my mind. I was like, I wonder if this is a non Euclidean space or like trying to design for a space, if it's deliberately kind of twisted or if it's just I'm in a not optimal space to see this. And so, yeah, I'm just curious, as in your piece that you're showing here at Doc Lab, if you were really starting to kind of twist the space a little bit or if that was just an artifact of the omnidirectional dome.
[00:17:20.039] Sergey Prokofyev: I think it's kind of both. You know, sometimes when you sit and look at the movie upside down, it becomes abstract art. But usually I try to extend the space, the planetarium, to a kind of virtual environment. and try to bring kind of real scale to the to the space and to this for me is this extension of the space and of course like when we are start doing the journey and camera starts slightly moving through the space maybe the perspective seems to be weird but when we are looking and the camera dynamic and horizon always changes up and down I don't know, at least for me, the brain become like adapted to this and you already don't see that this perspective is wrong when the camera kind of guide you through this space.
[00:18:24.662] Kent Bye: Nice. Well, I want to dig into the piece that you're showing here at DocLob. But before we do that, I want to go back to where you began with some of your first pieces. Because it sounds like in your journey that you discovered this immersive dome format as a way that you sort of became addicted to wanting to produce work for that format and have audiences be able to experience it in a way. And so maybe you could talk around like... What was the context under which that you're able to develop some of the first content, architectural, you know, kind of artistic cinematics, and then have an audience to be able to see it? Like, how did you start to have a way of exhibiting and distributing this type of art?
[00:19:06.467] Sergey Prokofyev: I was basically learning the program of Unreal Engine and I had the model of Manhattan and just simple 3D model of Manhattan and one project of one competition. And I opened Unreal Engine and started sculpting some abstracts. rotating, multiply these Manhattan models. And then, okay, I thought, like, I will try to understand how this fisheye strange lens works. And in Germany, we had a festival in Jena. It's the oldest full-dome festival. And I submitted the film. It was very short, maybe five minutes. It was in format of short movies for the planetariums. And it was nominated. And it was like good feedback. And I did just for testing in the studio. And then it kind of was good motivation to try something else in more kind of conscious way.
[00:20:07.842] Kent Bye: And so how many pieces have you created now?
[00:20:11.383] Sergey Prokofyev: I think seven or eight. And I'm working on two new movies.
[00:20:18.723] Kent Bye: Okay. And so, yeah, I'd love to, maybe we'll go through quickly those, uh, each one and sort of describe and where, what you're trying to do. I've only seen the last one that you've done, or at least the one that's showing here at doc lab. And so, um, so it sounds like you started with taking a map of Manhattan and then was there, is there like a provocation or a question that you're asking? Or like, is it more of like, how can I take this spatial object and start to mess with it and twist it and see how it looks in an architectural context?
[00:20:44.156] Sergey Prokofyev: yeah it was just the experiment was not questioning any any uh provocation on on this model uh or on this project and i was just playing with the light and understand like how because was interesting how the answer light works in in dom because we're dealing with the physical light and projection and when it's super bright inside of the dome it kind of all magic is disappear and i start playing with the light as a kind of also design tool to show not everything but as elements and then element kind of telling the story about space and it was back and forth experiment with this kind of space light and camera movement
[00:21:30.222] Kent Bye: Yeah, trying to get the primitives of space and lighting and just kind of understand like what you're able to do in the Unreal Engine because there's going to be a difference between what you see in a 2D screen and the Unreal Engine as you're producing it than how it appears on the dome. And so how would you like go back and forth or reduce that gap between – because there's a – a distance between what it looks like in the dome and what it looks like on your screen and so how do you start to get a sense of um that understanding is it that you have access to it or you have to see it and play it or just talk about that process of how you start to iterate to understand how to do this translation for what it's going to look like when you're working at home and then what's going to ultimately look like when you're finished
[00:22:08.464] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, at the beginning was just a guessing. First, I think first one, two movies was, I still see it as a 2D and then I can see it as a 2D but fisheye format. Now we at the studio, we have Little Dome. three and a half meter and I can see it, I can preview it, I can test it. But mostly when I produce seven movies, I already understand how this environment even works on a 2D screen. But of course, very important to test the speed of the camera, because that's I don't see or I don't feel in a flat screen. Because when you see the 360 image in everything at once, it goes everywhere, the image, but not understanding of... kind of immersive feeling when you feel in the stomach when the camera rotating or how the camera is goes just possible to test in the mini dome or maybe with VR glasses but I have a privilege to test this in the dome yeah here at DocLab there's like a little mini dome that's in the exhibition space is is that around the same size the one that's here yeah same size similar yeah I think it's also three meter dome okay
[00:23:28.536] Kent Bye: OK, so yeah, you're able to have a three meter dome to get a sense of, like with a projector. And then how do you get it from Unreal Engine onto the projector? Is it directly connected up and you just hit play? Or do you have to render it out?
[00:23:41.002] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, I need to render it because the quality of the streaming, at least in our playback system, it's not good enough. Of course, I can connect the Unreal Engine to design it but it's a little bit I would say not healthy to work in design right in 360 because you just get tired quickly but I still working on 2D screen and then when it goes to animation then I basically work in dome but I will usually I prefer to render it to have a better quality to see it And Unreal Engine, it's rendering or live streaming almost similar, yeah.
[00:24:34.571] Kent Bye: Okay, and so what was the second project that you started to do then?
[00:24:39.692] Sergey Prokofyev: It was actually like I did first project and then pandemic came and that was kind of everybody was locked at the home and I started experimenting with different films and second I think I did about suprematism and the idea was how to translate suprematistic painting that was also always remained as on paper to three-dimensional composition and was about Malevich and his exhibition that was 100 years ago. And basically I translate this exhibition to the full dome, small journey.
[00:25:18.204] Kent Bye: You said there was an artist that would always be on the paper. Do you mean it was another architect that was, or maybe just elaborate on what you mean by a little bit more context for the artists that you were translating?
[00:25:29.204] Sergey Prokofyev: No, this was a big manifesto of his, Malevich, and his famous art, Black Square. And the idea was that we need to change classical world to more kind of geometrical and... it was his manifesto of changing the new style of everything people should also rethink geometrical forms but then this manifesto had a big impact to Bauhaus school in Germany and then it was also realized in some way in US this kind of all But his painting, this black square and many of his supreme artistic ideas was just illustration as a fine arts. But the idea was really to start, it was idea of the space.
[00:26:34.937] Kent Bye: Okay, so this is during the pandemic and was there an opportunity to show it anywhere or were people still in lockdown?
[00:26:43.229] Sergey Prokofyev: Actually, it was an opportunity to show in the planetariums for the festivals. But, of course, there was a limited number of seats. But usually the films were interesting. When I released some films, it became active or became live on the screen a couple of years later, maybe one year later. And then it started traveling for different festivals, and I basically followed the film with this right after already. Restrictions was easier.
[00:27:26.871] Kent Bye: And then by this time, had you already acquired your own mini-dome? At what point did you get your mini-dome to be able to do pre-visualization or to give a sneak peek? Did you get that pretty early, or at what point did you get that?
[00:27:38.473] Sergey Prokofyev: it was also like during pandemic and it was a good offer because um for every companies was big crisis to sell this dome and the whole industry was kind of like shocked for that and it was good kind of sale price and we got this tool yes yeah as a tool
[00:28:02.532] Kent Bye: So everyone's sheltered at home and working from home, but you're able to have your own dome to be able to continue to work on your work.
[00:28:09.397] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, exactly. But I was located at home and the dome was in the studio. Yeah, it was back and forth between home and studio to test it. But now I just already less and less use this mini dome because it... have kind of already understanding of the format.
[00:28:34.444] Kent Bye: You kind of have a, you're able to do that translation in your mind now that you're able to just look at the 2D screen and not have to see it because you kind of know what to expect.
[00:28:41.809] Sergey Prokofyev: Exactly, exactly. And for me, also interesting how composition works in this fisheye format. And yeah.
[00:28:54.378] Kent Bye: Okay. So let's move to your third piece. What was the third project that you worked on?
[00:28:59.017] Sergey Prokofyev: It was, I think, I don't remember, it's like seven films and it was now everything mixed together. I think it was Labyrinth and Labyrinth also was inspired by some work and I thought like the Labyrinth, it's a good element that combined together. cinema and architecture together yeah and labyrinth is a space where we have to constantly move you know to get out of this space to find the exit same in the movie we were kind of in kind of linear way from the beginning of movie with need to see what's happening in the story visually. And it was kind of also idea of kind of motion pic, moving images. Like when we're in the city, we're always kind of influenced by very different environments, like perspective always change. And that's kind of make also similarity with the films when images all time cut it, edit. It was the idea of Labyrinth to unite, to combine architecture and cinema together.
[00:30:14.841] Kent Bye: Yeah, I guess one of the challenges with motion and movement in domes is that sometimes people can be susceptible to motion sickness. And I know that within the context of 360 videos, there's sort of like things that, you know, are motion sickness triggers in terms of like doing yaw rotation, so turning left or right, or kind of twisting anytime you're kind of messing with the horizon line. I'm just curious, as you were starting to experiment with movement of the camera, like If you were experiencing some of those motion sickness things themselves to be able to calibrate to see what was comfortable for you or what that process was to ensure that you were creating a comfortable experience for people as they were watching these more cinematic moving shots in a dome context.
[00:30:58.567] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, thanks for the question, good question because I'm a very big fan of the camera movement and I think it's very strong elements for the storytelling and especially in full-dome format when the audience become the main actor because audience are surrounded by space and With the camera, I basically guide people through this virtual environment. And camera, when I do different rotation, could accelerate or increase this immersive feeling or sickness, but it could be used also for the... articulate something in the movie and I always try to combine different speed and when it's gets lower and then when we need to highlight something the camera can make slight shift and when we are traveling by parabola up and down that's you still feel in the stomach but you don't have dizzy and when camera start rotating and going down then it's already get a little bit painful. But it could be also used to wake up audience for a certain moment. We are approaching some kind of part of the story that we need to wake up.
[00:32:29.588] Kent Bye: Yeah, I've seen a number of creators do that over the years where they sort of do things that may be deliberately inducing motion sickness, but do it in a narrative context that helps to emphasize the point that they're making. So doing acceleration is another thing that can be a trigger for folks. So kind of speeding up the camera at a certain moment. So but yeah, it sounds like that, you know, you're able to kind of find the rhythm of how the camera movement can start to help tell the overall spatial journey and the story that you're telling.
[00:32:56.542] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, I'm still exploring what is possible with the camera and I would say the camera is the bone structure for the whole film.
[00:33:11.434] Kent Bye: Nice. And so maybe just talk about some of your, you have, I think we did three or maybe talk about some of the other projects that you worked on in terms of the themes or content and where you're, it seems, it sounds like so far that you would maybe start with like a concept or idea or like, where do you usually begin with each of these projects? Like what, what's your process in terms of like having like a question of like a, what would this look like? Or if you're exploring concepts or ideas and yeah, like where are you beginning with each of these projects?
[00:33:40.703] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, as I said at the beginning, I was working three years just on the competition and it was a big background, a big library of the not realized projects. And now I basically bring these old ideas, what I did 10 years, 15 years ago, back to life. And rearranging with the different stories. One of them was a film, Local Dystopia and Global Utopia. And I had three different dystopian projects and I thought like to combine them in one short story. And my friends always ask me, what are you doing? Because I'm posting some fisheye videos. And they said, it's painful to watch. And I thought, it's not for watching on the screen, it's watching for the dome. And I understand that people didn't understand what this dome is. And then I came up with the idea that I need to explain what is the dome. And the dome in my movies, this local dystopia, is a gateway to different stories. And maybe it was inspired by Christopher Nolan's Inception when the movie explored the worlds of dreams. And we fell in deeper and deeper to different dreams. And in my movie was Dome is the gateway to another reality, another reality. and on the end we're also appearing back in the planetarium in another dome and try to, you know, blow the boundary between which world is real and where, kind of.
[00:35:14.561] Kent Bye: Yeah, kind of an inception. You're in the dome but then watching a film about a dome and then you're going outside of the dome and then returning to the dome. So yeah, what layer of the matrix are you in?
[00:35:23.888] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, exactly. And also dome becomes like architectural and cinematic elements for the story.
[00:35:31.007] Kent Bye: Nice. Okay, so it sounds like you had this backlog of other projects that you were sort of making your way through of seeing if you could sort of reignite these speculative ideas, but then give like an embodied experience for them. Were there other projects that you were turning into a dome project? Were there other some of the other pieces that you were working on? Were there other other pieces that you went back into that three years after your graduation with some of these speculative ideas? Were there any of those other ideas that you were working on for in the context of this competition that you then revisited to translate into an immersive dome experience? So the question is, you had those three years of Dome, of competition pieces. You mentioned one, or you mentioned that you wanted to explain what the Dome is, but you said you wanted to revisit some of those early experiences. So, so as we're going through your projects, I'm just wondering if any of those other projects we haven't talked around yet are referring back to those three years of dome or those three years of paper architect, speculative architecture pieces that you were thinking about. If you went back and started to actually translate any of those other pieces and competition into a dome experience.
[00:36:52.099] Sergey Prokofyev: No, they're always kind of mixing with different ideas sometimes. So suprematism was an absolutely new kind of idea to experiment, to bring. And this internal habitat, it was also a mix of two different competitions about... I did some empty room that people have to be to fill the time in empty room without anything, without any gadgets. And you need to be locked for like one day But it was a long time ago, the project was not so many also iPhones or social media at the same time. But the same project was idea to basically to show that the environment was kind of time. That's our room. It's a dynamic space that brings us through the time. And basically this latest film, Internal Habitat, was also old ideas, but kind of a little bit remixed with different new stylistic elements.
[00:38:05.034] Kent Bye: Nice. Yeah, I'm looking forward to digging into more of what I saw with the Eternal Habitat. But before we do that, is there any other projects that you think are worth mentioning in terms of either ideas that you're exploring or other projects that you're working on before you worked on Eternal Habitat?
[00:38:21.179] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, we have always kind of idea with my friends to bring symphonic orchestra inside of the dome and that when we are moving through this space that the space start reacting to the music and rearrange samples of classical music on new abstract way and then when you have samples of But we're always postponing this project and I hope that would be kind of my next project after the internal habitat because I usually for the festivals I don't have any kind of deadlines it just and some project I start early and not finish and I start another project and I finished another project and yeah.
[00:39:13.502] Kent Bye: so it sounds like you've got a lot of projects in the works and as you're kind of jumping around maybe deadline to deadline or project to project so okay so maybe we'll maybe we'll move to the eternal habitat now and so this piece it sort of starts off with what it is kind of rotating around this big open vast room that is pretty sparse there isn't a lot of things that are in there but there's Also, some more kind of fluid column-like entities that are maybe up in the corner. And then we kind of dive into that more. But maybe you could just describe, like, where did you begin with this project? And, like, how did it, like, come about?
[00:39:52.475] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, the project was the whole idea about empty room that we need to be seated for and get bored and to start filling the time. But then I... And second idea was about... It's... I don't know if you know this. It's called... I'm sorry that I forgot. The columbarium is basically the vertical graveyard for the ashes. And it was like too, to be a little bit depressive to call the project or film a columbarium. But the idea was this, the lady, she's in a room, she don't know what is happening outside in her world kind of. black and white and I try to play with the light that just highlighting her maybe memories or elements or people she remember and what is in darkness we don't know we need to imagine what is in the darkness but from the ceiling it's a little kind of different light coming or even color and probably she doesn't know what is happening to them and the environment is static and we're just kind of flying around and she changes and action also become different but on the end we're flying away from this room and we see it's kind of dynamic room that bring to this kind of vertical vertical columbarium and we land to one slot and coming back to the same room
[00:41:52.577] Kent Bye: Yeah. And so these ideas of the empty room and the Calibarium, and it sounds like that you're sort of have a narrative and a story that is kind of guiding us through this. And as I was watching it, it felt like more of a dream, like I'm walking into a dream and there's all these symbols and spatial representations. And I don't quite know what the meaning of the symbols are, but I'm just sort of being taken on this journey of this kind of unexpected place and Um, it sounds, it starts off pretty normal in the sense that you're in this room that I can understand what the context is. And then it, we're kind of going into the space that is beyond any context I've ever been in. It feels like a kind of transcendent journey beyond space and time into all these kind of more abstract shapes and forms and, uh, more of a way of, uh, kind of going beyond or existing contextual references and, uh, going into this kind of almost psychedelic journey type of space. Or at least a place that's an altered state of consciousness or a state of being that feels more of like a dream that I don't quite understand or grok. And it's like this mysterious place that I'm trying to understand the logic of it. And so as you were creating this kind of journey from the mundane to this transcendent, a more abstract space. Yeah. as you're developing this, are you starting with this kind of outline of the story, or mashing up these two ideas, or maybe just walk through your process of how you're kind of creating this journey that you're taking us on?
[00:43:23.345] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, it was like a plan, and the story is very short, like six minutes, and it's more kind of also as a visual clip, because I have music, my friend, he's a composer of and conductor of Berlinische Philharmonie, Aurelien Beller, he composed music for that, and it was good guidance to have, because music always has its own dramaturgy, and for me it was this idea to have a little bit unexpected moment on the end of the movie, that we kind of get used to one place at the beginning, that's the we already know what is happening and suddenly we are dropped to another unexpected, colorful and dynamic environment. And then, yeah, I would, to have a little bit more kind of unexpected moments in the movie, try to bring all time.
[00:44:32.779] Kent Bye: And so when you were developing this piece, did you start with the visuals and the idea, or did you get the piece of music from your friend and then work from that, just trying to get a sense of how you're kind of iterating between the different modes and where you're beginning from?
[00:44:48.120] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, the environment was designed before and images of the rooms and how lights create the composition of this black and white room and also the vertical structure was also designed before. But then when the camera started moving and I tried to guide the camera to show what is especially happening in certain moments, certain time. And here the music came and basically I was following the music for the camera path.
[00:45:23.768] Kent Bye: Okay, so then you had a rough sense of the space, but then once the music came in, then you were able to listen to the music and help kind of direct the motion and the movement to help match the music to this kind of more abstract space.
[00:45:36.109] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, exactly. Then it was kind of a straightforward process just to have markers where what I need to see and we just discuss what kind of instrument I very like. Prepared piano, whereas always this kind of strange little... modified sound of the classical piano. We also discussed what kind of instrument or what kind of abstraction of the music become on the end, but structure of the music, rhythm and this kind of melody was before.
[00:46:22.369] Kent Bye: Yeah, I always find that the music can help feel me more, help me become more immersed into the piece, draws out my emotions and kind of gives a sense of a pace and a rhythm that feels like you're able to then match as you're kind of having all these movements with the cameras. And so in this—oh, wait, I had a question around—oh, so what's striking to me is that in traditional architecture, you have usually the production of static buildings, but then when you have more speculative architecture, maybe into these more immersive virtual spaces, you're able to have— Like more dynamic or moving architecture. I mean, you're moving a camera through it in a way that you're able to, like architects have always designed spaces for people walking through to, you know, create closed corridors and then open it up. And so there is a way that there's been a tradition within architecture. architecture to kind of think around the movement of people moving their body through a space and then having like a spatial journey in that sense. But it feels like there's both the, in this virtual architecture, you're able to kind of move a camera in a way that you're designing the space from that camera from the inside out, but also have more elements that are changing or dynamic in a way that maybe there isn't an existing architectural medium that gives you that much flexibility to kind of modulate space in a more dynamic way. So just curious to hear some of your thoughts on the types of more dynamic architecture that you're able to do in a virtual space that you can't really physically build.
[00:47:55.681] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, this is super interesting because first it's a movement of the person or the audience through the space and then the space also starts reacting to it. And it's another, for me, kind of level of design or more kind of stenography, like in the theater, that you have little elements that even appear according to your perspective. And of course, it's just possible in the virtual world, not in the physical. But I would say it gives kind of additional skills, additional understanding of dynamic movement and dynamic changes or dynamic adaptation. And for me, very interesting to move forward. Usually, as an architect, I do perspective and then I find another perspective and do it. And now I combine these different images through this kind of dynamic transition. And architecture, for me, it's become as a process of movement from space, from one space to another space. Basically, process.
[00:49:03.908] Kent Bye: Yeah, and it's got new audiences for this as well, where when you're doing the more speculative architecture, it was only for architects, but now you're doing this for a general audience. And so I can just say from looking at it and watching the experience of seeing these different pieces, I'm always drawn to these artists that have a background in architecture because I think The they're coming from a place of kind of understanding the relationship to space and the experience of that. And I feel like that these immersive mediums is like a really one to one translation where they've spent a lot of the training to be able to do that type of like spatial expression. Um, and so, uh, I'm just curious to hear a little bit of some of the different reactions of like general audiences that are able to, rather than architects reading about this and architectural magazines, you're able to take some of these concepts and ideas and share it to more general audiences that can have their own direct experience of that. And so I'm just curious to hear a little bit of what that's been like for you to kind of reach new audiences with this way of expressing architecture. Sure.
[00:50:04.932] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, that's what's always lack of the information or sharing information with a broader audience or also for the young generation. One of my goal is to really promote architecture through this immersive film for the young students, young architects who, not even architect, but who doesn't know what this architecture is. And I hope the students can also, or kids can come to Planetarium and not see only astronomical content but we're living in urban space they could question maybe someone want to become an architect after watching the movies or something like that because I think the planetarium it's the space that belongs to the city It's a great stage that combines many different disciplines that scientists, artists, architects, planners, politicians can come together and discuss any problems or any challenges that are related to the city. And I think it's a great platform.
[00:51:16.022] Kent Bye: And have you had a chance to show some of your work to other architects? And I'm just curious to hear what their reaction has been or what kind of conversations you have with them that allows you to maybe communicate some of these different concepts or ideas in a way that you would only be able to express through like photos or these architectural magazine articles.
[00:51:33.925] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, I'm not discussing so much with architects. Architects always have kind of other artists. I don't know how to explain, but more kind of own vision to the projects. But I'm working in an architectural studio, and we're still kind of doing also different researches about mobility projects. urban mobility and we're all kind of contributing to one commercial films about how city might change or what kind of new technology could change our urban environment but then it's many architects not only me working on a more realistic project that could also be more in more serious way explain in in in them
[00:52:26.293] Kent Bye: It sounds like you've been doing a lot of work in this more artistic context of using these new emerging technologies and immersive dome experiences. Have you been doing any other more traditional architectural work on the side or as a continued practice of designing things that are going to be built?
[00:52:44.013] Sergey Prokofyev: I'm focusing on my architectural work on the research and we're doing like working consistently for 13 years already on how new modes of transportation can change, what kind of new infrastructure we need for the electric transportation, micro mobility and we think in the format of neighborhoods that for example our building is quite small for to test different transportation modes and urban scale it's too big it's not so flexible and that's kind of we try to experiment what we need to rethink how we need to rethink neighborhoods environment to bring think it as a three-dimensional landscape rather than separate buildings
[00:53:39.019] Kent Bye: Yeah, it sounds like that speculative architecture is in this kind of urban design or world building context. When you are talking about these contexts, is this something that's more near term or long term or just trying to get a sense of like this type of work, what the output of that is?
[00:53:54.847] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, we try to bridge the gap between architecture and mobile world. And we're collaborating with different automotive companies and institutions like Schindler Elevator, Audi, and some companies also in Germany who is providing. And we just try to explain or find the way what kind of new cities we need for. For example, If we need just, we use in the city bicycles or e-bikes. And we, for example, need to travel just in the neighborhoods, not using any elevators or circuits, but we're using bicycle to reach different floors and different levels. It's still as a more kind of conceptual proposal, but then it could be implemented with a small scale and a good kind of rising the dialogue between mobile companies and cities.
[00:55:01.701] Kent Bye: Is there any way that your work in this more artistic expression of speculative architecture is feeding back into this more traditional work of architecture?
[00:55:09.932] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, I would say to stack always in a conceptual project, it's, I would say, not productive, but you stack with... you lose the physics, yeah? You lose the gravity with the speculative or projects. And combination of reality and speculation, it's always good to, like, it's enriching both directions.
[00:55:45.625] Kent Bye: Yeah, I remember a number of years ago, I was invited to the Architectural Association in London by Frederick Helberg and Lara Lesmas, and they... They... I'll take a little drink. they were holding a gathering that was around the future of the immersive internet. And so they were gathering a lot of architects, but also people that were working in these virtual spaces. And they had some conversations with some more traditional architecture professors there. And this discussion of virtual architecture as contrasted to the kind of material aspects of architecture. And there was a lot of skepticism from the traditional architects in terms of like, if it is truly like architecture, because there's so much of the architectural tradition that was connected to the material and the materiality of like the different, like, uh, heat dissipation that happens for ways that the kind of more embodied experience of a physical space that has a lot more stuff that is completely lost from what happens in the virtual architecture and, and, It was interesting just to hear from Frederick Helberg and Laura Lesmis and kind of going through, okay, here's what we, in the design practice of virtual architecture, we have these different qualities. And then these are exactly the same as this in traditional architecture. But still at the same time, there seemed to be this split within the architectural community between those who wanted to kind of maintain architecture. that traditional materiality versus those that were going into the more virtual. I'm just curious if you've kind of encountered that kind of like culture shift within your own experience and work.
[00:57:22.455] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah. Thanks for the question. I'm not so much like involved to architectural discussion, more in the disciplinary collaboration with neuroscience, with psychologists, how we perceive in space. And from my point of view, like from my perspective or what I would really interested to bring emotional design emotional speculative design not about what we don't need what we can't realize or it's utopian some project but speculative or subjective perspective yeah from the perspective of the people and I would call this the cinema or the immersive cinema it great design tool or virtual architecture can bring another perspective to the physical design through the user experience. Because the user gives the real feedback and I'm just translating kind of human emotions to the space. I'm not designing, I'm translating.
[00:58:27.321] Kent Bye: Yeah, imagining a future where you could create a number of different cinematics of different spaces and sort of see what resonates with people or is the most emotionally evocative in a way that could then inform the spaces that are designed as a form of sort of user testing of sorts.
[00:58:40.851] Sergey Prokofyev: Yeah, maybe in the future I believe that the architects won't be needed because the AI buildings could react to the human emotions immediately. But yeah, for now we can integrate the user to the design process.
[00:59:02.094] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'm still a big fan of humans in the loop and feel like that there's ways that humans can sort of digest this. I'm hesitant to sort of submit to my AI overlords too much of how much power that we're giving away to mostly because it's like who's controlling the AI and who's benefiting. So you have a lot of deep questions around some of the different deeper trends. But yeah, I'm a fan of humans still being the primary decision makers, especially at a design level.
[00:59:30.013] Sergey Prokofyev: I think that's what we're exploring, what we try to understand, that it's not just an artwork, but how we can use this, how we can use this... art technique and, uh, this full dome format to, to, to ask people what they think about the urban future of the city where they're living and given real feedback, real like response.
[01:00:05.893] Kent Bye: Nice. And so what's next for you? It sounds like you have a lot of, uh, projects that are ongoing, a lot of irons in the fire, but, uh, where, where do you want to take your work here in the future?
[01:00:15.224] Sergey Prokofyev: I'm still very enjoying exploring what is possible for architectural storytelling in a full dome and now I'm trying to slowly convince the planetariums and it's very hard that there has to be different content shown in the domes. And I think I just keep doing with some films and hope finally we realize this project together with our friends about symphonic orchestra and combined with the virtual space.
[01:00:50.516] Kent Bye: Nice. And are you doing a lot of like audio spatial design with that as well or kind of using the spatial affordances of different types of spatial audio systems that are available in the domes and kind of like push forward what's even possible?
[01:01:03.034] Sergey Prokofyev: This, I would say, from my experience, more simpler. I was more focusing on the music, or special music, but not special sound effects. And I tried to collaborate with different musicians. musicians and because it's always you know exchange and always different perspective to different colors to the projects and
[01:01:40.819] Kent Bye: Nice. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of all this immersive art and architectural storytelling in the Dome might be and what it might be able to enable? So where do you think this is all going and what it might be able to enable?
[01:01:58.527] Sergey Prokofyev: I think that Full Dome became kind of new, I hope, new standard for the cinema. It's even stronger than IMAX. And it's immersive cinema where... we need to rethink also the cinematic storytelling and for example like it need to be totally kind of new rules or not new rules but some some some exploration how would this new cinema would look like and for all I hope for the oldest kind of special films need to be designed You know, we're telling special stories here in plain term, in full-down format.
[01:02:49.107] Kent Bye: Nice. And is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[01:02:53.650] Sergey Prokofyev: No, I'm very happy to be in DocLab this year and very honored to show little piece to audience in Amsterdam and it's incredible also exchange and I get so much inspiration here also from another artist.
[01:03:16.657] Kent Bye: Thanks so much for joining me here today on the podcast. I always appreciate talking to architects because I feel like, like I said, they have such an interdisciplinary training that allows them to understand the affordances of the spatial medium of both VR, AR, these immersive dome experiences. It's always interesting to see a crossover between this kind of like the use of these mediums to tell spatial stories, to do world building and to kind of like show what's possible with the medium from all these kind of years of training. And then also this kind of intersection of paper architects and the speculative architecture in the way that you're able to ground some of these speculations and concepts and provocations into these immersive spatial journeys that we can have an embodied experience of and So, yeah, it kind of took me into this kind of otherworldly space that, you know, didn't know quite what to expect or where I was going. And I always appreciate kind of being in this state of awe and wonder of not knowing where it's going to go next. And I feel like your work is really kind of starting to explore that. And, yeah, I just really enjoyed the journey of it all. So thanks again for joining me here on the podcast to help break it all down.
[01:04:23.981] Sergey Prokofyev: Thank you so much for the interesting question and for inviting me to share these ideas. Thanks. Thank you.
[01:04:30.003] Kent Bye: That's all that we have for today, and I just wanted to thank you for listening to the Wishes VR podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listen-supported podcast, so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring you this coverage. You can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.
