A graphic novel is a just as good an example of a synthesized art as architecture. When viewed from right to left, as is customary in the manga tradition, we see that the chronology of events develops in reverse order. Landmarks by great modernist architects such as Eero Saarinen, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Minoru Yamasaki, and Frank Lloyd Wright give way to medieval masterpieces like the Duomo di Milano, the Juliet balcony, which acquires significance as the story progresses.
Our images are far from didactic, especially since humor is mandatory in the manga/comic tradition, but our touch on world cultural treasures like etchings by Dürer, Rembrandt, Holbein, genre scenes played out based on Andersen’s fairy tales, and ukiyo-e imposes certain obligations on the audience. Still, it would not be desirable to tell our story with an absolutely serious face, so the action is saturated with modern techniques, where genres, characters, time, and place are mixed together.

Экспликация изображений:

• street musician; drummer; girls near the fashionable Ball chair by Eero Aarnio; a pensive girl; a graffiti
• a girl and a man fixing her shoe; a scene at the station in the aesthetic of a retro movie; the Eero Saarinen Building; a man carrying a load in the shape of a heart; a passer-by looking at the girl
• Dürer’s Rhinoceros, a mariachi musician with a girl; passers-by; a girl with a dog and a pair of men having a conversation
• a man with a raised suitcase, a group of musicians and listeners, an engraving by Hans Holbein the younger and a character by Utagawa Kuniyoshi holding an umbrella in the water, passers-by in rain, eccentric musicians, two girls on the background of the Eero Saarinen and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Frank Lloyd Wright building as imagined by Midjourney, a genie superhero, and an adult Kiki, the heroine of a Miyazaki film
• Rembrandt’s self-portrait on a column, a graffiti
• a couple against the backdrop of modern architecture; above them, an homage to the satirical engraving of 1798, two girls; Gala, Dalí’s muse; girls in retro clothes, refilling a sports car against the background of Milan Cathedral’s architecture and buildings of Renaissance,
• a seated girl (Aubrey Beardsley, “Salome”),
• an engraving (Dürer, “Owl on Magnolia Branch”) from Japanese woodcut (“Dürer’s Lion”), nuns going to the cathedral,
• a couple from the engraving by Peter von Cornelius, “The Princess on a Pea” on the background of engraving by Luigi Rossini, “Dürer’s Pillows”,
• “Zeus and Juno” by Giulio Romano,
• grotesque evolution “from dragon to fish” against the background of Renaissance architecture, a couple in a convertible car,
• as well as clouds in the regulated tradition of engraving, compiled images of pop culture, for example, a monkey graffiti; images created by AI based on author’s graphics and architecture.

Endless canvas

The modern faces in the historical scene are the responsibility of graphic artist Andrey Naumov, the overall concept and all characters are the responsibility of art director Elena Ivanova, and the assembly, detailing, and compilation, as well as the entire production and AI programs, are the responsibility of Vitaly Yakobinets. The overall management of the project was performed by architect Arseniy Borisenko.

Players Zone

Sport zone

“The natural doesn’t necessarily have to be a concrete representation. I’m currently working on a piece that is a reconstruction of the starry sky, but I’m doing it, nevertheless, without the givenness of nature.”
Piet Mondriaan

In memory of the great basketball player Kobe Bryant. Artist Andrey Naumov. Production and AI programs - Vitaly Yakobinets

The artist’s narrative is composed of images, memories, feelings, light and color – everything except words, unless it’s a comic book, or modern painting that requires a curator and accompanying text.
The artist’s “Imaginary” is composed of allusions to the word “Atmosphere”, hence the unifying theme of aeronautics throughout all the images: hot air balloons, aerial gymnasts, the equilibrist miss Stena depicted on posters from the 19th century in the Museum of the History of Paris, movement, dynamics and speed.
The second theme is representation: the bright theatrical curtain or the circus tent’s canopy, the magician’s top hat, deliberately nostalgic colors of faded but carefully preserved posters and flyers from old movies.
The third theme is fairy tales and illusions: the white rabbit, the rooster from The Bremen Town Musicians, the Tin Woodman (also known as a robot from Laputa), the balloon that carried away Goodwin, the golden lion, an atmosphere of mystery, like in Terry Gilliam’s fantasy about the attraction, where everyone, passing through a magic mirror, could find themselves in the world of their fantasies, which is not surprising if we recall - the view from many windows opens onto the “Dream Island”.

The images used in our work: posters and flyers of the 19th, images of Japanese graphic artists and animators of the 50s, 60s and 70s, none of which were directly quoted or repeated; film by Gilliam and Miyazaki, Carroll’s fairy tales, Blok’s poem, and much more.

“Imaginarium"