Creator Spotlight: Alexander Surnin
Creator from 🇺🇦 Ukraine
Please tell us something about yourself. Where are you from and were do you work? For how long have you been creating AR filters? Are you a freelancer or a member of the company specializing in AR filters? etc.
I’m 3D Artist, AR Creator and co-founder of Areyes Studio which is based in Kyiv. I’m also an artist from gamedev industry with more than 8 years of experience. Recently, I released fledged personal art project Parametrica which I present to you below.
How many effects have you created so far and for which platforms?
More then 150.
Name the best three effects you created and briefly describe them.
Paratmetrika it is fusion of visual research in the novel for instagram AR generative style and conceptual environment. Alexander create 5 unique AR-effects with deep meaning gathered from the latest period of his life and using the latest Spark AR Studio ability to express his vision.
BlackGold
Black Gold is the time in lockdown that took over the world. I’m sure that this, possibly one-off, event has helped many of you in your self-discovery journey. It was really an interesting experience.
Synesthesia
I have recently learned that I have synesthesia. It means that my brain automatically connects unrelated senses: it’s like I see the color of a sound, a letter, a day of the week, a year, or some event. My whole life I thought it was same for everyone. Apparently, it’s just 4% of the world population that can “hear colors”. I was quite impressed.
Engineer
Every creative person has their own ”creative” life: it’s like a whole separate part of existence, as important as their personal life, job, and family.Each of those creatives goes through constant ups and downs, regardless of what is going on in the background.
My whole life I’ve been drawn to creation as act. I remember even when I was 4, I was torn between different things: I liked both drawing and make-shifting toys out of trash and parts of old soviet appliances and tools. I ended up becoming a professional 3D artist with educational background in physics.
A lot of people think that skills and knowledge in those two spheres have nothing in common, yet I think they both express the same to one fundamental human element that is creation. The formula is simple: Engineer = Artist. My own most valuable trait is the ability to build and create. I deem it the greatest gift.
QSense
Have you thanked the internet yet for keeping you sane throughout the lockdown? Because I did. I think that everything that is now happening in technology, internet, and social media is, in fact, a new way of thinking – therefore a new way of sensing and feeling. I am, again, having this thrilling realization of how huge these current changes are – and of the fact that I am a part of it.
Consciousness
I find the phenomenon of consciousness to be the greatest mystery. I used to think that one cannot consciously find the ways to explore the consciousness itself.. Yet I have come to understanding of how to do it. Once, sharing my revelations made me comprehend the even deeper sense of things. For many years, I’ve been meditating on the hypothesis that any given process is a form of consciousness: from nuclear reactions within atoms to social patterns and all the way to galaxies drifting through the space – I think they all have certain forms of consciousness.
One of my revelations is that we, ourselves, are a part of bigger, highly abstract processes and forms of consciousness!
Which platform for creating AR filters is your favourite and why?
Instagram, because it’s more viral-friendly and community is much better in my opinion.
What in your opinion makes an AR effect successful?
Being viral and actual.