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Ilya Minin (Eli)

Artist Statement

My practice interrogates the fragmented psyche of the post-digital age through CGI, animation, and immersive media. I operationalize its mandate to transform ethics into aesthetics, using technology not only as a tool, but as a lens to expose latent tensions between memory, identity, and constructed realities.

Central to my practice is the EWP Project (2019-2023), a CG animation staging a traveler’s return to a morphed hometown. Through a non-linear narrative and abstract symbolism, it scrutinizes the instability of "truth" as personal history collapses into digital artifacts.

My broader oeuvre, branded eli_lab, extends this investigation into digital melancholy and post-human nostalgia. Works like The Last Day of Kasane Teto repurpose Idol iconography to unpack digital trauma, while Triple Baka transforms autobiographical experience through surrealist animation. My projects induce viewer complicity in constructed fantasies: "darkness" functions not as genre but as a critical framework to confront technological disembodiment.

Personal Information

• Name: Ilya Minin
• Professional Alias: Eli / eli_lab
• Location: Moscow, Russia
• Portfolio: eliasadams.github.io/eli_lab
• Contact:
  • Telegram: @ilyaminineli
  • Instagram: @eli_lab_official

Education

Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia (Moscow)

• Specialization: Sound Art, Video Art, New Media Art
• Approach: Avant-garde methodology applying "ethics into aesthetics" transformation.
• Training: Under guidance of leading Russian and international artists, curators, and critics including Sergey Bratkov, Sergey Khachaturov, Andrey Smirnov, and others

Artistic Philosophy & Vision

Core Principles

1. Critical Frameworks – Positioning CGI within post-conceptual art discourse
2. Formal Specificity – Modular, scalable installation logistics with integral methodology
3. Thematic Relevance – Digital-age anxieties through algorithmic identity and memory erosion analysis
4. Professionalization – Pedagogy and institutional exhibitions as core practice extensions

Future Directions

• Institutional Partnerships – Expanding interrogations through curatorial collaboration
• Site-Specific Interventions – Projecting fragmented narratives onto civic monuments
• Teaching Integration – Framing CGI as critical praxis through workshop methodology
• International Expansion – Gallery grant applications and museum acquisition proposals

Major Works & Projects

EWP Project (2019-2023)

CG Animation Installation

Concept: A mysterious traveler returns to his transformed hometown, navigating surreal landscapes and fragmented memories to reconcile his dual nature. The work explores universal themes of belonging, memory, and identity through abstract visuals and subconscious symbolism.

The Last Day of Kasane Teto (2025)

Digital Animation / Music Video

Concept: An exploration of digital melancholy through Idol iconography, examining the intersection of virtual identity and human emotion.

Technical Achievement: Created using Blender 4.4.3 with custom eli_lab pipeline extension, demonstrating advanced procedural animation techniques and digital development.

Triple Baka (2025)

Biographical Surrealist Animation

Concept: A week-long intensive production transforming personal autobiography through surrealist visual language. Based on real encounters reinterpreted through Vocaloid cultural references (Teto, Miku, Neru), the work examines how contemporary life becomes "a bad ARG where you suddenly become a character from a decade-old meme."

Technical Achievement: Rapid production methodology and autobiographical-to-digital transformation process.

Daly Syndrome (2023-present)

Animated Film - In Development

Focus: Psychosomatics and cognitive recovery through neural network-generated character movements and gestures, exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence and human psychological expression.

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Experience

Project works
Studio SHUM, Lachesis, Nizhny Novgorod State Museum
GRIG Film
Stage designer, 3D Artist, Animation, Rendering, Modelling
June 2024 — October 2024 (5 months)
CG animation scenes for the film "Russia of Mark Antakolsky"

Creative Unit
Game designer, 3D Artist, Sound FX, Modelling
April 2023 - February 2024 (11 months)
Game design implementation, 3D art, sound design

Merry's
3D Artist, Designer, SFX, Score, FMOD Implementation
October 2022 - December 2023 (3 months)
Head of Sound Department

VATAGA Team
CG Artist, Sound Designer, Score
August 2020 - Present (5 years 2 months)
Creation of CG cutscenes and soundtracks

eli_lab / freelance
Sound design, music, wide-profile CG
June 2016 - Present (9 years 4 months)
My personal brand

Foxcride Studio
Lead Sound Designer, FMOD Implementation
November 2021 - October 2022 (1 year)
Sound Department Management and FMOD Integration

PIKE STUDIO (own audiovisual studio)
Sound engineer, proofreader, sound designer
March 2017 - May 2020 (3 years 3 months)
Soundtracks and sound processing for films and animation

Additional information

• Member of the art group PARAZIT
• Participant in exhibitions: GROUND Solyanka/Khodynka, Krasnokholmskaya, Polytech
• Author of a series of live performances with generative sound systems
• Author of sound design and musical accompaniment for multidisciplinary projects and advertising

Live Events and performances

• Performance with acoustic and electronic sound sources, "PPP", 2018
• Performance with acoustic and electronic sound sources in "MUSE", 2019
• Group exhibition of industrial fabrics "PATTERN", 2021
• Performance with real-time visual programming in the "UGOL" gallery, 2021
• Performance "Telegraph. Kinetic coding of the expected signal", Open collection of the Polytechnic Museum "Waiting Horizon", 2021
• Performance "System S3", Gallery "Khodynka", Exhibition "Frequency 2.0", 2021
• Performance "Memory of Touch", Gallery "Bogorodskoye", Exhibition "Dacha as I see it", 2021
• Participant in the audio program of the eight-channel audio capsule of the ASC Museum, 2021
• Participant in the concert of multi-channel audio improvisations "Holidays SA))", 2021
• Participant in the festival of experimental music REDD, 2021
• Participant in the concert "SMOLES", 2021
• Performance Meatpacking Biennale: Part 1 - February 2022
• Participant in the concert of conceptual multi-channel audio programs "Holidays SA))", February 2022
• Meatpacking Biennale Performance: Part 2 - October 2022

Lectures and master classes

Lecture and master class for IT specialists on the topic of generative systems MAX MSP/Pure Data at Peredelano Conf — October 2023
Lecture at Moscow State University on Sound Art and generative systems for students of the Faculty of Philosophy — October 2023