::vtol:: constructs kinetic sculptures, robotics and installations
Dmitry Morozov, known as ::vtol::, develops technology-based installations and kinetic sculptures that combine robotics, sounds, coding, and interactive systems. A Moscow-born, Ljubljana-based transdisciplinary artist and researcher, his practice centers on electronic installations that react and respond to environmental changes and the proximity of the viewers. They include robotic systems, sound generators, and mechanical devices that operate independently once activated, as seen in the recent series of projects he presented and delved into during the run of Sónar+D between June 12th and 14th, 2025, in which designboom also interviewed the artist in a discussion.
In a recent interview with designboom, the artist, who’s the mastermind behind the tattoo-based instrument Reading My Body and wearable mask organ Last Breath, shares with us that when he creates works, he’s creating a form of entities with agencies rathen than just tools. ‘Ultimately, I perceive my works as participants in a gigantic performance called technological art. This kind of art is very ephemeral, as the lifespan of any object is quite limited—either the electronics will break down, the software will be updated, or the mechanics will fail,’ he tells us.
view of ‘resistor’ | all images courtesy of Dmitry Morozov, known as ::vtol::
microcontrollers process sensors and control mechanics
::vtol:: constructs his kinetic sculptures, robotics, sounds, and code-driven installations using electronic components, sensors, motors, and custom programming code, and each work includes microcontrollers that process sensor data and control mechanical movements. The systems respond to sound, motion, light, or other environmental inputs, allowing these machines to exhibit unpredictable behaviors that seem to react to the user’s mood and handling methods. The artist applies sculptural methods to electronic construction, too. Instead of following engineering protocols, he treats circuit boards, sensors, and actuators as sculptural materials.
This approach of ::vtol:: produces kinetic sculptures, robotics, and installations that have personality traits with their operational patterns. Sound generation systems are often a recurring theme in his practice, where mechanical components create acoustic outputs through vibration, striking, or air movement. Electronic circuits process these sounds and feed them back into the mechanical systems, creating feedback loops. The works operate as autonomous performers, and sensors detect audience presence and environmental changes. The systems modify their behavior based on this input data, so different audience interactions produce varying mechanical responses.
view of ‘edge’, a kinetic, sound and light object
Technology-based artworks that demonstrate lifelike behaviors
::vtol:: shares with designboom that while he creates what may be considered as a ‘set of electronic components and code’, he always puts his soul into these kinetic sculptures, robotics, and installations. After all, he’s partly a sculptor, and not an engineer, as he describes himself. ‘I grew up in the 80s and 90s when half of all devices were still analog. These devices behaved so unpredictably that it seemed to depend even on your mood transmitted in the field around the object. I believe this quality has also transferred to many of my works. Since childhood, I have been accustomed to perceiving devices not just as soulless objects, but as living beings,’’ he explains to us.
It’s worth noting that he’s not inclined towards esotericism, but the artist admits that there is certainly more for people to discover about how living and non-living objects interact on different levels. As a result, the kinetic sculptures, robotics, and installations of ::vtol:: explore relationships between living beings and technological systems, and he investigates how people interact with machines that demonstrate lifelike behaviors. The installations then respond to human presence in ways that suggest awareness or intention. Below, we continue our conversation with the transdisciplinary artist and researcher, who tells us the beginning of his artistic journey, his creative process, the backstories of the projects he presented at Sónar+D in Barcelona, and the ways he sees the ever-evolving climate of contemporary digital art.
view of ‘phase adventures,’ a series of four kinetic sound objects-etudes
Interview with Dmitry Morozov, known as ::vtol::
Designboom (DB): Your practice spans kinetic sculpture, robotics, sound, and code-driven installations. Can you walk us through your trajectory as a transdisciplinary artist and researcher? What were some of the pivotal moments or turning points that shaped your current approach?
Dmitry Morozov / ::vtol:: : I started my journey as an artist completely unaware that I was one. I understand that this sounds unusual or even strange, but I truly became a media artist before I even realized it myself. Initially, I became very fascinated with electronic experimental music: formless, strange, and endlessly testing new ways of extracting and creating timbres. This led me into the world of electronics as a DIY practice: circuit-bending, DIY synthesizers, and so on. I began building my own synthesizers and strange controllers for creating and manipulating sound around 2006-2007. At that time, I didn’t yet understand that there was a vast scene where interactive art, multimedia, music, and sound art intersected.
The format of installations, sculptures, or performances didn’t interest me much back then, although many of my early objects were in some way related to them. Everything changed when a few of my more knowledgeable friends in this practice told me that with my skills, I could easily fit into much more prestigious events like exhibitions and contemporary art festivals, unlike the underground noise concerts I was used to. All it took was to make my ‘instruments’ larger and more friendly for audience interaction. I tried it, and I really enjoyed the audience’s reaction; seeing viewers interact with your work is incredibly energizing.
‘топот-м’ explores the concept of an extended body
::vtol:: (continues): By that time, I had already created many instruments for other musicians, such as Aphex Twin, but usually, my instruments ended up in studios and collections, and you rarely receive feedback or get to observe how they are used. With interactive art, everything is quite different; essentially, you witness the act of interaction or observation, which is the artwork itself. It emerges at that moment, not when you finish creating the mechanism. At first, my works only included sound, but very quickly the media expanded – light was added, movement, more complex interactivity; the works became more conceptually thought out, addressing various complex themes – sometimes social, sometimes very abstract or historical (for example, media-archaeological).
In fact, when you master one technical language as your tool – like electronics or programming – other ‘mediums’ become clearer and easier to learn quickly. The main thing is to understand the logic of data and signals and how they can interact with each other if needed. This rapidly and easily expands your expressive range. Thus, I quickly shifted to kinetic and robotic works, and since programming is necessary for their operation, you begin to see the potential in works that primarily consist of code, regularly venturing into that territory (for example, my project Hotspot poet). I believe that the combination of different media can greatly support each other when revealing a particular concept, especially if it is embodied in a design and visually appealing object.
‘you, me and all these machines’ is a performance for voice and electronic devices
DB: Your projects often carry a strong DIY ethic, open-source tools, hacked hardware, self-built systems. How do science, tinkering, and the ethos of experimentation inform your creative process? What role does risk or failure play in how you develop new work?
::vtol:: : DIY is the most important ideology in my work. I believe that an artist should do as much as possible by themselves and use as little ready-made material or outsourcing as possible. Of course, this approach can lead to absurdity, and one might even start making electronic components themselves (like my project Resistor) or wires, but I am endless in this pursuit, and whatever happens, happens. Essentially, the more that is done exclusively by you in your work, the more it reflects you, although this is not so simple in technological art. This leads to many mistakes – some of them are fatal for the project, while others open new horizons, often turning the meaning of the work 180 degrees. By introducing something into it that is beyond your control, you simply allow it to exist.
Overall, I subscribe to the concept that ideas don’t belong to their authors; we are just lucky to snatch them from the flow of something and, given the right circumstances, embody them in a piece of art. Therefore, I am always happy to share both ideas and technical components of projects; this even affects their appearance. I rarely hide elements in a case; it is usually immediately clear how everything is made. In the last 5 – 6 years, I have also actively taken up teaching, which is very energizing. You systematize and structure your knowledge to share it more successfully, and this, in turn, inspires new ideas. It’s really cool to see how your students pick this up; you show them some technique that has become clichéd for you, and they suddenly apply it in a very unconventional way.
‘drop’ is a small automatic device consisting of a Geiger counter
DB: A few years back we published two of your projects, Reading My Body and Last Breath, on designboom. Can you take us inside the making of those pieces? What were the conceptual or technical challenges, and how did they evolve during the process?
::vtol:: : Reading My Body was initially inspired by some silly sci-fi movie where people had barcode tattoos that worked as passes to different zones. I liked the idea of a functional design on the body, but instead of control, I wanted it to be something more elegant. At that time, my friends were organizing a sound art festival of performances, and I decided to create a strange performance there – I would get a tattoo and make a robot that would use it as a score.
Everything happened lightning fast; I drew the tattoo in Photoshop in probably about 20 minutes, then immediately ran to find a salon with an available artist, but it was already evening and everyone was either busy or didn’t want to do such a tattoo. Eventually, in despair, I stumbled into the last salon that happened to be on my way; everything there was in a biker-rocker style, far from what I needed, but they liked the idea when I started explaining it, and the artist did everything very quickly. I didn’t wait for the tattoo to heal and immediately started ‘building’ the object for reading it; a couple of times I touched the tattoo with the details – it was very painful and funny.
there’s a hydraulic system involved in the work ‘drop’
::vtol:: (continues): In the end, it turned out to be a very successful work – when I shot the video and posted the documentation, the project spread all over the internet. I understand that from both a sound and technical perspective, it could have been much more complex or successful, but everything turned out as it did – thanks to the DIY approach and quick decision-making! I was very pleased with myself, and a few years later, I learned that this project inspired experimenters at MIT Media Labs to conduct their research in this direction, creating smart tattoos for medical purposes. So sometimes even DIY artists can be useful to society. As for the project ‘Last Breath,’ it was born when I was in India in 2019 and became seriously ill with some virus.
COVID was still a whole year away, so I anticipated a trend a year in advance; artists sometimes have good intuition. I was very scared of dying back then, but not because I was afraid for my life, but because I didn’t want to stop creating, playing music, and engaging in creativity. So, I essentially made myself a pre-mortem instrument, in case I could no longer move but would still be breathing. It turned out epic and even a bit brutal. This is, by the way, a good example to illustrate co-participation with a technological object – it cannot exist without me, and I cannot exist without it, but I do not define everything it does; the instrument has its own working algorithm, and all it needs from me is a flow of air. This significantly changes the hierarchy between the instrument and the performer, establishing rather a horizontal connection.
view of j2000.0
DB: This year, you presented a series of projects at Sónar+D’s Project Area. What did you showcase, and how does it build on, or depart from, your previous projects? Are there any shifts in your materials, methods, or conceptual interests that this new work reveals?
::vtol:: : I presented three works, quite different and from different periods of my life. The first work is ‘Drop,’ a small sound sculpture-fountain. The work uses a small Geiger counter that measures radiation levels. It’s a simple but very precise device capable of detecting even individual particles passing through it. There is always a slight background radiation on any point of Earth, which is absolutely normal.
Each time one of the particles passes through the device, a drop falls from a small tube into a basin equipped with optical sensors that detect the ripples in the water after the drop falls. These sensors control a small synthesizer that produces sounds. The longer the device operates, the more complex its timbre becomes; that is, it is a sound composition developing over time, dependent on a natural phenomenon. It’s quite a meditative device.
iPot is a device for performing a digital tea ceremony
::vtol:: (continues): The second work is ‘Remember Me, Erase Me,’ which, strangely enough, has no sound. Essentially, it’s a selfie machine – anyone can approach it and take their picture simply by pressing a button. But as soon as they take the shot, the photo starts to distort as if it is being forgotten; they need to press another button to stop the degradation and print the photo. So, it’s like memories – the longer ago something was, the worse the image is preserved, although it remains recognizable for quite some time. The third work is a collaborative project with artist Alexandra Gavrilova called ‘iPot.’ Essentially, it’s a robot for a tea ceremony. The machine heats water and then pours it into a transparent reservoir, above which there is a camera. After that, a small ball of Chinese tea falls from a tube, which looks like a blooming flower during brewing.
This ball gradually unfolds, and the camera connected to a program tracks this and transforms its movement into digital abstract graphics and sound. After some time, this process stops, and the prepared tea is automatically poured into five small cups offered to the audience. Even in hot Barcelona, viewers were very happy to taste exquisite tea from such an unusual machine, especially after observing the entire process. Despite the fact that these works were created some time ago, they are still quite new, and in response to your question, I would say that the most significant change is a certain lyrical and poetic quality in my works that has become more characteristic of me in recent years. Perhaps long interaction with technology has generated in me a desire to convey increasingly human qualities using non-human agents.
‘reading my body’ is а sound controller that uses tattoo as a music score | read more here
DB: Looking ahead, what excites you most about where digital art is going? Are there any current trends or technologies you find troubling, ethically, politically, or artistically?
::vtol:: : I am closely following how contemporary digital art is changing. There are aspects that I really like – such as the fact that materials and many technologies are becoming increasingly compact and accessible. However, there are other things that I like a bit less – like how everyone has jumped on the AI bandwagon, even when it may not be particularly relevant to a specific project. The technology itself is wonderful and holds endless potential, but I often see its use merely in favor of trends.
It would be foolish to deny its significance for art, but personally, I use it very little; perhaps that will change in the near future. What I undoubtedly appreciate is that AI has greatly simplified programming for people who have never learned it, and most artists are initially quite distant from programming. The way ChatGPT can skillfully handle code and assist in creating programs of various levels is astonishing; I see how quickly my students are progressing because of this. It opens up new horizons in art.
‘hotspot poet’ distributes wi-fi masked as wireless network
project info:
artist: ::vtol:: | @vtol_
name: Dmitry Morozov
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