Featured artist: Bulgaria

Although still very young, from the position of his experience Teodor advises those younger than him, who are eager to do science in Bulgaria: 

If they are interested in doing scientific research, they should contact scientific institutions that offer projects to work on. And many institutes will not refuse to involve them. They should have the courage to deal with this type of development.

Heroes of the Dark is released in November 2021, but it has taken nearly three years to be developed at Gameloft's Sofia office. The designer says that the most difficult thing in the process of work was to create a game with such great potential without neglecting the vision and the goals, which is always a challenge in the creation process of a hybrid product.

But he does not stop writing Bulgarian stories and feels attracted to Bulgarian reality.

His preferred format is the short film. Inspired by a true story, his short film “Rules” strives to touch the audience emotionally and focus attention on the problem of loneliness. The 20-minutes format is somewhat unusual for the Bulgarian audience, but Yassen believes it has its merit because both the story and the implied emotions are much more intense.

The young producer and director has a new short format in the pipeline but is also working on a feature film.

His favourite book is George Orwell’s 1984, but he now has several books of his own published. If he ever has the chance to meet a famous writer, that will certainly be Steven King, but his debut novel Damn It is actually dedicated to all those sacrifices we are ready to in the name of love and sex. Sometimes inspiration strikes him out of the blue and he writes holus-bolus.

Being hopelessly romantic, his muse is always a woman, whether a real or an imaginary one. 

She has exhibited internationally in venues like Ars Electronica, Fischer Museum,  Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Photon Gallery, SciArt Initiative, DC I/O, Culture Hub LA, FakeMeHard, Gogbot, Currents New Media, xCoax, DA Fest, Sariev Contemporary and Queensland Center for Photography. She has been a resident artist at STEAM Imaging III with Ars Electronica & Fraunhofer MEVIS, Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Photo+Sphere and a member of UCLA Art Sci Center | Lab.

The boys move to London which, in their own words, “was an instant reality check as it shattered all of our illusions pretty quickly”. But they also met Dennis, their current Finnish drummer. Yet, London was hell for them, as they say it is for any artist, so on they moved again, this time to Manchester. Four years with a studio in the living room and a vocal booth in the closet, much to the annoyance of the neighbours, produced and recorded Always So Simple, The Feeling, Blue and many more, up until AP/NP. 

Her debut on professional stage was as early as in her university years in Vazkresia Viharova’s Amarantos. Next followed a series of contemporary, innovative, own and improvisational projects, some of them touring Europe and Asia with the pantomime and slapstick group of Zhar Theatre, and joint performances and workshops with artists from across the world.