 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(December 2020) |
Nadya Lev | |
|---|---|
 Lev (left) with Meredith Yayanos in 2011 | |
| Born | Надя (Надежда) Лев Moscow, Russia |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Temple University |
| Occupation(s) | Game designer, photographer, editor, publisher, and entrepreneur |
Nadya Lev (born in Moscow, Russia) is a Russian-American [1] photographer, editor, publisher, [2] designer, and entrepreneur. [3] [4]
Nadya Lev spent her childhood in the USSR, [5] growing up in a Soviet dissident family. [6]
Lev began her photography career at age 21, [5] shooting the 50th anniversary cover for fetish fashion magazine Skin Two. [7] Subsequently, her work was used by Vogue Italia, [8] MTV, [9] Dazed & Confused, [10] Elle, Marie Claire, New York Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, The Museum at FIT [11] and Nick Knight's SHOWStudio [12] in features on alternative fashion. Lev's work has been described as sitting at the crossroads of portraiture and fashion, with her subjects possessing an "almost surreal combination of hollow power" [5] and her work emphasizing "the model as storyteller rather than empty object." [4] Seeking to understand photography from her models' perspective, [13] Lev began posing as a subject for photographer colleagues. She has modeled for Clayton Cubitt, Allan Amato and Christopher Voelker.
In 2011, Lev became the second-youngest person in medical literature to be diagnosed with genetically-inherited PEX glaucoma. [4] [14] [15] She lost a significant portion of her vision and underwent 15 eye surgeries. [14] After adjusting to hallucination-like distortions in vision, Lev re-trained herself in photography and resumed publishing new work. [15]
In 2013, Lev was appointed as general manager [4] and later CEO [16] of Zivity, an art patronage platform for models and photographers founded by Cyan Banister.
Lev is one of the co-founders of Coilhouse Magazine – a print and web art publication established in 2007, [2] [17] together with Meredith Yayanos and Zoetica Ebb. The magazine's tagline was "a love letter to alternative culture, in an era where alternative culture no longer exists." [18] Coilhouse was widely acclaimed [17] [18] [19] for thoughtful coverage of art, music, fashion, film, technology and literature. Coilhouse has also been praised for its high production value [20] and original graphic design by creative director Courtney Riot. [21] Lev's design for the original Coilhouse website, inspired by Merz Magazine and El Lissitzky, [2] won L.A. Weekly's Best-Designed Site Aesthetic Award. [22]
In 2017, Lev announced that she was working on a Japanese coffee-table art book titled Eros & Thanatos, together with Tokyo-based art magazine editor Masanao Amano. [3] [23]
In 2016, Lev co-founded the technology company Aconite together with Star St. Germain. [24] Lev describes Aconite as "a mixed reality storytelling platform." [25] Lev and St.Germain define mixed reality stories as immersive experiences that sit at the intersection of adventure, narrative and gaming. [26] [27] The project draws on several gameplay, real-world exploration and storytelling traditions, including transmedia, psychogeography, escape rooms, and live-action roleplay. [3] [23] [24]
Aconite's first prototype was Limberlost, a location-based game with a magical realist narrative written by Steen Comer, designed to be played at any bookstore or library in the world. [27] The first playtest took place at Powell's Books during XOXO Fest 2016 in Portland. [28] Players used their mobile phones to solve puzzles which led them through a sequence of physical books. [27] [28] Each book contained an illustration that acted as an augmented reality marker. When triggered, the markers displayed audiovisual data that provided clues for the next book in the sequence, and unlocked new parts of the game's narrative. [3]
In 2019, Aconite came out of stealth mode and announced their first title, HoloVista. [29]
Gene Stratton-Porter, born Geneva Grace Stratton, was an American writer, nature photographer, and naturalist from Wabash County, Indiana. In 1917 Stratton-Porter urged legislative support for the conservation of Limberlost Swamp and other wetlands in Indiana. She was also a silent film-era producer who founded her own production company, Gene Stratton Porter Productions, in 1924.
Nicholas David Gordon Knight is a British fashion photographer and founder and director of SHOWstudio.com. He is an honorary professor at University of the Arts London and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the same university. He has produced books of his work including retrospectives Nicknight (1994) and Nick Knight (2009). In 2016, Knight's 1992 campaign photograph for fashion brand Jil Sander was sold by Phillips auction house at the record-breaking price of HKD 2,360,000.
Lauren Katherine Conrad is an American television personality, fashion designer and author. In September 2004, she came to prominence after being cast in the reality television series Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, which documented her and her friends' lives in their hometown of Laguna Beach, California.
Dazed is quarterly British lifestyle magazine founded in 1991. It covers music, fashion, film, art, and literature. Dazed is published by Dazed Media, an independent media group known for producing stories across its print, digital, and video brands. The company's portfolio includes titles Another Magazine, Dazed Beauty and Nowness. The company's newest division, Dazed Studio, creates brand campaigns across the luxury and lifestyle sectors. Based in London, its founding editors are Jefferson Hack and fashion photographer Rankin.
Emily Mann is an English model and musician. Born in Streatham, London, Mann studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Emily signed to Oxygen Model Management and Pineal Eye Agency. In 2005 she was in the Channel 5 TV reality show Make Me A Supermodel in association with agency Select, where she worked with film makers and photographers, notably Perou and David Lam.
Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin are a Dutch-American fashion photographer duo, whose work has been featured in fashion magazines and advertising campaigns. They also produce independent art work.
Clayton James Cubitt, also known as Siege, is an American photographer, filmmaker and writer living in Brooklyn. He is known for applying an "arrestingly controlled and sleek sense of style" to art, portrait, erotic and fashion photography. He has been described as "one of a new breed of photographers no longer content to draw a distinction between the worlds of fashion, art, and porn."
Betony Vernon is an American jewelry designer based in Paris. She produces luxurious erotic jewelry.
Marco Castro is a Peruvian make-up artist, film director, and entrepreneur.
Double Exposure is an American documentary series which premiered on June 15, 2010, on the Bravo cable network, and was syndicated to over 200 countries. The series featured the creative process and working lives of two of the world's top photographers Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri and Markus Klinko, along with producer / designer GK Reid.
Nicola Formichetti is a fashion director and fashion editor. Born in Japan, he is most widely known as the artistic director of the Italian fashion label Diesel and for being a frequent collaborator with singer-songwriter Lady Gaga. He worked two years with the French fashion house Mugler as artistic director.
Coilhouse was an American digital and print magazine, and corresponding blog. It was founded in 2007 by Nadya Lev, Meredith Yayanos, and Zoetica Ebb., and carries the tagline, "A Love Letter to Alternative Culture." Regular contributors to Coilhouse included Ross Rosenberg, David Forbes, Angeliska Polacheck, and Jeffrey Wengrofsky.
Meredith Anne Yayanos is a California-based violinist, vocalist and thereminist. Her work has been featured on tracks with artists including The Dresden Dolls, The Vanity Set, Revue Noir, David Garland and The Walkmen. Since 2021, Yayanos is a member of the feminist black metal band Feminazgûl.
Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) is a discontinued platform by Microsoft which provides augmented reality and virtual reality experiences with compatible head-mounted displays.
Microsoft HoloLens is an augmented reality (AR)/mixed reality (MR) headset developed and manufactured by Microsoft. HoloLens runs the Windows Mixed Reality platform under the Windows 10 operating system. Some of the positional tracking technology used in HoloLens can trace its lineage to the Microsoft Kinect, an accessory for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Xbox One game consoles that was introduced in 2010.
Allan Amato; is an American portrait photographer and film director.
Lou Dalton is an English menswear fashion designer based in London. She has launched her own brand and collaborated with other fashion lines.
Whitney "Strix" Beltrán is a narrative designer and Project Narrative Director at Hidden Path Entertainment. Her writing and design career includes the indie game Bluebeard's Bride. She also founded the advocacy initiative Gaming as Other to promote inclusivity in the gaming community.
HoloVista is an augmented reality exploration game developed and published by Aconite. It was released for iOS in September 2020.
Star St.Germain is an American game developer, artist, designer, illustrator, and musician based in San Francisco, California. She is recognized for her work on the mixed reality game HoloVista, which won the Apple Design Award and the Webby People's Choice Award.