Queerskins: ARK

VR / 360 Video

Reading a diary left by the estranged son, a Catholic mother (Hadley Boyd) finds a way to transcend herself and her grief by imagining him alive and in love.

Illya Szilak
Cyril Tsiboulski
Brandon Powers

Access with

November 4 – 30

Reading a diary left by the estranged son, a Catholic mother (Hadley Boyd) finds a way to transcend herself and her grief by imagining him alive and in love. With heart-wrenching performances by Michael DeBartolo and Christopher Vo in volumetric video and the storytelling potential of spatial sound, Queerskins: ARK allows you to enter her imagination and co-create the lovers’ intimate dance through your body position and movements. An Intel Studios Original co-produced with Cloudred.

A full 6DoF version of Queerskins: ARK will be available to experience in person at NYU Tandon @ The Yard as an installation. Featuring a pas-de-Deux between two male lovers, Shot at Intel Studios on a 30ft diameter volumetric capture stage, the largest studio of its kind in the world, Queerskins: ARK has never before been exhibited in a space that supports its grand scale.

Mary-Helen
Hadley Boyd

Sebastian
Michael DeBartolo

Alex
Christopher Vo

Ed
Drew Moore

Writer & Director
Illya Szilak

Creative & Technical Director
Cyril Tsiboulski

Choreographer
Brandon Powers

Associate Choreographer & Movement Coach
Christopher Vo

Director of Volumetric & 360 Photography
Cory Allen

Composer
Wilbert Roget, II

Supervising Sound Designer
Andrew Martin

Executive Producers
Diego Prilusky
Sarah Vick
Illya Szilak

Supervising Producer
Kathleen Fox

Associate Producer
Allen Yee

Colorist & Finishing Artist
Juan Salvo

Sound Mixer
Laura Cunningham

Lead Unity Engineer
Elliott Mitchell

Lead Graphics Engineer
Jason Booth

Unity Developers
Alvaro Sierra, Jr
Tess Leiman

3D Environment Artists
Pat Goodwin
Guilherme Rambelli

Supervising Sound Editor
Kevin Bolen

Please see full credits at https://vr.queerskins.com/ark

During the 2022 Quills Fest, a 2D video playthrough version of this project was available to all ticket holders.

Watch 2D Video Playthrough

Artists

Illya Szilak

Dr. Illya Szilak is a writer, director, interactive story-teller and transdisciplinary artist. Shaped by her experience as a physician, her artistic practice explores mortality, embodiment, identity and belief in a media inundated by an increasingly virtual world. Her long-time creative partner is Cyril Tsiboulski. They are the recipients of grants from The Sundance Institute, The Tribeca Film Institute and the Jerome Foundation and were awarded a Peabody Futures of Media award for their VR experience Queerskins: a love story.

Cyril Tsiboulski

Cyril Tsiboulski is co-founder and creative director at Cloudred, a digital design practice that is both an independent content-producing creative studio and a service-based agency with global clientele across corporate, government, civic and cultural domains. He is also a faculty member at New York University where he teaches in the Digital Communications and Media Program.

Brandon Powers

Choreographer Brandon Powers creates seamless visceral experiences at the intersection of theatre, dance, and technology. The form of these experiences are determined and constructed by fusing techniques from by background in immersive theatre, musical theatre, and Modern dance. Brandon is committed to investigating technology’s effect on our culture, minds and private experiences by creating experiences which embrace technology’s role in our lives as a connector and community building tool.