Nikola Stoyanov

Nikola Stoyanov (b. 1994, Varna) is a visual artist, theorist, and translator living and working in Sofia. He graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Sociology from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. His artistic and theoretical practices develop in parallel and examine the intersections between technology, visual culture, critical theory, and contemporary modes of knowledge production and dissemination.

Nikola Stoyanov

Нещата, които видяхме заедно, 2026.

Installation

Details

  • Material: single-channel video (72:00 min), municipal scrap metal, peepholes, Soviet FMP-401 cinema lens, LED screen
  • Width: 200.00 cm    Height: 170.00 cm    Depth: 5.00 cm   
  • Description: Installation view of The things we saw together at the BAZA 2026 nominees exhibition, Sofia City Art Gallery.
  • Copyright: Nikola Stoyanov
In his work, Stoyanov employs photography, moving image, installation, archival materials and various technological apparatuses. Recurring themes in his practice include infrastructure, technological mediation, propaganda, paranoia, conspiracy narratives, and the ways in which technical systems participate in shaping the visible and the credible. He is particularly interested in post-socialist and post-Soviet histories and their contemporary cultural and political continuations.

Nikola Stoyanov

The First Ten, 2024.

Installation

Details

  • Photographer: Mihail Novakov
  • Material: cork, wooden frame, archival documents, postcards, red yarn, neon lighting
  • Width: 200.00 cm    Height: 230.00 cm    Depth: 8.00 cm   
  • Description: Installation view of The First Ten, part of Postcards and Contraband, POSTA Space, Sofia, 2024.
  • References: https://newdegeneration.xyz/work/the-first-ten/
    https://postaspace.org/26
Selected exhibitions and presentations include the exhibition of nominees for the BAZA Award for Contemporary Art at Sofia City Art Gallery (2026), where he presented The First Ten and The things we saw together; Black Market at PUNTA Gallery, Sofia (2026), with The Naphthalene Tapes; Her Poisonous Doubles: Watch Your Feed! at Goethe-Institut, Sofia (2025), with Even trolls sleep sometimes; Postcards and Contraband (Charta Gallery and Posta Space, Sofia, 2024; ReBonkers, Varna, 2023); Nature Morte (Goethe-Institut, Sofia, 2023); and Latent Space (Doza Gallery, Sofia, 2022).

Alongside his artistic practice, Stoyanov publishes critical and theoretical texts on theory-fiction, technology, contemporary literature, and visual culture. His writings have appeared in Simulacrum: Journal for Art & Culture (Amsterdam), Literary Newspaper, Studia Litteraria Serdicensia at the Institute for Literature of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and other publications. In 2025, Studia Litteraria Serdicensia published his study “Theoretical Fictions and Hyperstition: A Rough Introduction,” dedicated to theory-fiction, the CCRU, and the concept of hyperstition.In 2025, Stoyanov co-founded Temporary Publishing with Hristo Kaloyanov and Philip Stoilov and has published Bulgarian translations of texts by Igor Zabel and Boris Groys and Hito Steyerl.

Nikola Stoyanov

The Naphthalene Tapes, 2026.

Video installation

Details

  • Photographer: Mihail Novakov
  • Material: single-channel video (22:50 min.), vintage wardrobe, acrylic on board, JVC TM-A140PN PVM
  • Description: Installation view of The Naphthalene Tapes in the group exhibition Black Market, curated by Camille Velluet, PUNTA Gallery, Sofia, 2026.
  • References: https://newdegeneration.xyz/work/the-naphtalene-tapes/
Since 2025, Stoyanov has also worked in contemporary dance and performance as dramaturg of Xx-63 by choreographer Neda Ruzheva and Trevoga Collective. The performance has been presented at One Dance Festival, Boris Hristov House of Culture, Plovdiv; Julidans / Theater Bellevue, Amsterdam; Het Nationale Theater, The Hague; Murf/Murw Festival, Tilburg; Theater Kikker, Utrecht; Frascati, Amsterdam; Studio dB, Berlin; Art Quarter Budapest, Budapest; Toplocentrala Centre for Contemporary Arts, Sofia; and SPIDER Festival, Ljubljana.

Since 2026, Nikola Stoyanov has been a member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists, Section 13.

About the artist

Nikola Stoyanov, Aaron Roth

Postcards and Contraband, 2023.

Installation

Details

  • Photographer: Boris Vasilev
  • Material: archival documents and photographs, cork boards, projection, maps, newspaper clippings, dual-channel video installation, book
  • Sizes: variable dimensions
  • Description: Exhibition view of Postcards and Contraband, ReBonkers, Varna, 2023.
  • References: https://newdegeneration.xyz/work/cards/
A central concern in Nikola Stoyanov’s practice is an expanded understanding of photography not only as an artistic medium but as a technical mode of seeing. The camera, satellite imagery, scientific visualization, archival documents, interfaces, and algorithmically generated images are understood as part of a broader history of apparatuses through which reality is recorded, organized, and transformed into information.

Nikola Stoyanov

Nature Morte, 2023.

Video installation

Details

  • Material: single-channel digital video, archival Landsat satellite imagery
  • Description: Timelapse video from the Nature Morte project tracing the expansion of the Maritsa East coal mines from the early 1980s to the present through satellite imagery from the Landsat programme. The project was presented at Goethe-Institut, Sofia, in 2023.
  • References: https://newdegeneration.xyz/work/nature-morte/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
 This gives rise to his interest in situations in which the boundaries between document and fiction, evidence and rumor, scientific description and conspiracy narrative begin to shift. Found archives, declassified documents, maps, satellite images, television footage, online communities, and local histories are recast into installations and visual systems that do not so much reconstruct the past as trace the infrastructure through which a given narrative begins to function as truth.

Nikola Stoyanov

Latent Space, 2022.

Digital Art

Details

  • Material: AI-generated image, acrylic print on canvas, wooden stretcher
  • Width: 100.00 cm    Height: 62.00 cm    Depth: cm   
  • Description: Latent Space explores machine hallucination and unstable images generated within the latent space of the early generative AI model Disco Diffusion.
  • References: https://newdegeneration.xyz/work/latent-space/
 In this sense, Stoyanov’s research does not precede the artwork as preparation but constitutes one of its primary materials. His artistic projects often begin with a specific archive, technological system, territory, or historical episode and gradually construct a speculative environment around it. Scientific and technological methods of observation intersect with philosophy, artistic fiction, and local histories, as the act of research itself becomes a means of producing images and narratives.

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See more
I Agree