JONATHAN DAVID Martin
Creative
Director, Producer, performer
Jonathan is a director, producer, educator, and performer working at the intersection of immersive technology and live performance.
He is the Producing Co-Artistic Director of Smoke & Mirrors Collaborative, a non-profit production company that creates original works for theater, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and the web that combine socially relevant themes with an ambitious, multi-disciplinary approach to storytelling. With Smoke & Mirrors he has directed the documentary web-series, "Tangible Hope Project" (Best Documentary Series-BNMWFest), and the original plays, Point of Departure and The Alien Nation. He produced and performed in the international tour and Off-Broadway hit Olityelwe (Ndebele Funeral), #HashtagProject, and created Head in the Sand.
Jonathan is a 2021 Oculus Launch Pad member where he served as the Creative Producer and Narrative Designer for the forthcoming narrative VR experience, "City of Sand."
As a performer, he is a pioneer in performance technique for VR, drawing on a 15 year career as an actor and puppeteer on Broadway, TV, film, and regional theaters around the country. He starred in “Finding Pandora X,” a ground-breaking live performance VR experience that was awarded Best Interactive Experience at the Venice International Film Festival VR, the Audience Award at SXSW, and was named XR Must's Best Interactive Experience in 2020. He also starred in the VR experiences “Severance Theory: Welcome To Respite” (Venice Film Fest, Kauhsiung Film Fest, and Raindance Film Fest), "Gumball Dreams" (SXSW), and “Loveseat” (Venice Film Fest). He is currently performing as a puppeteer in the Broadway production of "Life of Pi."
At the University of Maryland, he is a faculty member in the Immersive Media Design program. There, he is leading research into the narrative and user experience design possibilities of AR/VR and training students from across campus for future careers that will utilize spatial technologies. He is a guest lecturer at the California State University Northridge and has been a featured speaker at SXSW, AR/VR Policy Conference, (Re)Connect Festival, and universities around the country.