Marco Brambilla (born 25 September 1960)[1] is an Italian-born Canadian contemporary artist and film director, known for directing Demolition Man and Dinotopia as well as re-contextualizations of popular and found imagery,[2] and use of 3D imaging technologies in public installations and video art.

"[6] In a review by The Art Newspaper's extended reality panel, Eron Rauch describes "Heaven's Gate," one of four artworks from his Megaplex series, as an example of American maximalism in art, comparing it to "Patrick Nagatani or Andrée Tracey; prestige TV openings; Daniel R. Small’s wry archaeology of the set of Cecil B De Mille's The Ten Commandments; “magic eye” books; California sci-fi cults; Broadway theatre set flats rotated by stagehands during musical numbers; and some manner of collision of 90s animated GIF-laden Tripod pages; and the panoramic fractalling of Jackson Pollock.

[9] Brambilla has likened the Metaverse to the disruptive Dada movement, and in 2021 curated an NFT collection by Simon Denny, Rachel Rossin, and Willem de Rooij, combining Sculpture, VR, and Blockchain technology.

[19] Set between the birth and death of the universe, Creation presents an abstract cycle of life, depicted within spiraling DNA strands in the form of a cosmic pull back.

The big bang is followed by embryonic inception, an idyllic Garden of Eden, then decadent urban sprawls eventually giving way to a landscape of annihilation before reconstituting itself as the spiral loops back to the moment of origin.

[20] The title alludes to Michael Cimino’s 1980 film of the same name, whose extravagant production costs bankrupted United Artists, opening the path for a new and lasting era of studio domination of the medium, which has continued to prevail.

[24] Inspired by Yves Klein’s photograph Leap into the Void (1960), Superstar presents a subject appearing perpetually frozen in time while the document of the moment itself slowly descends.

[25] In March 2015, he presented Apollo XVIII at Times Square – a video-installation of countdown to a fictitious flight to the Moon using archival footage from real NASA missions and computer-generated imagery.

[26][27] In 2019, Creative Time and Art Production Fund commissioned Brambilla to create Nude Descending a Staircase No.3, which was screened at World Trade Center station.

[31] Inspired by cloud tank photography used in films like Kwaidan, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Breaking The Waves, Brambilla employed particle simulations to create impressionistic yet hyper-realistic skies that "set the tone for aria Callas’ psychological condition, or her characters in the seven different operas she played in.

[34] In 2020, Brambilla created The Four Temperaments where Cate Blanchett performs four sets of distinct character types divided according to a personality classification first defined by the Greek philosopher, Galen.

Brambilla made his directorial debut with the futuristic action film Demolition Man, premiered October 8, 1993, starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock.