Jonathan David Martin

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 is serving as the Creative Producer and Narrative Designer for a forthcoming VR experience.  He is also the Creative Director and Producer of a mobile augmented reality experience exploring hidden stories in America history.

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 stars 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 is now on and open-ended commercial run. He is also a performer in the VR experience “Severance Theory: Welcome To Respite” (Venice Film Fest, Kauhsiung Film Fest, and Raindance Film Fest) and starred in “Loveseat” (Venice Film Fest).

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 has been a featured speaker at SXSW, AR/VR Policy Conference, (Re)Connect Festival, and universities around the country.