MONOLITH
A trilogy of social science fiction, dystopia and philosophical cyberpunk about control, memory and the collapse of systems: BETON, SLUDGE and GAS.
Open series →Professional dossier
Ashraellen
Artistic research · Literary work · Public archive
This page gathers the practical information needed by institutions, grant foundations, publishers, curators and research partners. The wider website remains the living archive; this dossier is its working table.
About the author
Ashraellen is the working name of Nikolai Kostyshev, an independent writer and artistic researcher based in Poland.
His work combines literary fiction, phenomenological observation, social satire, digital culture, and public philosophical practice. Across books, essays, video, public posts and multilingual archives, Ashraellen investigates how contemporary human beings lose clarity, inner support and contact with reality — and how these mechanisms may become visible through form.
Russian is the primary language of thought and writing for Ashraellen — the language in which the original meanings, rhythm and conceptual pressure of the work are formed. Other language versions are created as faithful literary adaptations and channels of access to the original research core.
The project does not offer a system of help or spiritual instruction. It creates forms of observation: novels, formulas, essays, images and public reflections through which the reader or viewer can recognize mechanisms already active within experience.
Research statement
Ashraellen investigates the mechanisms through which the 21st-century human being loses cognitive and existential orientation: how interpretation replaces direct perception, how external narratives replace subjecthood, how information noise reshapes attention, and how a person begins to function where presence should have remained.
The central question of the research is simple and difficult: where does interpretation end, and where does reality begin?
The work is developed through literary projects, short public texts, videos, comments, reader response and multilingual publication. Social networks function as a field component: a thought meets resistance, irritation, recognition, gratitude and argument.
Open full Research section →Method of observation
The method is grounded in phenomenological observation: careful tracking of structures of consciousness from within, without reducing them too quickly to external categories.
Literary form is not decoration. It becomes a way of knowing. A novel works as a long-duration research instrument; essays and formulas register observations at the moment of clarity; video and social media test thought in live public response; visual images address preconceptual structures of perception.
The universality of an observation is tested not by statistics alone, but by recognition: the moment when a reader encounters a description of their own experience where they did not expect to find it.
Read full Method of Observation →Selected works and fields
The following works and fields form the current public corpus of Ashraellen.
BETON
The first volume of MONOLITH: a philosophical dystopia about a world where stability becomes a prison and memory becomes editable material.
Open book →SLUDGE
The second volume of MONOLITH: a study of the loss of form, forced participation and the gradual transformation of a person into the material of the surrounding system.
Open book →The Book of Whinesis
A pseudo-biblical satirical project on burnout, complaint, digital salvation, self-deception and the sacred mechanics of not moving.
Open book →You Are Already Online
A psychological techno-thriller about a person who begins to notice that reality reacts not to events, but to the readiness to confirm them.
Open book →Public formulas
Short observational units: compact philosophical formulations that capture one mechanism at a time, close to the moment of its appearance.
Open formulas →Mini-essays
Short analytical texts: one question, one angle of vision, one clarified mechanism. They bridge compact formulas and long-form literary research.
Open mini-essays →Talks and public videos
Recorded public speech, Shorts and video reflections where the research leaves the page and meets the viewer directly through voice, rhythm and response.
Open talks →For grants and project support
Ashraellen is currently seeking support for the development of a multilingual artistic research archive, literary publication, translation, video and audio production, documentation of public response, and the continuation of long-form research through fiction and public philosophical practice.
Possible areas of support include:
- writing and development of long-form literary research;
- translation and multilingual adaptation of existing and future works;
- editing, publication and distribution of books and digital editions;
- development of Ashraellen.com as a multilingual public research archive;
- video and audio production for public dissemination;
- documentation and analysis of public response as part of the research field;
- institutional cooperation, residencies, research partnerships and cultural programs.
Guiding principleThe purpose is to make the work easier to enter, not easier to dilute. Support would help create clearer access points, translations, publications and public formats while preserving the pressure, precision and density of the original research.
Contact
For grants, publishing, research cooperation and media inquiries:
Email: ashraellen.live@gmail.com
Location: Poland