Rebecca Allen

Birthyear
1953
Currently based
Los Angeles, USA
Affiliated institution
UCLA Department of Design
Website
http://rebeccaallen.com/
About

For over thirty years Rebecca Allen has investigated a variety of technological forms of expression including 3D computer animation films, music videos, large-scale performance works, interactive art installations, video games, artificial life systems and virtual reality. Allen is not interested in technology for its own sake, however. Rather, she is interested in a technoculture which humanizes technology even while maintaining a critical stance towards it. Or perhaps one can even say that it is her critical approach towards technology that helps humanize it. Allen demonstrates this critical approach with her concern with artistic quality and the conceptual integrity of her work—a conceptual integrity that stresses the effect on the mind of the viewer. Indeed her main concern appears to be the investigation of the perceptual and cognitive processes of the viewer. Thus she approaches technology from an almost expressionistic angle, where human feeling and emotional reaction predominate the art. (Text by Frank Popper)

CV
2003 - 2005 Senior Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab Europe, Dublin / Director Liminal Device Research Group
2002 First Prize - rhein.tanzmedia.web, Cologne/Düsseldorf / for The Brain Stripped Bare
2001 - 2003 Study about Virtual Reality and Pediatric Pain Distraction / cooperation with Dr. Skip Rezzo from the Integrated Media System Center at the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Childrens Hospital
2001 - 2002 Principal Investigator of the UCLA project Mixed Reality and the Aesthetics of Coexistence
2001 - 2002 Principal Investigator of the UCLA project E-motion and Emergent Behavior / Continuation of the Emergence Project
2001 - 2002 Awarded research grant of the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy / commission Coexistence
2001 - 2002 Awarded research grant from Intel Corporation / for Mixed Reality and the Aesthetics of Coexistence
2000 Visiting Artist and Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA
2000 Deployed Application Award of theAmerican Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) / for the Emergence Project
2000 Awarded research grant from Intel Corporation / for E-motion and Emergent Behavior
1997 - 1998 Awarded research grant from Intel Corporation / for the Emergence Project
1996 - 2002 Emergence Project / six-year Intel Corporation funded research project
1996 - 2000 Principal Investigator of the UCLA project Emergence Project: Aesthetic Issues in the Design of Virtual Environments
1996 - 1999 Founding Chair, UCLA Department of Design | Media Arts
1996 - 1997 Founding Co-Director of the UCLA Center for the Digital Arts (CDA), School of Arts and Architecture
1996 Professor at the University of California Los Angeles Los Angeles / Department of Design | Media Arts
1996 Awarded research grant from Intel Corporation / for Aesthetic Issues in the Design of
Virtual Environments
1993 - 1995 Creative Director of Virgin Interactive Entertainment Irvine, CA
1992 - 1992 Jury member Prix Ars Electronica 1992 / Computer Graphics and Animation
1991 - 1991 Jurymitglied Prix Ars Electronica 1991 / Computer Graphics and Animation
1991 National Endowment for the Arts Award (NEA)
1990 - 1991 Hochschule fur Angewandte Kunst Vienna, Austria / Director of Visual Media Department / Guest Professor
1990 Honorable Mention Ars Electronica, Linz / in the category Computer Animation for Steady State
1986 - 1993 Lecturer and Visiting Associate Professor at the UCLA Department of Design
1980 - 1986 Computer Graphics Laboratory Old Westbury, NY / Research Scientist/ Designer/ Director/ Producer
1980 M.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA / Architecture Machine Group (predecessor to MIT Media Lab)
Master of Science in Computer Graphics / Interactive Media / Interface Design
1980 Computer Corporation of America Cambridge, MA
1978 - 1980 Research assistant to the Machine Group/ MIT Cambridge, MA
1975 B.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design Providence, RI / Film / Animation / Graphic Design
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