Reza Ali: Computational Design - Creative Engineering
Please join us for this Wednesday's Colloq with Reza Ali (http://www.syedrezaali.com): Modulation's 2014 Guest Visual Artist.
Reza is a computational designer & creative engineer. He uses code to express himself, and creates tools and libraries to help others create. He is the author of ofxUI, one of the most popular addons for openframeworks (an arts-engineering toolkit). Though his works is highly visual, he is interested in the ideas and implications of his tools, works, and methodology. As an artist & engineer he is deeply interested in the feedback cycle that occurs when customs tools are written to accomplish an artwork, and how those tools can enable artworks to go beyond what the artist had originally envisioned. Reza is excited to find those happy accidents, beautiful moments of interaction and magic that comes with making something novel with technology. He hopes to change the world by making a difference in how people use technology, design products and experience new media art and entertainment.
In 2010 Reza earned a Master of Science in Multimedia Engineering (with a focus in Visual and Spatial Arts) from the Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His advisors were George Legrady (Data Visualization Artist), Casey Reas (Co-Creator of Processing, MIT Media Lab), and Matthew Turk (MIT Media Lab). Before his move to Santa Barbara, California in 2008, he graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with two B.S. (One in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, and minors in Electronic Art and Product Design) studying under Curtis Bahn, Shawn Lawson and Kenneth Conner. His passion for electrical engineering and hard work earned him the position of top student in the electrical engineering department. He also won merits in the Electronic Arts classes he took throughout his time at RPI.