Tamiko Thiel

I am interested in developing the dramatic and narrative capabilities of interactive 3D virtual reality installations as a medium for addressing social and cultural issues. I show my work internationally at conferences such as Siggraph and ISEA, and in venues such as the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the International Center for Photography in New York. My work has been supported by awards such as the IBM Innovation Award, WIRED Magazine computer art award, a Japan Foundation Fellowship, Hauptstadtkulturfonds of Germany, MIT CAVS fellowship and the IAMAS media art academy in Japan.

I am based in Munich (where I went to art school), am often in Berlin for my Berlin Wall project "Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall," and have strong ties to Boston (where I did my graduate work at MIT and my first "artwork," the visual design for the Connection Machine CM-1/CM-2) and San Francisco (where I lived in the mid/late 1990s, among other things producing "Starbright World," my first work in virtual reality.)