Tamiko Thiel (born June 15, 1957) is an American artist, known for her digital art. Her work often explores "the interplay of place, space, the body and cultural identity,"[1] and uses augmented reality (AR) as her platform. Thiel is based in Munich, Germany.[2]
From November 1994 to February 1996, she worked for Starbright World as the creative director and producer of the initial system for the Starbright World project, working closely with Steven Spielberg, to create an online interactive 3D virtual world for seriously ill children.
Thiel has had many other exhibits, some of the most notable being her shows "Beyond Manzanar" (a piece about a World War II-era Japanese-American internment camp in California), "The Travels of Mariko Horo", and "Shades of Absence".
Beyond Manzanar is a large scale, immersive, virtual reality (VR) artwork Thiel co-created in 2000 with Iranian-American artist, Zara Houshmand.[17][11] The technology located you inside the Manzanar, the known site of one of the ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.[18] As you walk around and explore the camp, you physically constrained by the landscape and features, emphasizing the emotional feelings of confinement.[18]
This work is part of the permanent collection at the San Jose Museum of Art and was part of the 2019 exhibition, Almost Human: Digital Art from the Permanent Collection.[11]
Clouding Green (2012)edit
Clouding Green was a 2012 augmented reality (AR) installation taking place in various locations in Silicon Valley and in San Francisco.[19] The installation showed animated clouds looming over many major Silicon Valley corporations, the color of the clouds ranged from ashy black to bright green depending on their usage of renewable energy.
Unexpected Growth (2018)edit
In 2018–2019, a commissioned and collaborative work with artist /p,[20]Unexpected Growth an augmented reality (AR) installation was part of exhibition Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965–2018 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.[19]Unexpected Growth was site specific to the sixth floor terrace of the museum, showing coral growing on the building alongside small trash and slowly bleaching color over the span of one day.[19]
2013 – Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Fund Award, awarded to eight artists for Mi Querido Barrio Project (My Beloved Neighborhood Project), a virtual cultural historical tour of El Barrio using mobile augmented reality (AR) by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI).[23] Tamiko Thiel served as the primary artistic instructor for this project.[23]
2009 – IBM Innovation Award, grant awarded to Teresa Reuter and Tamiko Thiel (T+T) for the work "Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall"[24]
2007 – Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Berlin Capital City Cultural Fund) Award
2004–2005 – Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)[25]
1996 – Global Information Infrastructure Awards: Winner of Next Generation Award
1996 – Asahi Shimbun: Digital Entertainment Award
1995 – Cyberedge: Virtual Reality product of the Year Award[26]
Publicationsedit
Solo authorshipedit
"Cyber-Animism and Augmented Dreams," Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), Istanbul, April 2011.
"The Design of the Connection Machine," The Designed World: Images, Objects, Environments. Richard Buchanan, Dennis Doordan and Victor Margolin, Ed. Berg, New York, pp. 155–166.
"Where Stones Can Speak: Dramatic Encounters in Interactive 3D Virtual Reality," chapter in the book Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives, ed. Pat Harrigan & Noah Wadrup-Fruin, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.
"Life at the Interface of Art and Technology," ON SCREEN, 911 Media Arts Center, Seattle, WA., USA. Winter 2007, Vol. 18 No.1, pp. 32–34.
"Beyond Manzanar: Creating Dramatic Structure in Ergodic Narratives," Published in the conference proceedings for Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment (TIDSE, now subsumed into the ICIDS conference), Darmstadt, Germany, June 24–26, 2004, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.
"Veiled Fantasies," Site Street Online Journal, Fall 2002
"Dramatic structure in interactive virtual reality," Aedo-ba, Villa Tosca Design Management Center, Milan, Nr. 03/04, Fall 2001 pp. 40–45.
"Beyond Manzanar: Constructing Meaning in Interactive Virtual Reality," COSIGN 2001 Conference Proceedings, Amsterdam, Holland.
"The Design of the Connection Machine," (Japanese text) InterCommunication Magazine, InterCommunication Center of the NTT, Tokyo, Japan, No. 8, Spring 1994. pp. 128–135.
"The Design of the Connection Machine," DesignIssues, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 1994. pp. 5–18.
"Vijfenzestigduizend Processoren in Twaalf Dimensies," (in Dutch) Computable, Netherlands, 26E Jaargang, Week 22, 4 June 1993, pp. 25, 27.
"Machina Cogitans," (text in English and German) Genetic Art - Artificial Life, ARS ELECTRONICA, Linz, Austria. pp. 186–194
"The Connection Machine," AXIS Design Magazine, Number 45, Tokyo, Japan, 1992
Collaborative authorshipedit
With Houshmand, Zara. "Beyond Manzanar", [Two] Factorial, !Factorial Press, San Diego, CA, 2003
With Houshmand, Zara. "Beyond Manzanar," on front Page of NW Nikkei / North American Post, Vol. 18 No.17, April 21, 2001, pp. 1,5.
With Houshmand, Zara. "Beyond Manzanar," SIGGRAPH 2001 Electronic Art and Animation Catalog and CD-ROM, ACM SIGGRAPH, New York, page 125.
Further readingedit
Tamiko Thiel, "Beyond Manzanar: Constructing Meaning in Interactive Virtual Reality", cosignconference.org
^ abWilson Smith, Matthew (2010). Liquid Walls: The Digital Art of Tamiko Thiel. Vol. 32. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. pp. 25–34. doi:10.1162/PAJJ_a_00004. eISSN 1537-9477. ISSN 1520-281X. S2CID 57560269. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^"Featured Art + Tech Programs: Land of Cloud". Stanford University, Arts Department. Land of Cloud By Tamiko Thiel, Product Design Alumna '79
^"IBM Innovation Awards presented at 2009 Boston Cyberarts Festival" (PDF). Boston Cyberarts Festival. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-07-06. The Grand Award of $3000 went to "Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall" by Teresa Reuter + Tamiko Thiel, two artists based in Germany who are the primary collaborators on the artist team T+T. The virtual reality artwork investigates the impact of the Berlin Wall, which divided West and East Berlin during the Cold War until late 1989.
^"Tamiko Thiel". School of Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2019-10-24.