Michael Naimark Interactive and Immersive Film Environments, 1977 — 1997 Opening reception: Saturday, May 21, 6:00 to 9:00pm Exhibition dates: May 22 — August 20, 2005 Williamson Gallery hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 12 noon to 5 p.m. Friday, 12 noon to 9 p.m. Closed Mondays and holidays Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery Art Center College of Design 1700 Lida Street Pasadena, California 91103-1999 (626) 396-2446 williamsongallery.net Michael Naimark is a pioneering media artist and researcher with over 25 years of experience investigating "place representation." He has worked extensively with field cinematography, interactive systems, and immersive projection and has been a member of the Society for Visual Anthropology since 1984. He was instrumental in the founding of several research labs and his art projects exhibit internationally: he speaks both languages. Naimark was on the original design team for the MIT Media Laboratory in 1980 and was a founding member of the Atari Research Lab (1982), the Apple Multimedia Lab (1987), and Lucasfilm Interactive (now LucasArts, 1989). He joined Interval Research Corporation, a long-term lab funded by Paul Allen, as it opened in 1992, and worked an additional year after it closed in 2000 on his webcam spinoff venture, Kundi.com. Several patents have been granted for his work. The artist's art projects are in the permanent collections of the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and the ZKM | Center for Arts and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. His 3D interactive installation "Be Now Here," produced by Interval with the cooperation of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, toured in the ZKM's "Future Cinema" exhibition in 2002 and 2003. A recipient of the 2002 World Technology Award for the Arts, Naimark was also awarded a 2003 Rockefeller Foundation grant to direct a feasibility study for a unique, financially sustainable Arts Lab. In 2004, he taught the first "History of New Media" class at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program and guest-curated the Ars Electronica 25th Anniversary Symposium in Linz, Austria, whose theme was "The World in 25 Years." Naimark is currently a Visiting Associate Professor in the Interactive Media Division of the USC School of Cinema/Television. He serves on the Visiting Committee of the MIT Media Lab and on the Boards of the Zero One Network, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, and Presence journal. Naimark was recently a guest artist in the graduate Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design. naimark.net