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Aiko Nakano is an artist, designer, programmer, and mechanical engineer currently based in the Bay Area. She explores augmented, mixed, and virtual reality as artistic media for interactive art, using kinesthesia and other tangible interactions to create experiences that remove the boundary between the real and virtual worlds. She is the creator of digiPop VR, a kinesthetic and sound interaction app for HTC Vive.
She is currently a UX Engineer at Google's AR/VR team, crafting experiences that explore new interactions with immersive computing. Previously she was a Design Technologist at Amazon Web Services' Sumerian [AR/VR] team where she focused on creating experiences that can inspire useful examples of AR/VR and AI, as well as providing tool sets that help Sumerian's customers to quickly create scenes that already solve the challenges of user interaction in VR and with AI-driven humanoid characters. She led and implemented user interaction toolkit for virtual reality, created open source demos using artificial intelligence features, and spearheaded the AI feature integration into the 3D content creation tool. She was also a Creative Developer at Sosolimited, where she designed and programmed kinetic sculptures and interactive data visualizations. Her other experiences include a web developer at Jado Interactive, an architect at Höweler + Yoon, an architectural consultant at Transsolar KlimaEngineering, and a hedge fund analyst at Fortress Investment Group. She combines her eclectic set of skills and experiences to create interactive installations in the physical and digital spaces by weaving together a story using data and technology.
Aiko received her Master of Science in Building Technology from the Department of Architecture at MIT in 2015 and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with Minors in Economics as well as Management Science also from MIT in 2009. Her Master's thesis with Urban Weather Generator is the first simulation tool to incorporate the urban heat island effect into the urban design process and has won awards from the U.S. Department of Energy and the MIT Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling.
She was selected as the Artist of the Month by Better World Museum in December, 2017. In 2016, digiPop was selected for the Mpls Center for Digital Art INTER:CONNECTED Contemporary Art Exhibit. In 2014, her kinetic sculpture Bloom won the MIT Council for the Arts Grant and the competition for the Harvard Yard Arts Festival, and it was published in GSD Platform 7 and designboom. Her kinetic origami furniture Sprout was the finalist in MIT's $100K Pitch Contest.
She has worked on projects for Twitter, MIT, Harvard University, the City of Boston, Singapore National Research Foundation, and the US Department of Energy. Most recently, her work on Diffusion Choir with Sosolimited has won Design & Art Direction Award (Graphite Pencil), Art Directors Club Award (Silver Cube), and Creative Review Annual (Featured Work for Craft and Technical Innovation) in 2017.
中野愛子。メディアアーティスト、デザイナー、プログラマー、メカニカルエンジニア。京都生まれの大阪・シアトル育ちで現在ベイエリアで活動中。 オーグメンテッド、バーチュアル、ミックスド・リアリティの体験にボディーランゲージや五感を織り交ぜた、スクリーン上の世界と物質的な空間の境界線を解 放することを目指したインタラクティブアートを制作する。例えばVRアートアプリであるdigiPopは、声の波長によって形の異なるバーチャルバブルを描き、触れることができる。
現在GoogleのAR/VR グループのUX Engineerとして、イマーシブ・コンピューティングにおけるインタラクションを創作する。以前はAmazon Web ServicesのDesign Technologistとして、ブラウザ上でVR/AR/3Dコンテンツが作成できるSumerianの VR全般と、人工知能を用いた活用事例制作やフィーチャー統合を担当。VRのインタラクション・デザインとデジタルキャラクターとの対話においてベスト・ プラクティスとなるソースコードとアセットをオープン・ソースとして提供することにより顧客が短時間で有益なアプリケーションを作成できるようにすること を目指した。以前はSosolimitedのクリエイティブ コーダーとして、C++ (Cinder)とHTML/ CSS/ JavaScriptのプログラミングと共にコンセプトデザインを行う。キネティックアートのモーションデザイン用とモーター制御用のソフトウェア開発や TwitterなどのAPIと連動したデータビジュアライゼーションのアプリ制作、ウェブプログラミングを行った。
マサチューセッツ工科大学(MIT)機械工学科専攻、マネージメントサイエンスと経済学の副専攻を卒業後、同大学で建築学科サステイナブルデザイン修士課程を修了。以前にJado Interactiveでウェブデベロッパー、Höweler + Yoonで建築士、Transsolar KlimaEngineeringでサステイナブル・デザイン・コンサルタント、Fortress Investment Groupではヘッジファンド・アナリストとしての勤務経験もある。多種多様な職種での経験を生かして、デジタル・物質的な表現でデータとテクノロジーを使ったストーリーテリングを目指す。
卒業論文であるUrban Weather Generatorは、 都市設計において初の都市温暖化をシミュレーションできるソフトウェアであり、アメリカ合衆国エネルギー省ポスターコンペティションで入賞、MIT環境検 知とモデリングセンター(Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling)のワークショップでは3位受賞。
2017年12月、Better World MuseumのArtist of the Monthに抜擢される。2016年にはdigiPopがMpls Center for Digital Art INTER:CONNECTED Contemporary Art Exhibitで展示され、 2014年にはBloomがMIT Council for the Artsグラントを受賞、Harvard Yard Arts Festivalに選出、GSD Platform 7 と designboomに出版・掲載される。同年SproutがMIT $100K Pitch Contest の決勝戦出場。
これまでTwitter、 マサチューセッツ工科大学、 ハーバード大学、 ボストン市、 アメリカ合衆国エネルギー省、Singapore National Research Foundationのために作品制作を行った実績もある。 2017年には、Sosolimitedとの共同作品Diffusion Choirが Design & Art Direction Award (Graphite Pencil)、 Art Directors Club Award (Silver Cube)、Creative Review Annual (Featured Work for Craft and Technical Innovation) を受賞した。
Connect ++
I'm always up for collaborating on interesting things.
www.linkedin.com/in/aikonakano/
aiko-nakano
Most of my projects are in private repo's. Code samples available upon request.
* Please contact [email protected] for questions regarding Urban Weather Generator.
* Please contact the Amazon Sumerian team for any questions related to Amazon Sumerian.
Awards
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2017Design & Art Direction Awards, Graphite Pencil [Diffusion Choir]
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2017Art Directors Club Awards, Silver Cube [Diffusion Choir]
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2017Creative Review Annual, Featured Work for Craft and Technical Innovation [Diffusion Choir]
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2017Better World Museum Artist of the Month [December]
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2017Inst-Int Artist Fellow
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2014MIT Council for the Arts Grant
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2014MIT $100K Pitch Contest, Finalist
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2014MIT Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling workshop, Third Prize
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2014US Dept. of Energy Clean Energy & Empowerment National Poster Competition, Finalist
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2013Presidential Fellow, Full scholarship for the Master's degree
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2008Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society
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2008Pi Tau Sigma International Mechanical Engineering Honor Society
Exhibitions
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2016Mpls Center for Digital Art INTER:CONNECTED Contemporary Art Exhibit [digiPop]
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2016Consumer Electronics Show [CES] 2016 for Twitter [Twitter Heart, with Sosolimited]
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2015Lawn on D Public Art, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority [Swingtime, with Höweler and Yoon Architecture]
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2015MIT Museum, Shortlisted for exhibition [digiPop]
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2014Harvard Yard Arts Festival [Bloom]
Publications & Talks
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2019MIT Think.Inspire.Motivate Talks Closing Keynote Speaker [Lean Career]
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2018AWS Loft Demo & Workshop [Amazon Sumerian]
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2016WIRED, Mashable , Architectural Digest, New York Magazine, Slate, Creative Boom, The Creators Project [Diffusion Choir]
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2016Eyeo Show & Tell [digiPop]
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2015
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2015designboom [Bloom]
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201514th International Conference of the International Building Performance Simulation Association [Urban Weather Generator]
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2015Ninth International Conference on Urban Climate [Urban Weather Generator]
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2014GSD Platform 7 [Bloom]
