Karl D.D. Willis.

Karl D.D. Willis is a PhD student in Computational Design at Carnegie Mellon University and a lab associate at Disney Research, Pittsburgh . His research focuses on ways in which technology can promote and provoke playful experiences, everyday creativity, and new forms of social interaction.

An ongoing theme in his work involves the creation of systems for user creativity. The Light Tracer project has to date been exhibited in a diverse range of international events, from music festivals to conferences to featuring on broadcast television.

He has previously collaborated with Japanese programmer-artist Nao Tokui on Sonasphere, a generative audio software application and together with Ivan Poupyrev developed and released the 12Pixels drawing application for mobile phones at Sony CSL in Tokyo, Japan.

Light Tracer
+ Unesco Universal Forum of Cultures, September 20 – December 8 2007, Monterrey, Mexico.
+ RoboKuma Lab, Sony ExploraScience Museum, June 28 – September 24 2007, Tokyo, Japan.
+ A.L.I.C.E. Museum, Hangaram Design Museum, June 1 – 22 2007, Seoul, Korea.
+ Club Transmediale, January 25 – February 3 2007, Berlin, Germany.
+ The Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2006, December 2-3 2006, Copenhagen, Denmark.
+ TASIE – The 2nd Art & Science International Exhibition and Symposium, November 11-25 2006, Beijing, China.
+ Building Interactive Playgrounds at Elettrowave, July 14-15 2006, Arezzo, Italy.

Sonasphere
+ Version Festival, December 2004, Auckland Art Gallery (Seminar) / ArtSpace, Auckland, New Zealand.
+ N_ext : New Generation of Media Artists, NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC], April 2004, Tokyo, Japan.

+ Mitoh Exploratory Software grant, Alchemy, 2007 – 2008.
+ Tokyo Type Director’s Club, Light Tracer, Interactive Design Prize 2007.
+ Digital Stadium, Light Tracer, Best Selection / Grand Prix Finalist 2006.
+ Asian Digital Art Award 2006, Light Tracer, Interactive Art Finalist Prize.

+ ‘Spatial Sketch: Bridging Between Movement & Fabrication’, TEI 2010, January 25-27, 2010, Cambridge, USA.
+ ‘TwelvePixels: Drawing & Creativity on a Mobile Phone’, ACM CHI 2008, April 5-10, 2008, Florence, Italy.
+ ‘Open Interactions: The Balance of Specification’, PerthDAC 2007, September 15 – 18, 2007, Perth, Australia.
+ ‘Creative Interactive Experiences as Production’, CCID 2006: The First International Symposium on Culture, Creativity and Interaction Design, September 12, 2006, London, UK.
+ ‘User Creativity and Authorship within Interactivity’, ACM Multimedia Conference 2006, October 23-27, 2006, Santa Barbara, USA.

+ TwelvePixels/Alchemy ‘Low-tech creativity workshop’, Lightwave, Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.
+ Tokyo TDC day, Light Tracer talk, Joshibi University of Art & Design, Tokyo, Japan.
+ Artists Talk, Art Centre Nabi, Seoul, Korea.

+ Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, PhD Computational Design, Current.
+ University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan, Master of Design, 2009.
+ College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney, Australia. Bachelor of Digital Media (Honours), 2005.
+ Wanganui School of Design, Wanganui, New Zealand. Bachelor of Computer Graphic Design, 2000.

Email: karl [at] darcy [dot] co [dot] nz