NPUC 1999 Speakers

Ken Perlin

NYU Media Research Lab

Dancing by Proxy

Abstract:

How will we use the Webs descendants, to express our ideas to each other? I mean just person-to-person, not product-to-consumer. I've been using Java applets to place intellectual and aesthetic ideas out where other people can poke at and respond to them. Often now when I have a conversation with someone, I can refer to some interactive simulation or other on my web site that illustrates what I'm talking about. Is this kind of "procedural document" a new form of literacy? Is it a new kind of prosthetic for the mind? Or just a distraction?

Brief Biography:

Ken Perlin is an Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science at New York University, where he directs the Media Research Laboratory and Center for Advanced Technology.

His research interests include computer animation, user interfaces, and multimedia. In 1991 he received an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, and in 1997 a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his work on procedural textures.

Ken's Ph.D. thesis won the Janet Fabri award for outstanding Doctoral Dissertation. Dr. Perlin started his computer graphics career working on TRON at MAGI.