John Klima works - feature

My 1st favourite this year of Siggraph 07 is John, I know John since 1999 when he first time submitted his work to vrml-art now called web3dart2000 and web3dart1999 .

He is living half in Lisbon and half New York, teaching at RISDI and other places. As globetrotter he is currently working from remote, for the game company Doppelganger in San Francisco. Visit his site a body of very interesting works cityarts .

Text from Sandbox site:
My Recent Efforts to be God and Create the (Online) World in Seven Days. I intend to present an overview of my work of the past 8 years, and then concentrate on my recent efforts to be God and create the world in seven days.

Technologically, my focus currently consists of the synthesis of procedural and traditional key-frame skeletal animations, the integration of a A* path finding algorithms, and the integration of small neural networks to drive trainable behavior in avatars. Through the meshing these techniques, I am beginning to develop trainable characters that can learn from their environment and physically interact with each other in meaningful ways. I present the avatars in a-typical “game-like” circumstances, often involving a direct relationship with a real-world analogue, typically an installation in an art gallery or museum. I play with systems of meaning in games, and the real world, as a way to understand how we might reconcile a life increasingly lived in a realm of “virtuality.”

The most technologically stable of these approaches have been implemented within the existing on-line world, “The Lounge” - currently boasting 100,000 downloads and 300 concurrent players. My contributions are a tiny fraction of the total effort by Doppelganger, the company responsible for “The Lounge,” but indicate that these techniques can indeed find their way into independently produced games that have commercial viability, as well as soon-to-be-blockbusters such as “Spore.”
BIO
John Klima employs a variety of technologies to produce artwork with hand-built electronics, and computer hardware and software. Consistently connecting the virtual to the real, Klima builds large scale electro-mechanical installations driven by 3D game software he programs from scratch. The virtual computer imagery mirrors and extends the potential and agency of the physical components to produce cohesive worlds that are both humorous and sinister. In 2003 he focused on his long-time fascination with model railroading to create his first HO scale railroad piece, titled simply Train. Exhibited in December 2003 at Postmasters Gallery in New York, Train was shown in April 2005 at the DeCordova Museum in Boston, and in September became part of the permanent collection of the Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo in Badajoz, Spain. Klima has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, and Asia. His exhibitions include BitStreams at the Whitney Museum of American Art as well as the 2002 Whitney Biennial. He has also exhibited at Eyebeam, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, PS.1 and The Brooklyn Museum of Art. His international exhibitions include The Museum for Communication in Bern, Switzerland, the NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, Japan, The Daejeon Municipal Museum in Korea, and numerous international festivals. Selections from his bibliography include the New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Forum, Flash Art, and Business Week. Klima was recently a research scientist at the Courant Institute, New York University, and is currently adjunct Professor of Digital Media at the Rhode Island School of Design. Klima also teaches an extensive course in game design theory and production at the Polytechnic University of Brooklyn. John Klima is represented by Postmasters in New York, Bank Gallery in Los Angeles, and Gallery of International Media Art, Berlin, Germany.