Rebecca Allen (artist)

Rebecca Allen (born 1954) is an international artist inspired by a variety of media to create work from 3-D computer graphics, animation, music videos, video games, performance works, artificial life systems, multisensory interfaces, interactive installations, virtual and mixed reality. A pioneer in the field of computer art, her work addresses humanizing technology.

Allen received her BFA at Rhode Island School of Design in 1975 and her MS in architecture machine group (predecessor to MIT Media Lab) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980. She is currently professor at, and was founding chair of, the UCLA Department of Design, Media Arts. She worked at New York Institute of Technology's Computer Graphics Laboratory.

Fast Company named Allen one of the Most Creative People in Business for 2010. She helped pioneer computer art by creating one of the first music videos to use 3D graphics, for the 1986 Musique Non Stop by Kraftwerk. Allen has collaborated with music and performing artists such as Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Peter Gabriel, Carter Burwell, Joffrey Ballet and Twyla Tharp.

Her artwork is part of the permanent collection of Centre Georges Pompidou, the Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art. Awards include a 1981-82 Emmy for outstanding achievement in design for the title sequence for CBS Walter Cronkite's Universe.

This is a list of selected work by Allen.

2002 The Brain Stripped Bare

The installation and performance considers a future where we live simultaneously in multiple realities, where the boundaries between physical and virtual reality are blurred and thoughts are expressed telepathically. Commissioned as part of the rhein.tanzmedia.net-Prize Partially funded by the Intel Research Council.

2001 Coexistence

An Interactive Art Installation that blurs the boundaries between physical and virtual realities. People experience a shared world of mixed reality through a unique sensory interface using breathing and haptics. Funded by IDII Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy.

1997-2001 The Bush Soul

A series of three interactive art installations involving artificial life, behavior, tactile interfaces and 3D virtual environment. Exhibited internationally this work utilizes a PC based software system called Emergence. Music by Mark Mothersbaugh-Devo / Mutato Muzika

Art exhibitions & performances

• 2003 - Women in Science (Genomically Yours) (The Bush Soul #3) Universal Concepts Unlimited Gallery, New York, NY
• 2003 - Sound & Vision - The Music Video (Musique Non-Stop) Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Curator: Tomoe Moriyama, December 2002-February 2003, Tokyo, Japan
• 2002 - The Brain Stripped Bare Installation and Performance. Tanzhaus NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany.
• 2001 - Mixed Realities Exhibition, (Coexistence) Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Gallery, Ivrea, Italy
• 2000 - Computer, Games and Art Exhibition, (The Bush Soul #3) Beall Center for Art and Technology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA