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Alex Beim is a creative computer artist and founder of Tangible Interactions, a group which creates sensorially-oriented interactive installations that are geared toward our most basic human instincts regarding light, space, and color. Starting his own design studio at the age of 19, Alex Beim later went on to found Tangible Interaction in 2007, citing his experience designing posters for his father’s event planning business when he was 12 as his inspiration for joining the field of the visual arts. After doing creative work for advertisement companies, but wishing to have a more direct connection with the people that his artwork affected, Beim quit and designed his first major project. The zygote ball was a large inflatable ball that changed color in response to touch and auditory stimulus. After having the balls released at a concert at the Arrezo Wave festival in Florence, Italy, Beim’s commissions began to grow, and he took on Tangible Interactions full-time as Creative Director. Tangible Interactions’ work is deeply involved with responsive color and light variability, and draw inspiration from natural phenomena such as clouds and animal life, as well as from human social constructs such as graffiti art and public spaces. Beim is perpetually interested in bringing the subjects of his artwork to the present moment by invoking the power of human sensation.
Personally, I admire the ways in which Beim uses nature as inspiration for his installations. For example, his Jelly Swarm project was made up of dozens of paper jellyfish suspended from a parametrically generated triangular-paneled structure was so immersive because it was at such a scale that an occupant could be entirely enveloped by the installation, limiting the sensorial experience to only the installation itself, helping to filter extraneous stimuli and produce a more immersive experience of the artwork. The way in which Beim explains his installations is so effective because he allows the videos to tell the story of interaction and experience with his art installations, as they are intrinsically sensorial, meaning they are best described visually or audibly rather than textually.

INST-INT 2013 – Alex Beim from Eyeo Festival // INSTINT on Vimeo.