Ammar Hassonjee – Looking Outwards 8

The person whose work I chose to look into is Syed Reza Ali. According to his website, Reza is a computational designer, software engineer, and spatial artist out of Los Angeles. He comes from an electrical engineering and computational design background and currently does his own studio work related to user experience and augmented reality platforms. I admire Reza’s workflow of combining artistic and creative theory with the technical aspects of logical and algorithmic thinking that he exhibits in his projects such as his YCAM 3D printed computational forms or his art installations for the Carbone Smolan Agency. He challenges himself to integrate all different kinds of software to add effects and layers of visualization to each of his projects, such as through combining modeling software like 3D Max with algorithmic coding done in C++.

In his presentation, Reza explains his unique design methodology and goes into detail about how he translates programming logical into generative physical forms. He uses the example work experience of his residency at Autodesk to expand on that. His use of captivating images, GIFS, and videos/simulations that project behind him on the screen, such as when he talks about his ofxUI Timeline or his Data Driven Design digital forms, really help enforce his presentation because he can directly reference the purpose of the project or show the audience the visual effect he was going for as opposed to just talking about it.