• A word cloud
drawn from TEI
GSC abstracts
2010-2012.
set of professionals who engaged in
TEI activities as graduate students
in ways they believe influenced their
post-graduate decisions.
November + December 2012
interactions
Profiles of Graduate Students
We profiled a subset of professionals
who as graduate students engaged in
TEI activities that helped shape their
career paths. Jill Fantauzza-Coffin,
Jamie Zigelbaum, and Marcelo
Coelho have startups focused on
the intersection of art, design, and
technology. Jill’s focuses on products. Jamie and Marcelo’s centers
around designing interactive installations. All three TEI community
members participated in multiple
conferences. Jamie and Marcelo had
papers at the 2007 inaugural conference and co-chaired TEI 2010, and
Jill attended several TEI conferences
before participating in the 2011 GSC
and presenting a full paper at the
2012 gathering. In their own words,
they describe the ways in which TEI
influenced where they are today.
Jill Fantauzza-Coffin. I participated
in the 2011 TEI GSC because, like the
conference itself, this was a forum
that takes into account the chang-
ing nature of building and invention.
Boundaries between the building
disciplines are shifting. New digital
tools, communication platforms,
entrepreneurial business models,
manufacturing equipment, and
materials are changing the vision of
novel artifact creation. The TEI con-
ferences seem to pri-
oritize staying open
to future possibilities and interdisci-
plinary ideas, even if the methodolo-
gies are mixed, interdisciplinary, or
otherwise non-traditional.
TEI’s offering, including
launching Explorations, Studios, and
the Graduate Student Consortium
while securing ACM sponsorship
for the first time. Working together
to create TEI 2010, we found that
we made a good team and had an
easy time collaborating. It was this
insight that served as the catalyst
for our studio, Zigelbaum + Coelho,
a vehicle we’ve developed since winning the 2010 W Hotels Designer
of the Future Award from Design
Miami/ Basel. Together we operate
across design, technology, science,
and art. Our work utilizes physical, computational, and cultural
materials in the service of creating
new, but fundamentally human,
experiences. We have exhibited
internationally in venues such
as Ars Electronica, the Creators
Project, Biennale Internationale de
Saint-Etienne, as well as contemporary art and design galleries.
Our work has won awards, including Best Music Video and Video
of the Year from the 2011 British
Video Music Awards; Honorary
Mention, 2011 Prix Ars Electronica:
Interactive Arts; Honorable
Mention, I.D. Magazine 2011 Annual
Design Review: Interactive; and
the U.S. National Congress on
Computational Mechanics Award.
