Stacey Spiegel

Stacey Spiegel (born 1955) is a Canadian artist, artistic director, and new media visionary.

Life and work

Stacey Spiegel was born in Hespeler, Ontario, Canada and attended York University in Toronto where he studied fine arts (BFA). He currently resides in Toronto.

New Media

From 1985-1987, Spiegel was a fellow at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Study, from where he moved on to become Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto from 1992-1997. As a new media installation designer and artist, Spiegel worked early on with [http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=770023 Dr. Rodney Hoinkes] creating state-of-the-art digital installations at events such as DEAF (Dutch Electronic Arts Festival) in 1995 and 1996, Rotterdam City Festival (Safe Harbour, a harbour simulator of Marine Safety featuring a 360-degree Virtual Reality environment for experiencing the multicultural city of Rotterdam) [http://web.t0.or.at/scl/0046.html] , MultiMediale, and Ars Electronica. 

After years of exploring new media through art, in 1997 Spiegel joined with Hoinkes to start Immersion Studios (later renamed [http://www.i-mmersion.com I-mmersion] ) to explore the potential of interactive films, theatres and classrooms. During the firm's existence from 1997-2006, I-mmersion was considered one of Canada's most innovative new media companies and a forerunner in the arena of social computing [http://www.imat.ca/imatinno.shtml] . Its products included the Immersion Cinema, a 180-degree HD digital cinema experience [http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/~servin/vrlandscape/long-version.html] which has been installed in museums and science centres around the world, including Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota Florida, Discovery Center of Springfield Missouri, Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration in Connecticut, and The Smithsonian in Washington DC. 

Since the mid-90s, Spiegel has produced and directed 40 major interactive projects, including installations for the likes of The Smithsonian Museum [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3419/is_200106/ai_n8183012] , British Science Museum [http://www.bnfl.co.uk/content.php?pageID=89&newsID=119] , the Department of Canadian Heritage, and EXPO 2005. Spiegel has also worked with renowned experts and scientists such as Dr. Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic and founder and president of the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, where he created the experience at the center of the groundbreaking Immersion Institute in 2002. The Immersion Institute employed the same robotics used in sea exploration, wiring Monterey National Marine Sanctuary (on the U.S. west coast) to Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration (on the U.S. east coast) through a live digital feed enabling visitors, for the first time ever, to explore the sanctuary remotely in real time [http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/4528] .

Recent work

In 2007 Spiegel was named the Artistic Director of [http://www.rockheim.com Rockheim] , the new National Rock and Pop Museum in Norway (scheduled to open in 2009) and is developing the museum, including a [http://eng.kosmorama.no/om_festivalen/festivalarkiv/kosmorama_2007/nyhetsarkiv/virtuelle_rockheim Virtual Rockheim] museum as a co-creation tool for visitors. He also serves as Director of Industry Relations at the Center for Advanced Media Research in Amsterdam ( [http://www.camera.vu.nl CAMeRA] ) located at the Amsterdam Free University, where his work is focused on establishing commercial partnership opportunities that establish real world applications for the innovative academic research happening at the CAMeRA. Other recent projects (2005-2008) include creative direction of the Canada Interactive Network / [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t_-wNhFDDE Virtual Canada] for the Canada Pavilion at EXPO 2005 in Aichi, Japan; development of an interactive educational exhibit at W5 Discovery Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland [http://www.w5online.co.uk] ; and numerous other interactive installations and productions in Canada, USA, Australia, Europe, and Japan.  

Awards

Spiegel has won numerous awards for his new media work, including a 2002 Electronic Multimedia Awards (EMMA) for Technical Excellence & Innovation [http://www.imat.ca/emma_winners.shtml] ; a 2002 Innovation Award [http://www.imat.ca/imatinno.shtml] from the Interactive Multimedia Arts & Technologies Association (IMAT); a 2002 Canadian New Media Award for New Media Visionary [http://www.cnma.ca/index_e/02winners.html] , a 2000 Canadian New Media Awards nomination for Company of the Year, and two Golden Reel nominations as producer/director. In the fine arts, he is a winner of the Bernice Adams Memorial Arts Award and a recipient of grants from the Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council.

Education

Maintaining ties to education and art, Spiegel has also continued working closely with post-secondary institutions around the world. For several years, Spiegel collaborated with the [http://annenberg.usc.edu Annenberg School] at The University of Southern California in a study on the impact of interactivity in learning among children, and installed "Immersion labs” [http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/users/servin/vrlandscape] in post-secondary institutions such as Harvard University, University of Toronto, and Sheridan College. He has also penned the foreword for two textbooks on video games, guest-lectured at the University of Queensland, Australia, and has appeared as keynote or guest speaker at numerous international events, including the [http://www.ieconference.org/ie2005/program.html Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment] , [http://matchmaking.teks.no/wp/2007/?p=55 Trondheim Matchmaking] (an annual international festival for electronic arts and new technology), the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney (Australia's largest and most popular museum), SIGGRAPH Toronto [http://toronto.siggraph.org/pastmeetings99.html] , DEAF Netherlands [http://wayback.v2.nl/DEAF/persona/spiegel.html] , and the USC Annenberg Workshop on Games for Learning, Development & Change [http://games.uscannenberg.org/abstracts.php#stacey] . 

In 2006, Stacey Spiegel and Dr. Rodney Hoinkes presented a talk titled “The Evolution of Real and Virtual Communities” [http://blogs.imedia.mie.utoronto.ca/iml/?p=116] at the University of Toronto. In October 2007 Spiegel inspired an international symposium at the University of Western Ontario called "Playing the Gallery: The art of games" [http://www.techalliance.ca/latest/techpulse-games-people-play.html] , which focused on understanding issues between virtual reality and the implications for social change and technology-driven environments for creative expression. In the mid-1990s, Spiegel was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Software Engineering and Game Design at McMaster University. 

Art

In addition to his work in the business, education and art of new media, Spiegel is also a renowned artist "whose thesis on the mechanisation of nature informs his multidisciplinary work" [http://wayback.v2.nl/DEAF/persona/spiegel.html] . His sculptures and computer-based artworks have been exhibited in many international venues at more than 35 solo exhibitions and 14 group exhibitions, and are included in both public and private collections, and in the permanent collections of over 22 galleries and museums including the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Aside from creating and exhibiting artworks internationally, Spiegel has also been an Artist-in-Residence in a number of prestigious institutions, including Cité des Arts in Paris; the Zentrum for Kunst and Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany; the Banff Centre's New Media Centre in Banff, Alberta; the Museum of Science and Technology in Hull, Quebec; and a MIT fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Study.

Some of Spiegel's location-based installations are viewable in Toronto. Toronto's Yonge-Sheppard subway station features "Immersion Land", a mosaic composed of 1.5 million one-inch tiles. The installation was developed from a digitized and pixilated blend of 150 photographs depicting lush landscapes, country homes, and rural scenes from Yonge Street as it stretches towards North Bay. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_subway_and_RT#Subway_art] . Another of his installations is nestled in a courtyard near the intersection of Yonge and Adelaide Street East: a collection of eclectic, sculptural water fountains called "Synthetic Eden" [http://www.dittwald.com/torontosculpture/search.php?Artist=Stacey%20Spiegel] .

External links

▪ [http://www.i-mmersion.com I-MMERSION]
▪ [http://www.pwlabs.com Parallel World Labs Inc.]
▪ [http://www.rockheim.com Rockheim]

Publications

▪ Spiegel, Stacey. "Immersive serious games for large scale multiplayer dialogue and co-creation" (chapter) in "Serious Games: Mechanisms and Effects", edited by Ute Ritterfeld, Michael Cody and Peter Vorderer. New York: Routledge, in press (2008).
▪ Spiegel, Stacey. Foreword to textbook “Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences”, edited by Peter Vorderer and Jennings Bryant, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006.
▪ Teitelbaum, Matthew. “The Ethics of Making Things”, catalogue essay, San Francisco, 1991.
▪ Bell, Carolyn. “Art and Technology: Phase Shift”, catalogue essay, Canada, 1991.
▪ Bell, Carolyn and Ihor Holubizky, “Art and Technology”, catalogue, Canada, 1994.
▪ Moos, David. “Diaspora”, catalogue, Canada, 1995.
▪ Spiegel, Stacey. Crossings. "Mythos Information- Welcome to the Wired World: @rs electronica 95" Wien and New York: Springer-Verlag. 305-307, 1995.
▪ Nonomura, Fumihiro and Hideki Yoshimatsu. Riding the Internet Transnational Railway - "Crossings". "Intercommunicat ion: A Journal Exploring the Frontiers of Art and Technology" (Tokyo, Japan) 13, summer: 1995-99.
▪ Sperlich, Tom and Florian Wenz. Cyber-Web: Dreidimensionale Welten auf dem Internet. "Grafikkarten: Magazine fër Computer Technik" (Hannover, Germany) July: 110-114, 1995.
▪ Spiegel, Stacey. Crossings. "Multimediale: das Medienkunstfestival des ZKM Karlsruhe" Karlsruhe: ZKM/Zentrum fër Kunst und Medientechnologie, 49, 1995.
▪ Moderini, Claudio. Ars Electronica 95: Non sparate sull'artista. "Virtual:Il Mensile Dell'Era Digitale" (Milano, Italia) August: 22-24, 1995.
▪ “The Arts” Canada Year Book 1992, 125th Anniversary Edition, Statistics Canada, 1991.
▪ Holubizky, Ihor. “Visible Flow” catalogue, 1991.
▪ “Art and Technology: Teaming Up to Serve you Better”, Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art (AICA) XXIV Congress, 1990.
▪ “Now You See It, Now You Don’t”, ETC (revue internationale de l'art actuel du Canada), Montreal, Sept. 1990.
▪ “New Langton Arts Catalogue”, San Francisco, 1990.
▪ “Computer-Altered Photographs”, San Francisco Chronicle, November 18, 1989.
▪ “Thunder and Lightning”, Canadian Craft Magazine, Winter 1988.
▪ “Waterworks Catalogue”, Visual Arts Ontario, Fall 1988.
▪ Reed, Cecelia. “A New Train of Thought for Subway Denizens”, Advertising Age, June 1, 1987.
▪ Teitelbaum, Matthew. “Stacey Spiegel—Messages from the new-Old World”, Vanguard (cover article), Sept. 1986.
▪ MacDougall, Anne. “Les Sculptures-Installations de Stacey Spiegel”, Vie des Arts, Autumn 1985.
▪ Pineau, Lucie. “Stacey Spiegel, Axe-Neo 7”, Vanguard, Winter 1984.
▪ Tiffet, Paul. “Continuous-Passage-Continuel”, Parachute, Spring 1984.
▪ Rans, Goldie. “London, Ontario”, Vanguard, Sept. 1983.
▪ Rans, Goldie. “Mayim” catalogue, London Regional Art Gallery, 1982.
▪ Spiegel, Stacey. “Machine Show” catalogue, Cambridge Art Gallery, Ontario, 1981.