John Vega

John Vega is a digital artist and designer living in Boulder, Colorado. A 20-year veteran of commercial new media, Vega is an award-winning interactive art director and motion graphics designer. His career clients comprise Fortune 500 companies such as Apple Computer, IBM, Motorola and Sony.

Career

In the early 1990s, while working as director of multimedia for Boulder-based Leopard Communications, Vega produced multimedia for live events that traveled from Beijing, China to Basel, Switzerland.

In 1995, Vega started Dancing Image Interactive, where he created cutting-edge Web pieces for technology-based clients including Sprint Nextel and Microsoft. In 1999, Vega sold his design business to Barnhart /CMI Advertising and was hired there as a senior art director in the interactive group. Vega changed course in 2001. He studied Fantastic Realism with Robert Venosa] and began working with the University of Colorado at Boulder Fine Arts Dept. where he pioneered the award-winning interactive net art piece "FILMTEXT", with co-instructor Mark Amerika. "FILMTEXT" has had several high profile exhibitions including installations at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

Vega was an instructor of digital arts in the CU-Boulder Fine Arts Dept. and later became a senior instructor of CU’s ATLAS program to teach generative art and motion design. He has also collaborated with net artists Mendi & Keith Obadike to create the interactive libretto for the net opera, "The Sour Thunder", and he has produced video art for several live events including concert visuals for electronic music pioneer Steve Roach.

In addition to showings at major electronic art festivals including SIGGRAPH, FILE and Transmediale, Vega’s digital art has be seen in museum and gallery exhibitions including showings at the American Museum of the Moving Image and the Austin Museum of Digital Art.

Current work

He is currently designing digital art visuals for the NY production "The Tibetan Book of the Dead LIVE", a presentation of the Asia Society, slated to begin in 2007. Vega will work in collaboration with Philip Glass who will compose and perform an original score with an ensemble of Tibetan and Western musicians. Vega continues to create commercial new media with select agencies and clients through his “virtual” agency, John Vega & Associates.