Jill Shah is an experiential artist and creative technologist based in New York. She utilizes algorithms to enhance our physical surroundings, driven by her desire to infuse more human elements into an increasingly automated world. Her work invites users to interact with and contemplate the intersection of algorithms and technological progress.

The artist holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design and has worked as an Experiential Production Designer at Future Colossal, an acclaimed innovation lab specializing in interactive spaces. Committed to making skills and knowledge accessible, she is also an enthusiastic educator, teaching design courses and leading technical workshops at the New School.

We asked Jill about her art, creative process, and inspirations.

Can you tell us about your background as a digital artist? How did you get started in this field?

I trained and worked as an Architect until 2019, when I really started feeling the need to learn more and expand my skills. It was a critical junction in my professional life, a moment of uncertainty in terms of what I wanted to do next. I decided to then pursue a Masters in the US, joined Parsons and got my MFA. The course introduced me to programming and digital art. It was a challenge at first since I had no coding knowledge prior to this point but it was a very interesting area for me. I was always inclined towards math, rules, and physics even in my work as an architect, which I think helped me translate my skills and begin a career in digital art.

What inspires your art? Are there any particular themes or subjects that you enjoy exploring through your artwork?

When I began creating my digital art, I was exploring algorithms, in particular - the differential growth algorithms and chaos theory. It was really amazing for me to see how a carefully curated program, built with equations and looping logic, creates beautiful forms and patterns. From there on, an itch to translate these 2D patterns and equations into 3D led me to learn visual programming, parametric tools like Grasshopper and Touchdesigner. Now, I am really inspired by the simplicity and commonality of our daily objects of use (think cups, or dishes) and use my digital art algorithms to change their form. Bringing out idiosyncrasies that a piece of generative code can have and applying that to forms known commonly to us, brings out alternative forms and moments of serendipity in my daily life.

Rössler chaos — *Rössler Chaos by Jill Shah*

Can you tell us about some of your favorite pieces? What makes them special to you?

I am currently employed in the experiential and themed entertainment industry. In the past three years, I have worked on multiple projects that vary in scale, target audience and industry. My favorite project is the first experiential project I ever worked on - Cosmic Camp - Cosmic Camp offered an extraordinary play area that transported kids and their families on an extraordinary journey via hands-on games, real-world obstacles, and whimsically themed cosmic settings.

This captivating immersive environment was operational for more than a year, featuring diverse games that enable participants to navigate molten terrains, decipher frozen crystals, operate rovers, and engage in a range of other fun activities. It was a blend of play, art and design and was a big hit with kids. Being involved in the creation of that project was a dream come true and I am very proud of that one even today.

Another project of mine that is very close to me was called New.ances. It started with just a curiosity about pottery. At that time, I was also heavily involved in learning digital fabrication methods and techniques. This project birth-ed out of a concern - mass production was killing the uniqueness in objects and leaving little room for craft. This dissonance led me to conceptualize a project in which I combined the craft of hand building and wheel thrown pottery with digital fabrication methods like 3D printing and muscle stimulation devices.

New.ances was a series of critically designed, computationally augmented making experiments in pottery; resulting in a collection of vessels with altered, nuanced forms. The new.anced ways of making reside in the gap that exists in the leap from hand made, wheel throwing method of making clay wares to ceramic 3D printing.

Can you talk about some of the immersive experiences you create? How do you approach conceptualizing ideas and implementing them?

Every new immersive experience is a new challenge. Audiences and creators alike, wish for unique, futuristic moments that we have never experienced before and that is a very difficult task. At times, the concepts and ideas start with this need for something new, something cool or something revolutionary in terms of technology. But other times, the ideas also start with a story and narrative or with an inspiration from something that has been done before and worked very successfully. The challenge I give to myself when ideating new immersive experiences is to combine the two - the unknown and the known - to create something that has a reason and is not superficial.

The experiences I have worked on so far have had one thing in common - pushing our team to do better and learn new things. Be it in terms of visual design, art of storytelling OR in terms of learning new software, code, or technology. This keeps us motivated, constantly learning and skill building. It does leave room for mistakes but that's the beauty about any truly immersive experience - they have the ability to transport audiences, mesmerizing them in a way that the mistakes become part of the experience.