Ryan Alexander is an designer and software engineer currently focused on interactive audio/visual experience design. His recent works include musical playthings, 3d modeling software, generative simulations, live visual performance, spherical photography, and motion graphics experiments.

Ryan was a resident at Gray Area from 2009-2010, where he worked on the original Seaquence website and developed techniques for projection-mapped sculpture. He has been featured in the Written Images generative book, worked on mapping projects such as StreetView Stereographic and built an online collaborative voxel modeling tool at Otherlab.

In 2017, Ryan released Seaquence for iOS under Okaynokay, an interactive design studio co-founded with Gabriel Dunne. Okaynokay has since produced Twilight Engines, a site-specific virtual sculpture by Vishal K Dar at the Headlands Center for the Arts.

Ryan is currently working on Cuttle, a new hybrid procedural design tool for digital cutting machines.

Current Residence

San Francisco, California

Biography

  • 2020— Working on Cuttle ★ A procedural design tool for digital cutting machines
  • 2019 Okaynokay Developed Twilight Engines by Vishal K. Dar, an architectural-scale AR experience for iOS, using ARKit and Unity
  • 2017—2019 Onformative, Developed performant ambient graphical apps for Samsung using a custom-built minimal C++ / OpenGL ES based framework
  • 2015—2016 Next Thing Co., Designed and developed the OTTO Camera OSD interface. Designed Pocket CHIP user interface and physical keyboard layout
  • 2014—2016 Okaynokay Developed Seaquence iOS synthesizer app
  • 2012—2014 Otherlab, Lead developer of Cube Team, a collaborative web-based voxel modeling app / Designed and developed interfaces for computational CAD tools
  • 2012 Bloom Studio, Developed and designed the interfaces of Planetary and Biologic data-visualization apps for iOS
  • 2009—2012 Freelance interactive software design, data-visualization and visual effects for Motion Theory, Stamen, Google, etc
  • 2007—2009 Stamen Design, Developed custom interactive data-visualization software for Adobe, Nike, Twitter, Trulia, etc
  • 2007 Moto, Developed demo software for prototype multi-touch table
  • 2007 Co-founded OooShiny meetup and community for artists working with code
  • 2004—2005 Logan, Designed and animated motion graphics for television and games. Developed custom visual-effects software tools
  • 2001—2004 Motion Theory, Designed and developed the company website. Designed and animated motion graphics for television and music videos. Developed custom visual-effects software tools
  • 2001 Studied art/animation at Santa Monica College, Santa Monica, California
  • 2000 Studied animation at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California
  • 1999 Summer Internship at Will Vinton Studios, Portland, Oregon
  • 1981 Born in Santa Barbara, California

Selected Performance

  • 2017 Robert Rich, Live Visuals, Chillits ★
  • 2016 Earthen Sea, Animation, Chillits
  • 2014 CCRMA Modulations, Live Visuals, Stanford University
  • 2013 Christina Chatfield, Live Visuals, Gray Area Bunker Sessions, San Francisco ★
  • 2013 ATOM™, Live Visuals, San Francisco
  • 2013 Peter van Hoesen, Live Visuals, Gray Area Bunker Sessions, San Francisco ★
  • 2012 Urban Prototyping Festival, Live Visuals, San Francisco
  • 2012 CCRMA Modulations, Live Visuals, San Francisco
  • 2011 Shigeto, Live visuals, Gray Area, San Francisco ★

Residencies / Collaborations

  • 2019 Vishal K Dar in collaboration with Okaynokay, Site-specific virtual sculptures, Headlands Center for the Arts ★
  • 2009—2010 Artist in Residence, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco

Exhibition / Installation

  • 2018 METAFLUX, Studio Space, Emeryville
  • 2013 Art by Code, CODAME, Public Works, San Francisco
  • 2012 PROTOTYPE, Gray Area, Taylor Street, San Francisco

Teaching / Talks

  • 2017 Fall Cultural Incubator Showcase: Seaquence, Gray Area, San Francisco
  • 2015 Pixels Unleashed (Alternate Shader Techniques), Gray Area, San Francisco
  • 2014 Weekly Hack-Jam, Dim Sum Labs, Hong Kong
  • 2013 Particle Shader Toy, Twitter, San Francisco
  • 2012 OpenGL in Processing Workshop, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Kanagawa
  • 2012 Data Visualization Group, Intuit, Mountain View
  • 2011 Data Visualization Group, Trulia, San Francisco

Selected Projects

  • 2009—2018 Seaquence, Playful multi-voice synthesizer app, Adobe Flash, then iOS ★
  • 2013—2014 Cube Team, Novel collaborative voxel modeling app, Web
  • 2012 Street View Stereographic, Google Street View Explorer and Shader Toy ★
  • 2009 Mycelium, Processing ★
  • 2001 Motion Theory Website, Adobe Flash

Awards

  • 2001 Art Directors Club (ADC 80), Gold in New Media, motiontheory.com
  • 2001 Broadcast Designers Association, Gold in Flash Websites, motiontheory.com
  • 2001 Society of Publication Designers (SPD 36), Silver in Interactive, motiontheory.com

Clients / Professional Activity

San Francisco Bay Area

  • Dynamicland
  • Otherlab
  • Bloom Studio
  • Stamen Design
  • Moto
  • Google
  • Gray Area Foundation

Los Angeles

  • Logan
  • Motion Theory

Berlin

  • Onformative

Software Tools / Languages

An inexhaustive list of the main tools that I tend to reach for when building software things.

  • C++17
  • Objective-C
  • JavaScript
  • OpenGL (ES / Core)
  • WebGL
  • WebAssembly
  • Pure Data
  • Cinder
  • Unity