Siavash Tohidi
Siavash Tohidi is an artist and designer working in the intersection of Art, Technology and Healthcare. Along with expertise in fabrication processes with various materials, he has extensive experience in practicing and teaching 3D digital design and emerging fabrication technologies including 3D asset creation, algorithmic-aided-design, and additive/subtractive manufacturing technologies. As an artist, he relishes the ideas of place-making and our understanding how we negotiate spaces in our daily life especially as an outsider to a new culture and space. He is also interested in exploring how digital world is shaping, altering, and even replacing our physical existence. For example, how does pre-exploratory digital sight-seeing on a map service alter how our brain constructs the memory or perception of spaces before and after an actual visit? Can a digital projection replace your skin or create an alternate augmented reality on an existing physical entity? While using variety of materials, media, and technologies to convey his ideas to the audience, his practice and research are evolving toward projects that incorporate digital media such as augmented reality and computer vision. Siavash has taught sculpture and 3D digital design and fabrication in various institution where he has also collaborated as grant PI and co-PI with researcher and educators in other disciplines such as architecture, medicine, and engineering. In doing so, he has effectively integrated emerging technologies within art departments by developing Fabrication labs that would foster the role of emerging technologies and their applications in various disciplines. Siavash holds an MFA in Sculpture and Expanded Practice from Ohio University as well as a BFA in Crafts from University of Art in Tehran.