Work
From microscopes to stadium tours
A few select projects across hardware, software and live experiences. I’m the lead software and firmware architect on all of them, and did the firmware and RF design for the stage work.
Lady Gaga: MTV VMAs 2020
A protective, sound-reactive light-up mask Lady Gaga could sing live in for her mid-pandemic VMAs performance. Fans built their own copies within days.
Childish Gambino: The New World Tour
Radio-controlled wearable lighting and truss-spanning LED displays for an arena tour, running reliably in venues saturated with RF.
Taylor Swift: 1989 World Tour
Taylor Swift’s LED dress and 12 dancer suits, each wirelessly controlled from the lighting desk. The dress now lives in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Doritos Silent: Crunch Cancellation
An AI noise-cancelling app that removes chip crunches from a gamer’s mic in real time, trained on more than 5,000 crunch recordings.
Meta Quest Day
Working, production-quality add-on devices for the Meta Quest 2, taken from concept to finished hardware in eight weeks for an award-winning campaign.
Audible Story House
The full hardware and software system behind Audible’s “bookless bookstore”: 1,000+ titles on RFID/NFC tiles, custom illuminated readers, and a month of nonstop public use.
Katy Perry: Witness and Lifetimes Tours
Two world tours: a wireless LED “video bra” the touring light director called the most reliable system on tour, then wireless props and set pieces for The Lifetimes Tour.
Billy Porter: Grammy Awards
“The hat that inspired a thousand memes”: a radio-controlled mechanical hat for Billy Porter’s 2020 Grammys look, now on permanent display at Madame Tussauds.
Coca-Cola: Security Can
A production run of 200 Coke Zero cans with hidden, motion-triggered cameras that streamed live to a screen in the case, for a global influencer campaign.
Detonate
A 10-minute, 2–6 player bomb-defusal escape game built for arcades: six self-resetting physical and logic puzzles in a single 8′ × 3′ unit.
Otherworld Philadelphia
Interactive installations for Otherworld’s Philadelphia venue, more than 55 rooms of interactive art, mixed-reality playgrounds and secret passageways.
Gamegrounds
Technical lead on an artist-driven gaming venue in Columbus that turns carnival games into room-scale, multiplayer installations.
A Fool’s Errand
Three real, working AI products launched on April Fool’s Day, including AR glasses that scramble every screen in view and an AI that replaces the CEO first.
Barbot
A robot bartender that recognized returning guests by face and remembered their last drink, followed by a conveyor-belt bot that poured almost 500 drinks in a night.
Janelle Monáe: Met Gala
Mechanical design, movement and programming for Janelle Monáe’s Picasso-inspired 2019 Met Gala look.
Paris Hilton: Infinite Icon
Lighting built into a custom Marchesa gown and Hello Faerie wings for Paris Hilton’s Infinite Icon performance at the Hollywood Palladium.
Google Paper Signals
Voice-controlled paper objects that track things like the weather and Bitcoin, built with Google Creative Lab as a make-it-yourself experiment.
MoMA LED Jacket
A fully animated motorcycle jacket with over 12,000 LEDs, video-mapped to the body, for MoMA’s “Items: Is Fashion Modern?”
Seismique Houston
Technical direction for an entire 40,000 sq ft art experience, including a computer-vision room where eight people play lights and music with their faces.
More stage work
On tour and on screen
- Mariah Carey: Christmas and Caution ToursLighting for Mariah Carey’s wings on the 2018 All I Want for Christmas Is You tour, and LED curves for the 2019 Caution tour.
- Japanese Breakfast: Jubilee and Melancholy ToursVideo-capable LED persimmons and a hit-reactive gong seen on SNL and at Coachella, then a wireless antique lantern for the Melancholy tour.
- Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 20th Anniversary TourCustom addressable light forms echoing the album’s Marina City towers, for Wilco’s 2022 anniversary tour.
- LOW: Double Negative TourThree monolithic, video-controlled LED towers that backlit and silhouetted each member of the band.
- Lady Gaga: Enigma, Las VegasA radio-controlled lit bodysuit for Lady Gaga’s Enigma + Jazz & Piano residency in Las Vegas.
- Nicki Minaj: MotorsportAn LED costume for Nicki Minaj’s Motorsport music video, built with Asher Levine in a one-week remote sprint.
- Jinkx Monsoon: Drag Race All StarsCustom lighting and programming for the “burning witch” dress on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.