ABOUT
shirin anlen is a creative technologist, researcher and artist based in New York. Her work explores the societal implications of emerging technology, with a focus on internet platforms and artificial intelligence. She is the Media Technologist at WITNESS’s Technology Threats and Opportunities program, where she investigates the impact of deepfakes, media manipulation, media forensics, content authenticity, and cryptography practices in the space of human rights violations.
shirin’s group exhibitions include the Queens Museum, New York; Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; the Biennial for Moving Image, Frankfort, and House of Electronic- HEK, Basel. Her projects were presented at SIGGRAPH; Festival the Cannes and IDFA DocLab. And featured at The Next Web; Google Web Experiments and Vice. shirin was an artist in residence at the National Film Board of Canada and a member at the NEW INC incubator together with Raycaster, an experience design studio she co-founded. She received the best digital story by the Biennial of Medial Arts of Chile; a research grant from the Knight Foundation, and an art commission from IDFA DocLab. She curated the VR program of DocAviv festival in the years 2016-2019, co-founded the first VR and interactive storytelling festival and lab in Israel, Steamer Salon and is a member of Women+ Art AI collective and Recurse Center. shirin holds an MFA in cinema and television from Tel Aviv University and is a research fellow at MIT Open Documentary Lab.
She has also contributed to a number of open-source software projects:
DepthKit.js: A plugin for visualizing DepthKit volumetric captures using Three.js in WebGL, created originally for Tzina.
Volume for Unity: A Unity3D plugin for rendering Volume assets.
GAN explorer: A python script to explore the latent space of Generative Adversarial Network, created originally for Marrow.
Dataset preparation tool: A python script to clean, prepare and augment small dataset for machine learning training, created originally for Marrow.
360 real-time drawing tool with GauGAN: A python script to draw the scene using 360 and GauGAN network, created originally for Marrow.
SELECTED AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
2020 Awwwards Nominee AWWWARDS
2020 Artist Relief Grant, Creative Capital
2019 Artist in Residence, National Film Board of Canada, Montreal, Canada
2018 R&D for artistic experiments, fundamental research, and public research of IDFA DocLab & MIT Open Documentary Lab
2018 NOMINATION FOR BEST IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE, IDFA DocLab
2018 WINNER BEST DIGITAL STORY, Biennial of Medial Arts of Chile Juan Downey Contest, Chile
2018 RESEARCH GRANT SUPPORT by NEW INC and KNIGHT FOUNDATION
2017 WINNER WYU WOMEN'S DIVERSIFY AI HACKATHON
2017 HONORABLE MENTION, AWWWARDS
2017 CSS STAR WINNER
2017 SPECIAL KUDOS AWARDS, CSS Design
2017 NOMINATED FOR BEST INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING DIRECTOR, Forum of documentary Israeli Filmmakers 2017 NOMINATION BEST ONLINE STORYTELLING, T.O webfest
2017 NOMINATION BEST ONLINE STORYTELLING, Paris Online
2016 NOMINATION BEST DIGITAL STORYTELLING, IDFA DocLab
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2020 Marrow: Teach me how to see you mother, NFB interactive lab, Montreal, Canada.
2019 My Place or Yours, poeticum ex machina, Musrara, Israel.
2019 Entropic-Elixirs, part of Project Amelia, Pittsburg, USA.
2018 I’ve Always Been Jealous of Other People’s Families, a prologue to Marrow, IDFA DocLab, Amsterdam.
2018 Dish next to Adult, Queens International Biannual- Queens Museum, New York, USA.
2018 Tzina: symphony of longing, Google's I/O Conference, USA.
2018 Moment of Silence, Captive Portal, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, B3, The Biennale for the moving image, Frankfurt, Germany.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Cannes Festival - NEXT, France.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, ACM SIGGRAPH - Immersive Expressions, Los Angeles.
2017 OrionVR, The American Jewish University, Los Angeles.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Astra Film Festival, Romania.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Boston Jewish Film Festival, Boston,USA.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Documentales inmersivos llegan a Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, T.O webfest, Toronto, Canada.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, DocAviv Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Planeta Studio, New York, USA.
2017 Tilt brush drawings - Art and VR: A Soiree of Immersive Art & Tech, Los Angeles, USA.
2016 Tzina: symphony of longing, IDFA DocLab.
2016 Steamer Salon, Jerusalem Film Festival.
2016 OrionVR, The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Israel.
2016 Steamer Salon - Cross Video Days, Paris, France.
2016 Tzina: symphony of longing, IDFA DocLab.
2016 Steamer Salon, EMC Russia VR Film Festival, Russia.
2016 My Place or yours , House of Electronic- HEK, Bazel.
2016 My Place or Yours, MU, Amsterdam, Netherland.
2015 War dance, Moscow Art Communities, Museum of Moscow, Russia.
2015 503 dream service, Hayarkon Gallery- Tel Aviv, Israel.
2015 War dance, Favera, Sicily, Italy.
2015 War dance, “Now & After,” video art festival, Schusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow.
2015 War dance, Stuttgart Filmwinter, Festival for expanded media, Theater Rampe, Germany.
2014 TLV CBS, Next Station, the New Central Bus Station, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2013 “Pirate Bay,” live video performance, The Zimmer Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2013 I am egg, Channel 24, Israel.
2012 Videocracy, CCA- The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel.
shirin’s group exhibitions include the Queens Museum, New York; Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; the Biennial for Moving Image, Frankfort, and House of Electronic- HEK, Basel. Her projects were presented at SIGGRAPH; Festival the Cannes and IDFA DocLab. And featured at The Next Web; Google Web Experiments and Vice. shirin was an artist in residence at the National Film Board of Canada and a member at the NEW INC incubator together with Raycaster, an experience design studio she co-founded. She received the best digital story by the Biennial of Medial Arts of Chile; a research grant from the Knight Foundation, and an art commission from IDFA DocLab. She curated the VR program of DocAviv festival in the years 2016-2019, co-founded the first VR and interactive storytelling festival and lab in Israel, Steamer Salon and is a member of Women+ Art AI collective and Recurse Center. shirin holds an MFA in cinema and television from Tel Aviv University and is a research fellow at MIT Open Documentary Lab.
She has also contributed to a number of open-source software projects:
DepthKit.js: A plugin for visualizing DepthKit volumetric captures using Three.js in WebGL, created originally for Tzina.
Volume for Unity: A Unity3D plugin for rendering Volume assets.
GAN explorer: A python script to explore the latent space of Generative Adversarial Network, created originally for Marrow.
Dataset preparation tool: A python script to clean, prepare and augment small dataset for machine learning training, created originally for Marrow.
360 real-time drawing tool with GauGAN: A python script to draw the scene using 360 and GauGAN network, created originally for Marrow.
SELECTED AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
2020 Awwwards Nominee AWWWARDS
2020 Artist Relief Grant, Creative Capital
2019 Artist in Residence, National Film Board of Canada, Montreal, Canada
2018 R&D for artistic experiments, fundamental research, and public research of IDFA DocLab & MIT Open Documentary Lab
2018 NOMINATION FOR BEST IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE, IDFA DocLab
2018 WINNER BEST DIGITAL STORY, Biennial of Medial Arts of Chile Juan Downey Contest, Chile
2018 RESEARCH GRANT SUPPORT by NEW INC and KNIGHT FOUNDATION
2017 WINNER WYU WOMEN'S DIVERSIFY AI HACKATHON
2017 HONORABLE MENTION, AWWWARDS
2017 CSS STAR WINNER
2017 SPECIAL KUDOS AWARDS, CSS Design
2017 NOMINATED FOR BEST INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING DIRECTOR, Forum of documentary Israeli Filmmakers 2017 NOMINATION BEST ONLINE STORYTELLING, T.O webfest
2017 NOMINATION BEST ONLINE STORYTELLING, Paris Online
2016 NOMINATION BEST DIGITAL STORYTELLING, IDFA DocLab
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2020 Marrow: Teach me how to see you mother, NFB interactive lab, Montreal, Canada.
2019 My Place or Yours, poeticum ex machina, Musrara, Israel.
2019 Entropic-Elixirs, part of Project Amelia, Pittsburg, USA.
2018 I’ve Always Been Jealous of Other People’s Families, a prologue to Marrow, IDFA DocLab, Amsterdam.
2018 Dish next to Adult, Queens International Biannual- Queens Museum, New York, USA.
2018 Tzina: symphony of longing, Google's I/O Conference, USA.
2018 Moment of Silence, Captive Portal, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, B3, The Biennale for the moving image, Frankfurt, Germany.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Cannes Festival - NEXT, France.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, ACM SIGGRAPH - Immersive Expressions, Los Angeles.
2017 OrionVR, The American Jewish University, Los Angeles.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Astra Film Festival, Romania.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Boston Jewish Film Festival, Boston,USA.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Documentales inmersivos llegan a Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, T.O webfest, Toronto, Canada.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, DocAviv Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2017 Tzina: symphony of longing, Planeta Studio, New York, USA.
2017 Tilt brush drawings - Art and VR: A Soiree of Immersive Art & Tech, Los Angeles, USA.
2016 Tzina: symphony of longing, IDFA DocLab.
2016 Steamer Salon, Jerusalem Film Festival.
2016 OrionVR, The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Israel.
2016 Steamer Salon - Cross Video Days, Paris, France.
2016 Tzina: symphony of longing, IDFA DocLab.
2016 Steamer Salon, EMC Russia VR Film Festival, Russia.
2016 My Place or yours , House of Electronic- HEK, Bazel.
2016 My Place or Yours, MU, Amsterdam, Netherland.
2015 War dance, Moscow Art Communities, Museum of Moscow, Russia.
2015 503 dream service, Hayarkon Gallery- Tel Aviv, Israel.
2015 War dance, Favera, Sicily, Italy.
2015 War dance, “Now & After,” video art festival, Schusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow.
2015 War dance, Stuttgart Filmwinter, Festival for expanded media, Theater Rampe, Germany.
2014 TLV CBS, Next Station, the New Central Bus Station, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2013 “Pirate Bay,” live video performance, The Zimmer Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2013 I am egg, Channel 24, Israel.
2012 Videocracy, CCA- The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel.
STAY IN TOUCH
Email: shirinanlen@gmail.com
GitHub: github.com/ShirinStar
IG: instagram.com/shirinishere
Link to my full CV