EXCITE: Games, AI & Performance Series #01

Athomas has been producing and directing real-time interactive virtual performances for over 30 years for university labs, major game studios, dance and theatre. His work combines embodied data, live performance, real-time dynamic animation, virtual worlds and AI in novel and often unexpected ways. His most recent work involves performances in real and virtual spaces in which audiences are transformed into active elements in a shared 3D world. He will present the evolution of his practice over the years in response to changes in technology, and where he sees live virtual performance going in the coming years.

Athomas Goldberg has been active in the field of real-time interactive computer graphics for over 30 years. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied film and television production before going on to an early career as a lighting and set designer in NYC. His digital media practice began in 1994 when he began a years-long collaboration with Dr. Ken Perlin at NYU’s Media Research Laboratory on the Improv Animation System. He has since held leadership roles at major interactive entertainment companies, including Electronic Arts, THQ and Microsoft, and has consulted on dozens of games and VR projects for Epic Games, Meta (Oculus), Zenimax Online Entertainment, Walt Disney Imagineering and others. He is currently the Senior Technical Animation Director on Dead by Daylight for Behavior Interactive. For the past 12 years he has been the co-artistic director for Pepper’s Ghost New Media & Performing Arts Collective, and since 2020, the Creative Director for Shocap Entertainment, where he has produced and directed award-winning shows combining live performance with real-time motion capture and game technology, including **Carry Me Home **with world-renowned circus company, Les 7 Doigts, winner of the 2024 Numix Prize for Best XR Experience.