Talk / Mixed Reality
Adapting creativity for XR
Rob Harrigan
From art school to AR — learn how my team creates AI experiences for a 290° immersive room and how
fluid intelligence, a generalist mindset, and an unconventional career path prepared me for applying
creativity to the emerging world of MR/XR.
My team creates experiences that transform our clients' ideas of AI at the Watson Experience Center. These centers are permanently branded experiences, with locations in New York City, San Francisco, and Cambridge. The centers are invitation-only, and their primary audience is potential customers of IBM Watson. The collaborative meeting space also serves as an educational hub for researchers, students, and media.
My group has created a form of spatial exploration that allows humans to boost their abilities to comprehend data at scale and see how AI works. Blending storytelling with design, data, and expert-guided interaction, we can make clear to clients and the world the value of AI and both its practical applications and potential for society.
See the creative process behind the work and how I leverage my background in art, experimental film making, branding, and creative direction to vanguard new spatial experiences. Learn how I apply artistic practices like abstraction, sketching, iteration, visual hierarchy, and storytelling to designing for 93.3 million pixels. As unapproachable and abstract, the idea of creating for XR is — learn how you can use the most basic of tools to concept spatial applications and begin iterating and experimenting.
About the speaker
Rob Harrigan
I'm Rob Harrigan — a visual creative, passionate about brand & technology.
I currently serve as Design Principal, Immersive AI & AI Services at IBM within the Data & AI organization. Over the past five years at IBM, I've been creating experiences, experimenting, and establishing best practices within the nascent field of design with AI and now lead visual design for immersive spatial applications powered by AI. My wanderlust background of experimental film making, visual design, storytelling, and branding, has created a unique skill set that has allowed me to discover my own definition of great design.
Before joining IBM, I was an Associate Creative Director at Ogilvy, a Brand Art Director at the financial start-up Liquidnet and a freelancer about town. Outside of the office, I'm never far from design & technology — whether creating work with their partner Stephanie in own studio, running our fashion start-up Kitschy Witch Designs™, tinkering with Arduino, vintage electronics, and woodworking, or playing videos games with friends and hanging with my cat.