Media Lab alum Karl Sims is a digital media artist and visual effects software developer who has spent his career exploring the boundaries of computer animation. 

In his own words, Sims is “interested in making pictures with computer code,” something he began doing in high school. He continued this work as an undergraduate researcher in the Architecture Machine Group—a forerunner of the Media Lab—and as a graduate student in Professor David Zeltzer’s Computer Graphics and Animation group at the Lab. He then moved on to roles at a variety of tech companies and arts organizations. 

“The Media Lab is great for letting people do whatever they’re really into, in general,” he says. “If you have a passion, you can normally find a way to do it there, which is wonderful.”

Animation credits:
01:54: “Thinking Machines Corporation (1994)”
03:06: Media Lab archives