Tamiko Thiel is a new media artist interested in developing the dramatic and narrative capabilities of interactive 3D virtual reality as a medium for addressing social and cultural issues.

Education:
She received her B.S. in 1979 from Stanford University in Product Design Engineering with a focus on human factors design. Her M.S. was in Mechanical Engineering in 1983 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied human-machine design at the Biomechanics Lab and computer graphics at the precursors to the Media Lab. She then studied studio art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, where she received a Diploma in Applied Graphics in 1991, specializing in video installation art.

Artwork, Exhibitions, Reviews:
She exhibits internationally in venues such as the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice, Italy, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London, and the International Center for Photography (ICP) in New York, and in media art festivals such as Siggraph and ISEA. She was creative director and producer of Starbright World, an award-winning 3D online virtual playspace for seriously ill children done in collaboration with film director and Starbright Foundation chairman Steven Spielberg. Her virtual reality installation Beyond Manzanar is in the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Art in Silicon Valley, California, USA. The work is discussed in Whitney Museum media art curator Christiane Paul’s reference book Digital Art (Thames and Hudson World of Art series,) in Boston University Professer Matthew Smith’s book The Total Work of Art: From Bayreuth to Cyberspace (Routledge, 2006,) and Regensburg University Professor Ingrid Gessner's award-winning book From Sites of Memory to Cybersights: (Re)Framing Japanese American Experiences. Her virtual reality installation The Travels of Mariko Horo, a reverse Marco Polo fantasy about a Japanese woman who constructs the West, premiered in the “Edge Conditions” exhibit, curated by Steve Dietz and held jointly by ZeroOne and the San Jose Museum of Art as part of the Pacific Rim Theme of the ZeroOne San Jose/ ISEA 2006 Symposium. The development of her newest work "Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall", a virtual reality installation on the Berlin Wall, was supported by the City of Berlin. It was shown extensively in Europe, the USA and India in 2009 for the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, including at a special event at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. In Washington D.C. the solo exhibit was opened by the German Ambassador to the USA, Dr. Klaus Scharioth.

Awards:
In 1998 she won a grant from WIRED Magazine to research "Beyond Manzanar" and in 1999 created the artwork during as artist in residence at the IAMAS media art academy in Gifu, Japan. In 2003 she was a Japan Foundation Fellow in residence at the Kyoto Art Center, Japan to research "The Travels of Mariko Horo," and in 2004 produced the artwork as a Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, M.I.T. In 2006 she received a prize from the City of Munich, curated by Bettina Wagner-Bergelt and Dr. Stephan Urbaschek, to develop and exhibit a work using "The Travels of Mariko Horo" as a realtime stage set for a specially commissioned dance performance. This work, "In the Land of Babari-an," premiered at the Dance 2006 Festival of Contemporary Dance in Munich. In 2007 she was awarded a prize from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Berlin Capital City Cultural Fund) to research and create her virtual reality installation Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall. In 2009 this work won the IBM Innovation Award for artistic creation in art and technology.

Teaching & Lecturing:
She has taught and lectured internationally at institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, the MIT Media Lab, Harvard Center for European Studies, the Bauhaus-University in Weimar, Germany, University of California/San Diego, the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television and the School of Film and Television in Babelsberg, Germany.