Curriculum Vitae

Mark D. Pesce

8323 Lookout Mountain Avenue
Los Angeles CA 90046

323.654.3875

323.654.7349 (FAX)

mark@playfulworld.com

Teaching and Curriculum Development Experience

July ‘99 – July 2000 Faculty Master, Annenberg House, University of Southern California. Responsibilities include event planning, oversight of technical facilities, and promotion of a creative environment for undergraduate residents.

September ‘98 – June 2000 Chair, Interactive Media Program at the School of Cinema-Television, University of Southern California. Responsibilities include instruction, curriculum design, thesis advisement, staffing, development, facilities and educational planning.

Courses taught included:

CTPR 541 (Interactive Media)

CNTV 499 (Studies in Interactive Media)

CNTV 499 (Interactive Television)

CTPR 551 (Preparing the Advanced Project)

CTPR 590 (Graduate Independent Study)

CTPR 584 (Graduate Advanced Project)

January 1997 - June 1998 Creator, certificate program in 3D Arts at San Francisco State University, College of Extended Learning, Multimedia Studies Program. The program has been designed to train students in all facets of production and design of 3D media, with particular emphasis in Web technologies such as VRML. Established core course offerings, requirements, and defined tracks for production, design and technical curricula. Worked with SFSU staff to locate and hire course instructors.

September 1995 - June 1998 Instructor, San Francisco State University, Multimedia Studies Program, College of Extended Learning.

Courses include:

Introduction to VRML

VRML Intensive

Exploring Spatial Media (w/ Dr. William Martens)

September 1996 Instructor, University of California at Santa Cruz Extension, Silicon Valley campus.

Course taught:

Introduction to VRML

Publications

Book and Book Chapters

Mark Pesce, DirectShow and Digital Video. Seattle, Washington, Microsoft Press, February 2003.

Mark Pesce, et. al., Game On: Head Games. London, Barbican Center Books (Corporation of London), March 2002.

Vernor Vinge, et. al., True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier. New York, TOR Books, December 2001.

Russ Kick, editor, You Are Being Lied To. New York, The Disinformation Company, March 2001.

Mark Pesce, The Playful World: How Technology Transforms our Imagination. New York, Ballantine Books (Random House), October 2000.

Aaron Walsh and Mark Pesce, Core Web3D. New York, Prentice-Hall Publishing, June 2000.

Mark Pesce, Learning VRML: Design for Cyberspace. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ziff-Davis Publishing, 1997.

Celia Pearce and Mark Pesce, The Interactive Book. Indianapolis, Indiana: Macmillan Technical Publishing, 1997.

Mark Pesce, VRML: Flying through the Web. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing, 1996.

Loren Buhle, Mark Pesce, Vinay Kumar, et. al. The Webmaster’s Professional Reference. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing, 1996.

Mark Pesce, VRML: Browsing and Building Cyberspace. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing, 1995.

Articles

Mark Pesce. “Year of Jubilee”, Entheogen Review, Winter 2002-3

Mark Pesce. “The Future of Entertainment”, PC Magazine, September 2002.

Mark Pesce. “The Future of Video Gaming”, PC Magazine, September 2001.

Mark Pesce. “Xbox: 1,000,000,000,000 Operations per Second”, WIRED Magazine, May 2001.

Mark Pesce. “Living Language”, FEED Magazine, January 2001.

Mark Pesce. “Birth of a Station”, FEED Magazine, October 2000.

Mark Pesce, “Toys and the Playful World”, The Sciences, August 2000.

Mark Pesce. “Meet Big Brother”, SALON Magazine, July 2000.

Mark Pesce. “Welcome to the Firehose”, in FEED Magazine, February 2000.

Mark Pesce. “The Trigger Principle”, in FEED Magazine, February 2000.

Mark Pesce. “Reductionism versus Holism: Multiple models of the Spiritual Quest”, in Technology in Society 21, 1999.

Mark Pesce. “Magic Mirror: The Novel as Software Development Environment”, for Media In Transition, Comparative Media Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 1999.

Mark Pesce. “Thinking Small”, in FEED Magazine, October 1999.

Mark Pesce. “OSMOSE,” in Salon Magazine, 15 July 1998.

Mark Pesce. “The Power of Babel,” FEED Magazine, February 1998.

Mark Pesce. “Ritual and the Virtual,” Consciousness Reframed, Center for the Advanced Inquiry into the Interactive Arts, University of Newport, Wales, 1997.

Mark Pesce. “Ontos and Techne,” in Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, April 1997.

Mark Pesce. “The Great Leap Downward”, FEED Magazine, March 1997.

Gavin Bell, Rikk Carey, Mark Pesce, et. al. “The VRML 2.0 Specification,” in VRML 97 Proceedings, February 1997.

Mark Pesce. “Proximal and Distal Unity,” in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Cyberspace, Madrid, June 1996.

Mark Pesce. “Root, Trunk, Branch, Crown: Growing VRML,” in VRML 95 Proceedings, December 1995.

Mark Pesce. “Ontos, Eros, Noos, Logos,” in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Arts, Montreal, September 1995.

Gavin Bell, Anthony Parisi, Mark Pesce. “The VRML 1.0 Specification,” in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the World Wide Web, Chicago, October 1994.

Mark Pesce, Peter Kennard, Anthony Parisi, “Cyberspace,” in Proceedings of the First International Conference on the World Wide Web, Geneva, May 1994.

Mark Pesce. “Final Amputation: Pathogenic Ontology in Cyberspace,” in Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Cyberspace, Austin, Texas, May 1993.

Performances, Presentations and Seminars

“Bios & Logos”, paper & presentation at MINDSTATES Jamaica, Negril, Jamaica, 3 October 2002.

“Trialogues for Interesting Times” (Seminar with Douglas Rushkoff and Erik Davis), Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, 2 – 4 August 2002.

“Trialogues for a New Millennium” (Seminar with Douglas Rushkoff and Erik Davis), Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, 3 – 5 August 2001.

“Changing the Rules: Next Generation Video Game Platforms & Possibilities”, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, California, 30 July 2001.

“Becoming Transhuman”, feature length film premiered at Mindstates II, Berkeley, California, 26 May 2001.

“The Real World”, presentation at PLANETWORK, San Francisco, 14 May 2000.

“Church of the Motherfucker”, Performance at DisInfo.Con 2000, New York City, 19 Feburary 2000.

“Now You’re An American!”, Panel Presentation, MIT Comparative Media Studies Program Games Conference, Cambridge, 11 February 2000.

“Pornster”, Panel Presentation, Lapdance 2000, Sundance Film Festival, Park City, 27 January 2000.

“Death and the Maiden”, Lecture at Myth, Ritual and the Mediation of Violence, Church of the Redeemer, New York City, 6 November 1999.

“Jericho”, Panel Presentation, Virtual Y2K, Brown University, 5 November 1999.

“The Playful World”, Invited Lecturer, VIPER 99, Geneva, November 1999.

“Boundary Bath”, Invited Lecturer, Scope 1: Information Versus Meaning, Vienna, 1 October 1999.

“Noosphere”, Invited Lecture, Paradox II, Arcosanti, Arizona, 25 September 1999.

“High(er) Earth Orbit(s)”, Keynote presentation, AllChemical Arts, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, September 14, 1999.

“DJ Christ, Superstar!”, Director, Co-author, Co-producer. Performance at the Black Rock Arts Festival (“Burning Man”) 2 September 1999.

“There it is…Take it!” Interactive installation artwork, shown at DADA: Crosswire, Los Angeles, 17 April 1999.

“Black and White and Read All Over,” Invited Lecturer, SXSW Interactive, Austin Texas, 15 March 1999.

“Europa, Europa,” Keynote address at Radical Complexity and Network Visualization, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, 15 January 1999.

“The Archer,” Keynote address at “The Next 20 Years” lecture series, Seattle, Washington, 27 August 1998.

“Circle Round,” Invited Lecturer at Science and the Spiritual Quest, Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological Union, University of California, July 1998.

“Technopagans at the End of History”, Seminar Leader, Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, 14 - 16 August 1999.

“When the Three Were One,” Guest Lecturer, Virtual Worlds Lecture Series, University of California at Berkeley Multimedia Research Center, 6 November 1997.

“Eye and Thou (Dissolving Descartes),” Capstone Address, IEEE Visualization ’97 Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, 24 October 1997.

“Incorporations and the Noosphere,” Guest Lecturer, Discourse@2000 Lecture Series, Department of Philosophy and Epistemology, Stanford University, 7 May 1997.

“Ignition,” Capstone Address, World Movers Conference, San Francisco, California, 30 January 1997.

“The Panoptic Self,” Keynote Address, Earth to Avatars Conference, San Francisco, 26 October 1997.

“Sit Down and Shut Up,” “Earth Mothers,” and “The Open Invitation,” panel presentations, SIGGRAPH ’96, August 1996, New Orleans.

“Connective, Collective, Corrective: Lessons Learned from VRML,” Plenary Address, The Fifth International Conference on the World Wide Web, Paris, France, 8 May 1996.

“Seduction and Domination: Pathology and Affect in Media,” Multimedia Pioneers Lecture Series, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, 1 May 1996.

“Interfaces to the Sublime (Het Rotterdamerung),” lecture delivered at DEAF, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 25 November 1995.

“Surfing the Satellites: A New Image of Earth,” lecture delivered at the Australian Information Superhighway Conference, Sydney, Australia, 18 November 1995.

“Electronic Storylines,” workshop taught at DOORS 3, The Netherlands Design Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 9-11 November 1995.

“Opening the Third Ear,” presentation delivered to the San Francisco Virtual Reality Educational Foundation in San Francisco, 21 September 1994.

“Distributed Behaviors in Distributed Simulations,” presentation delivered at the Virtual Reality Systems Conference, October 1993.

Consultant, Professional and Research Experience

September 2001 - present Founder & CTO, FiredUp Software, Los Angeles, CA.

FiredUp Software designs and licenses breakthrough digital video applications for FireWire-equipped computers and consumer electronics. Patent application made in March 2002 for a general backup device using standard digital video camcorder and home computer system.

February 1997 - July 1998 Chairman & CTO, blitcom, Llc., Santa Monica, CA.

blitcom is a Web-based entertainment startup, working to bring narrative, storytelling and cinema-quality production values to the Internet, using a variety of brand-new technologies, combined with tried-and-true production techniques for digital media. My partner in this venture is Jan Mallis - formerly of Protozoa, Inc., and winner of the 1997 VRML Excellence Award - pioneer producer of character-based entertainment on the Web. Our goal is to create a full-blown Web-based network, with 24-hour a day programming in entertainment and the arts, all created using the latest innovations in 3D computing.

July 1993 - December 1996 Founder & Chair, VRML Architecture Group

The VRML Architecture Group (VAG) was created under my leadership to provide a coherent environment for future generations of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), which I invented in early 1994. Working with researchers from Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Sun Microsystems and Autodesk, the VAG brought VRML forward from static presentation into full-blown interactivity, and did it through a standards-based process. The result - VRML 2.0 - is now an ISO Draft Specification, well on its way to becoming a world-wide standard. After the formation of the VRML Consortium in December 1996, the VAG was dissolved.

April 1993 - September 1993 Consultant, Apple Computer Corporation, Berkeley, CA.

Worked as consulting engineer to develop intuitive interfaces between Apple and IBM networking products.

July 1991 - February 1993 Founder and CEO, Ono-Sendai Corporation, San Francisco, CA. Ono-Sendai was a first-generation Virtual Reality startup, chartered to create inexpensive, home-based networked VR systems - a concept still a few years ahead of its time. Company grew from my research in network visualization and data replication which later evolved into VRML. Company also conducted research into low-cost solutions for the VR industry, resulting in my being awarded US Patent 5,526,022 for a “Sourceless Orientation Sensor”, solving a key problem for the emerging industry. This sensor is used to track body motion of individuals immersed in virtual environments, and has broader applications, in such fields as performance animation and motion capture. Consulted with Sega Corporation of America on the design of the Sega Virtua VR product, a consumer head-mounted display (HMD) device for use with video gaming systems. Company closed in 1993 after failure to secure sufficient funding to continue development of products.

October 1988 - Jan 1992 Principal Engineer, Shiva Corporation, Cambridge MA.

As one of the early engineers on the Shiva staff, worked to grow the company from $1.5 million in sales in 1988 to $40 million when I departed in early 1993 to found Ono-Sendai. Shiva invented dial-up networking; while the concept of dialing into a remote network seems a commonplace reality today, ten years ago our work in the field legitimized the market. Responsibilities included development of all user-interfaces to Shiva product line; these products quickly garnered a reputation for their ease-of-use. My research on user interfaces led to my involvement in the then-nascent virtual reality field.

June 1984 - September 1988 Staff Engineer, Dynatech Communications, East Greenwich, RI. Dynatech pioneered the development of LAN interfaces to then-new new T-1 and DS0 services being offered by the deregulated telephone industry. Responsibilities included the development of firmware and user interfaces to the entire product line.

June 1982 - June 1984 Engineer, Security Dynamics, Boston, MA.

While at Security Dynamics, I developed prototype firmware and software for the SecuirID card, a smart card used for access control to facilities, and later, to ensure security on public access computer networks.

Advisory Roles

November 1999 – present Board of Advisors, SLAM Media, Seattle

SLAM is creating a portal for Generation Y web users.

August 1999 – January 2001 Board of Advisors, UBUBU Corporation, San Francisco.

UBUBU is a web-based 3D marketing tool for e-commerce.

June 1998 – May 2001 Board of Advisors, BigWords Corporation, San Francisco.

BigWords is an internet retailing startup specializing in the

delivery of college textbooks.

July 1997 – January 2002 Board of Advisors, One Media Place, Inc., San Francisco.

Ad Auction is creating a new industry sector on the Internet, wholesaling unsold Web banners through an innovative on-line auction process. I am also serving as a technology consultant to the firm.

June 1996 - June 1998 Board of Advisors, Intervista Corporation, San Francisco.

The first VRML startup, founded by VRML co-inventor Anthony Parisi, Intervista is the acknowledged leader in the development of VRML browsers and tools, with clients including Microsoft and Silicon Graphics.

Honors

Digital Coast 50, Silicon Alley Reporter, 1999.

VRML Consortium, Community Service Award, 1998

International Design Magazine, selection as one of the “ID 40,” 1997.

Ars Electronica Art Festival, Honorable Mention for “WebEarth,” 1996.

Network Computing Magazine, “50 Most Important People In Networking”, 1995.

Meckler Virtual Reality Market Impact Award, 1995.

Professional Associations

VRML Consortium, Board of Directors 1998 - 2000

Los Angeles Virtual Reality Users’ Group

Education

September 1980 - June 1982 Candidate for Bachelor of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Left MIT after four semesters to pursue opportunities in the newly emerging high-technology industry.