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About

Open PDF résumé
  1. Short Bio
  2. Work
  3. Education
  4. Workshops & talks
  5. Skill-set
  6. Community
  7. Awards, festivals & exhibitions
  8. Press
  9. Publications
  10. Open Source

Short bio

Or Fleisher is a New York-based engineer and creative technologist who solves complex visual problems with code. He specializes in computer graphics, computer vision and data visualization, building rendering systems, creative tools and interactive work for Nike, The New York Times, Vimeo and Viacom.

Before writing code, Or worked as a sound designer and musician. He studied film at Tel Aviv University, where he began making interactive projects that sat somewhere between film and games.

After graduating, Or co-founded Phenomena Labs, an award-winning visual effects and interaction design studio. As creative and technical director, he designed, developed and published brand and experimental experiences, including five VR titles. He later earned an M.P.S. from NYU Tisch's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Things to know - advanced coffee drinker, cat aficionado and hobbyist musician. He is especially interested in computational photography and open source software.

Work

  • Led the engineering team behind Nike's .SWOOSH 3D commerce experiences.

  • Built a cloud renderer that generated more than 50,000 product thumbnails and videos from 3D models.

  • Mentored engineers working across open source, design systems, and developer tooling.

  • Built a real-time 3D editor that enabled visual editors to publish live 3D sports coverage for the first time, including the Winter Olympics, Super Bowl, World Cup and other major events.

  • Created CI/CD templates and technical documentation that standardized delivery workflows across the R&D engineering team.

  • Open-sourced The Times's 3D toolchain for asset optimization, headless Blender rendering, and camera control. The projects earned hundreds of GitHub stars and hundreds of thousands of downloads (examples include 1, 2, 3)

  • Mentored engineers across the R&D team and identified professional growth opportunities.

  • Presented on behalf of the R&D team at 1, 2, 3 and published research related to internal R&D work.

  • Built 3D experiments and tools with the newsroom as part of the internal augmented reality engineering team.

  • Built 3D rendering, reconstruction, and data pipelines for COVID-19 and Olympics stories that were among The Times's most-read work when published (examples include 1, 2, 3).
  • Built athlete-tracking pipelines used in more than 10 published Olympics graphics.
  • Invented a patented system for generating three-dimensional map tiles.
  • Co-created organization-wide open-source guides and standards through the Open Source Community of Practice.
  • Built, maintained, and wrote content for R&D's public site.
  • Led development of VR playback for Vimeo's web player.

  • Analyzed usage data to inform product decisions and identify trends.

  • Developed internal tools and IP for machine-learning video classification and metadata injection.

  • Designed and developed a web based Virtual Reality narrative experience as a summer fellowship between semesters.NYU News

  • Collaborated in weekly feedback sessions about look-development and technical feedback.

  • Presented the project in a private Virtual Reality showcase at Viacom's NY headquarters, also covered by tech websites (e.g UploadVR).

  • Co-Founded an award winning visual effects and interaction design studio with Ronen Tanchum and Guy Fleisher.

  • Directed, developed and published 5 Virtual Reality titles in Oculus, GearVR and WebVR app stores, featured in prestigious international festivals such as Cannes Festival, Game Developers Conference, SIGGRAPH and SXSW

  • Received awards such as Design and Art Direction, Urban MediaMakers Best Interactive, Worldfest NASA Remi Award, FWA, Awwwards and CSS Design Awards

  • Sound design and mixing of performances ranging from art installations and theatre to dance groups.

  • Daily maintenance of gear and stock.

  • Specification sheet preparations and foreign performances coordinator.

  • Preparing, tracking, editing and pre-mixing music recording sessions.

  • Overseeing and operating the rehearsal spaces.
  • Recruit and train new staff members.

Education

Master's degree, Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)

  • Specializing in computer graphics, volumetric capturing and immersive experience development

  • Worked under Ken Perlin's acclaimed research group, developing machine learning driven computer graphics software, which was featured in tech magazines, such as Wired

  • Worked as a creative coder under Gabe Barcia Columbo developing an interactive installation for SXSW

Bachelor of Arts, Film and television

  • Seminar research in interactive storytelling titled "The Choices we Hear" examining the use of sound in interactive narrative works.

Official Avid Expert Certificates in Pro Tools (310M, 310P)

  • Graduated from Future Rhythm, a certified Avid training facility earning 310M and 310P expert certificates.

  • Avid's Pro Tools™ HD expert curriculum in music production and post-production.

Workshops & talks

  • Adobe Research - The New York Times R&D (2021) - Applying Emerging Technologies In Service of Journalism at The New York Times.

  • Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School - The New York Times R&D (2021) - Applying Emerging Technologies In Service of Journalism at The New York Times.

  • The Machine Learning Center at Georgia Tech - The New York Times R&D (2020) - Applying Emerging Technologies In Service of Journalism at The New York Times.

  • NYC Media Lab - Guest Speaker - The New York Times R&D (2020)

  • Volumetric Accessibility with Vimeo - Volumetric Filmmaking Meetup (2018)
    This talk (2:08:40) by Casey Pugh, head of Creator Labs at Vimeo, presents the work we have been doing in volumetric video distribution and live streaming.

  • Making music with social data - ITP Camp, New York University (2018) This workshop was focused on creating generative music with Twitter data (Twitter API) using Node.js, Express and Web Audio API (Tone.js)

  • From Tzina to Volume - Volumetric Filmmaking Meetup (2018) A talk in the first Volumetric Filmmaking Meetup in NYC about creating Tzina and how it led to developing Volume

  • Volume - Thesis presentation, New York University (2018) My master's thesis presentation at the Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU

  • Volume - HyperCinema - New York University (2018) A workshop about using Volume in Unity3D to create augmented and virtual reality experiences. The workshop took part at IMA, New York University as a part of a class called HyperCinema taught by Prof. Gabe BC

  • Counter Histories, Alternative Narratives - Magnum Foundation (2018) A presentation and demonstration of Volume in front of Magnum Foundation's current research residents. The presentation took place in Columbia University's Brown Institue for Media Innovation

  • Making music with data - NYC Media Lab (2017) This workshop was focused on creating generative music with Twitter data (Twitter API) using Node.js, Express and Web Audio API (Tone.js)

  • Volumetric capture using DepthKit - ITP Camp, New York University (2016) The goal of this workshop was to learn hands-on how to use DepthKit's software (with a Kinect and a DSLR) to capture a human performance as a volumetric capture and to render it in Unity.

  • Interactive Film (roundtable) - Anilogue Animation Festival (2015) A roundtable about current possibilities in film-making, virtual reality and interactive storytelling

  • Animating with MIDI - Budapest University (2015) During Anilogue Animation Festival I conducted a workshop in Budapest University's Interaction Design department about using MIDI in real-time to drive animations and visual effects in WebGL.

Skills

  • Spoken Languages: English, Hebrew.
  • Team player who strives for a collaborative work atmosphere.
  • Strong networking affinity, with great personal and social skills.
  • High tenure under deadlines, with an ability to multitask and simplify problems, finding creative and technical solutions in variegated situations.
  • Ability to communicate simple and complex issues in a clear and concise way.

Technical skills

  • Graphics programmer experienced with WebGL, 2D Canvas, OpenGL and advanced shader programming (GLSL, HLSL).
  • Extensive knowledge in Virtual and Augmented Reality content development (WebVR, WebAR, ARKit, Unity for Rift, Vive and GearVR).
  • Graphics Libraries: Three.js, openFrameworks, GLEW, GLFW, JUCE
  • Full-stack web: TypeScript, React, Node.js, Express, REST APIs, GraphQL, WebSockets, relational databases, server architecture, Docker, CI/CD
  • Software: Unity, TouchDesigner, Nuke, Avid MC, Adobe Creative Cloud, Blender, Octane Renderer, Vue, Pro-Tools, Ableton Live, Max/MSP/Jitter.
  • Programming languages: Javascript (ES5/ES6), Typescript, C++, C#, Swift, python, HTML5, CSS3D
  • Further knowledge in Depth sensing and 3D scanning, Frontend development, Websockets, Arduino programming, Raspberry Pi programming, Machine learning (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Core ML, Jupyter, Matplotlib, OpenCV), PCB design, electronics.

Community

  • New York University ITP (2019) - Master's thesis reviewer
  • MIT Media Lab VR Hackathon (2019) - Software development mentor
  • ITP xStory: p5.shader (2018) - Mentor \ Github
  • Design Academy Eindhoven (2018) - Interactive media mentor
  • NEW INC (2018) - Immersive track mentor
  • ITP xStory: Experiments in Storytelling - Co-founder and contributor
  • Shenkar College of Engineering and Design (2017) - Interactive media mentor
  • Anilogue (2015) - Animated Features Jury

Awards

  • WorldFest - NASA Remi Award winner - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • UrbanMediaMakers Best Interactive Award - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • FWA - Website of the Day - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • CSS Winner - Site of the Day - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • CSS Awards - Website of the Day - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • Awwwards – Honorable Mention - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • Communication Arts - Webpicks - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • CSS Design Awards - Special Kudos - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • DesignAwards.Asia - Design of the Day - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • Awwwards – Honorable Mention - Tzina

  • CSS Design Awards - Special Kudos - Tzina

  • CSS Winner - Tzina

  • CSS Awards - Site of the Day - 1948
  • Awwwards - Honorable Mention - 1948
  • CSS Design Awards - Audience Award for Best Innovation - 1948
  • CSS Design Awards - Audience Award for UI Design - 1948
  • CSS Design Awards - Audience Award for Best UX Design - 1948
  • CSS Design Awards - Special Kudos - 1948
  • NYU Tisch School of the Arts scholarship
  • Red Burns scholarship
  • Viacom NEXT VR research fellowship
  • ITP & Google XStory research grant

Festivals

  • SXSW 2020 - Get Ready for the Volumetric Revolution - The New York Times

  • Sundance 2019 - New Frontier - Vimeo

  • SIGGRAPH 2018 - Posters - Volume

  • Cannes Festival - NEXT - Tzina

  • IDFA DocLab - Tzina
  • ACM SIGGRAPH - Immersive Expressions - Tzina
  • Seattle Transmedia - Tzina
  • DocAviv - Tzina
  • Toronto WebFest - Tzina
  • Paris Play Online - Tzina

  • International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling - Tzina

  • Experience, Brussels VR Film Festival - Tzina

  • SXSW - The Future of Music Artwork is Gamified - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • GDC - Mozilla VR booth - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • Seattle Transmedia - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • LA New Media Film Festival - [Livyatanim: MYTH

  • File Festival - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • NuWave - BJFF - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • Patchlab - Livyatanim: MYTH

  • Miami FILMGATE - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • Amsterdam KLIK - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • TimeWave Festival - Livyatanim: MYTH
  • Google I/O - Livyatanim: SONO

Exhibitions

  • Uncanny - Design Museum Holon, 2018
    Developed an openFrameworks MIDI controlled music installation toolstools.tools with Tal Baltuch
  • Liminal Instruments - Whitebox Gallery, NYC, 2018
    Presented Sound Objects, a virtual reality music composition application developed in collaboration with Scott Reitherman - Eventribe

Press

Publications

Open Source