The Applied Computer Science Lecture Series features practitioners from a wide range of creative and scientific fields, all of whom incorporate applied computer science and technology at the core of their professional inquiry. Open to the entire Woodbury community, the lectures aim to foster dialogue around the increasing role of technology in society, its application across a diverse range of professional practices, the resulting explosion of creative and expressive modes of production, and the ethical and moral dilemmas that have emerged as technology has evolved.
The lecture series welcomed Güvenç Özel, an architect, artist, and technologist. He is a lead faculty member of IDEAS, a multidisciplinary research, and development platform in UCLA A.UD, and the principal of Ozel Office, an interdisciplinary design practice located in Los Angeles. His work is at the intersection of architecture, technology, and media. His projects and experimental installations were exhibited in museums and galleries in the USA and Europe such as the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art and The Saatchi Gallery in London. His recent design and research on 3D printing was awarded one of the top prizes at NASA’s 3D Printed Habitats Competition. He’s the latest recipient of Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence grant for his cyberphysical installation Cypher, which is an interactive soft robotic sculpture that teleports the user to its interior through Virtual Reality. At UCLA IDEAS, besides teaching his own masters design studio, he continues his research on virtual reality, robotics, interactive spaces and sensing interfaces with support from leading companies such as Autodesk, Microsoft, Oculus, and others.