Jane Friedhoff

Creative Code, R&D, Games + Play

janefriedhoff.com / jane.friedhoff@gmail.com

Selected Experience

  • Senior UX Engineer, Google, Winter 2021 - Present

    Working at Google Research to create new research-enabled products.

  • Founder, Ilinx Interactive LLC, Fall 2019 - Winter 2021

    Providing teaching, game development, consulting, and creative coding expertise--from lectures, to R&D and prototyping, to polished installations at events--for a variety of clients, including the School for Poetic Computation, Wasserman Media Group, and Google.

  • Human in Research (Postdoctoral Fellow), New York University, Fall 2019

    Part of the Fall 2019 cohort of Humans In Research, a position intended to energize the spirit of research at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program by pulling in and supporting artists doing work at the bleeding edge of their fields. As part of the residency, taught a 4-credit class called Joy + Games.

  • Creative Technologist, Adecco (Google Creative Lab), 2017 - 2019

    Worked a 2 year full-time contract for Google (via Adecco) to prototype and develop delightful, engaging, and future-thinking experiments with the Google Creative Lab. Fulfilling roles from prototyper to production coder to developer relations and more. In addition to proprietary/internal code and prototypes, projects included:

  • Creative Researcher, The Office For Creative Research, 2016 - 2017

    Developed data visualizations and tools to promote data literacy until the closure of the studio in 2017. Projects included the Elephant Atlas, a data visualization and exploration platform in collaboration with the Great Elephant Census; the v2 of Floodwatch, a platform to help people uncover, interpret, and understand data about how advertisers are tracking them; and the St Louis Maproom, a community space for creating and exploring original, interpretive maps of the city that reflect the personal stories and lived experiences of its residents.

  • Creative Technologist, The New York Times R&D Lab, 2013 - 2016

    Developed prototypes with emerging technologies to explore the social and cultural impact of these technologies on the future of news and media. Projects included Madison, a crowdsourcing project to uncover new metadata about the company's extensive archives of historical advertisements; Particles, a research project and set of prototypes about collecting metadata and its impact on news publishing and platform flexibility; and Membrane, an experiment in permeable publishing.

  • Co-founder & Professor, Code Liberation, 2013 - 2015

    Co-founded an organization that teaches women of all experience levels how to program games for free. Designed and developed open-source lesson plans, slides, and sample code for learning openFrameworks, C++, Processing, Unity, and GameMaker. Taught classes and workshops on basic game programming as well as more advanced subjects like Open Sound Control and Kinect.

Education

  • MFA, Design + Technology

    Parsons, The New School 2011 - 2013

    Graduated with honors

    Dean's Merit Scholarship

  • BA, Independent Study in Sustainable Development

    Columbia University, 2006 - 2010

    Graduated Magna Cum Laude

Skills

  • Web Development

    Frontend and backend web development, including Javascript/jQuery/React, Node.js, Go, Mongo, Firebase

  • Creative Coding / Game Development

    Unity/C# (Desktop/Android), openFrameworks/C++, MaxMSP, Processing/P5.js, Python, Git

  • Visual & UX Design

    Adobe Suite, Sketch, OmniGraffle, rapid prototyping, sketching & wireframing, user testing/playtesting

Commissions, Residencies, & Awards

Publications

Talks & Panels

  • GDC ("AI Summit: 'Hide N' Seek': A Social Deduction Game Using Controllable Language Models"), March 2022
  • GDC ("AI Summit: Language Models on Rails: ML-Assisted Narrative Games"), March 2022
  • Eyeo ("Playful Possibilities"), June 2018 (transcript)
  • Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia (on designing Shortcut), December 2016
  • Books in Browsers (on play in journalism/Membrane), November 2016 (video)
  • Visualized (about the design process used to create the African Elephant Atlas), October 2016
  • OpenNews Community Call (on Shortcut and the African Elephant Atlas), September 2016
  • World Conservation Congress (about developing the African Elephant Atlas for The OCR), September 2016
  • SRCCON ("Giffable Audio and the Social Web," about the Shortcut project), July 2016
  • Playcrafting NYC (guest lecture for course on game design), February 2016 (writeup)
  • Hacks/Hackers NYC (The New Public Forum, on Membrane), November 2015
  • OpenNews Community Call (on Membrane), November 2015
  • Indiecade (about non-game influences in my design practice), October 2015 (writeup)
  • SFPC Salon (about building organizations for learning), September 2015
  • WordHack (about recent works done in SFPC Code Poetry course), August 2015 (writeup)
  • Internodal (about Slam City Oracles), August 2015
  • Playing For Laughs @ Eyebeam (on comedy in games), February 2015 (writeup)
  • No Quarter Panel (about development process of Slam City Oracles), September 2014
  • Indiecade East (on Code Liberation), February 2014
  • Indiecade East (teaching Processing and beginner game design), February 2014
  • Indiecade (on cultivating inclusive spaces in games), October 2013
  • Columbia (to Art Of Engineering students about design), January 2013

Exhibitions & Shows

Interviews, Writings, & Press

  • MCV/Develop ("London Games Festival announces its 2021 programme for an entirely-online event"), March 2021
  • New York Live (Slam City Oracles arcade cabinet at Wonderville), January 2020
  • SFPC (on the SFPC/YCAM course, Playing The World), September 2019
  • Google ("Letting imaginations run wild with dots and dashes"), November 2018
  • Refinery29 ("Google Came Up A New Version Of Its Viral Art Selfies -- & It Involves Dancing"), July 2018
  • AndroidAuthority ("Get down with Google's new pose-matching machine learning experiment"), July 2018
  • MSN ("Google AI experiment compares poses to 80,000 images as you move"), July 2018
  • TheNextWeb ("Google's latest AI experiment makes GIFs by watching you move"), July 2018
  • Techspot ("Google's Move Mirror experiment matches images to your poses in real time"), July 2018
  • CNET ("Google just launched a bizarre AI experiment called 'Move Mirror'"), July 2018
  • Engadget ("Google AI experiment compares poses to 80,000 images as you move"), July 2018
  • Official Google Blog ("Move Mirror: You move and 80,000 images move with you"), July 2018
  • Official Tensorflow Blog ("Move Mirror: An AI Experiment with Pose Estimation in the Browser using TensorFlow.js"), July 2018
  • CNBC ("Gaming industry strives for cultural recognition"), April 2018
  • Unwinnable, ("Retribution Never Felt So Punk"), April 2018
  • The Guardian, ("Rampaging wage slaves and Marie Antoinette - the pick of avant-garde festival games"), April 2018
  • Games Girls Play: Contexts of Girls and Video Games (interview with author Carolyn Cunningham), April 2018
  • PC Gamer, ("'Thelma & Louise vs. the mall' and more experimental games from the Now Play This festival"), April 2018
  • Technical.ly Brooklyn, ("A real-life walkthrough of how to make cool things with augmented reality"), April 2018
  • MCV ("Now Play This, and events like it, are essential for the games industry to thrive"), April 2018
  • Herald Scotland ("Wage inequality, conflict in the Middle East and the refugee crisis: how the video games industry is becoming a new front in the world of politics"), April 2018
  • The Boar ("Punk, rocking the games industry"), March 2018
  • The Peabody Essex Museum ("Power Fantasy: An Interview"), February 2018
  • Bustle ("The 'Lost Wage Rampage' Game Takes On The Wage Gap & It Is Some 'Grand Theft Auto' Levels Of Rage"), February 2018
  • Mashable ("This game tells the gender wage gap to f*ck off, and it's exactly what we needed"), February 2018
  • Anait (Thelma & Louise: The Game), February 2018
  • Hey Poor Player ("Itch.io has got a winner when it comes to Lost Wage Rampage"), February 2018
  • Kotaku ("Punk Heist Game Flips Off The Gender Pay Gap"), February 2018
  • The Peabody Essex Museum ("Finish This Sentence: Play Is..."), December 2017
  • FastCo.Design ("The Dead-Serious Strategy Behind Google's Silly AI Experiments"), December 2017
  • Google, ("AR Experiments: Expanding creative possibilities with ARCore"), November 2017
  • Google, ("Made By Women: AR Experiments"), October 2017
  • Gamasutra ("Making Portal Painter in AR Core", featured blog post), August 2017
  • Indie Insider (on Play NYC), August 2017
  • Technical.ly Brooklyn (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Zeit Online (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Mic (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Giga Games (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Český rozhlas (Czech Public Radio) (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • The AV Club (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Kotaku (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Motherboard (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Autostraddle (on Handväska!), February 2017
  • Polygon (on Handväska!), January 2017
  • The New Stack ("The Five Most Addictive Indie Games from MAGFest 2017"), January 2017
  • Playing With Resistance, November 2016
  • Publisher's Weekly (on journalism, play, and Membrane), November 2016
  • Daniel Shiffman's The Coding Train (on riot grrrl game design), November 2016
  • Kotaku (on the Death By Audio Arcade), November 2016
  • Columbia Journalism Review ("Two new tools at the cutting edge of audio sharing", citing Shortcut), October 2016
  • Wired (on Shortcut), October 2016
  • NiemanLab (on Shortcut), October 2016
  • Columbia Journalism School (on the UX development of Shortcut), October 2016
  • Observer (on Shortcut), October 2016
  • Smithsonian Mag (on Shortcut), October 2016
  • Source (on designing the African Elephant Atlas), October 2016
  • Gamasutra ("Staying happy, creative, and productive in the tumultuous world of game dev"), September 2016
  • The Guardian ("13 fascinating games from the Now Play This Festival"), April 2016
  • Games, Design and Play (interviews with authors Macklin and Sharp), May 2016
  • openFrameworks Wiki (Code Liberation slides and ofBook highlighted as top 3 learning resources), February 2016
  • Gamasutra ("Finding The Fun," featured blog post), February 2016
  • Gamasutra ("Riot Grrrl Game Design," featured blog post), January 2016
  • iQ by Intel (on Slam City Oracles), November 2015
  • Source (on Membrane and permeable publishing), November 2015
  • The Setup (on workflows and tools), November 2015
  • Sup, Holmes? (on Slam City Oracles and game design), October 2015
  • Thrillist ("7 Creative Rebels You Need To Know Right Now"), October 2015
  • Fusion ("Girl Gamers" series), October 2015 - December 2015 (series)
  • Rock Paper Shotgun (on Slam City Oracles), September 2015
  • Boing Boing/Offword (on Slam City Oracles), September 2015
  • The Los Angeles Times (on Slam City Oracles), September 2015
  • Autostraddle (on Slam City Oracles), August 2015
  • Buzzfeed (about being a woman in games/tech), July 2015
  • ThinkProgress (on the Facets conference), June 2015
  • The Mary Sue (about Slam City Oracles), June 2015
  • ANIMAL NY (on the Facets conference), April 2015
  • NYTLabs Blog (about developing the archive crowdsourcing project, Madison), October 2014
  • Indie Tech Talk (about my design processes), October 2014
  • Kill Screen (on Slam City Oracles), October 2014
  • Nieman Lab (on Madison), October 2014
  • Kotaku (on Slam City Oracles), September 2014
  • ANIMAL NY (on the process of making Slam City Oracles), September 2014
  • The Escapist (on Code Liberation), February 2014
  • Gamasutra (about pushing tools to their limits), January 2014