martin reiser on Fstoppers

rainer merits

I was born, raised and educated in the city of Zürich. After graduating, I served IBM as a research engineer, the latest as the director of the famous IBM Zürich Research Lab. 1997 I was appointed director of the Institute for Media Communication of GMD, located in St. Augustin, Germany. There I initiated e-Culture projects and ventured into virtual reality and virtual humans. I moved to Singapore in 2007, called by the Provost of Nanyang Technological University to found an Institute for Media Innovation. There, I secured funding for a large multinational project called Being There Lab. The goal of this lab was to use futuristic technologies to make teleconferencing an experience indistinguishable from really having the remote participant sitting at a table opposite to me. My last assignment in Singapore is that of Visiting Professor at the School of Art, Design andTechnology. I taught Internet design and programming as well as photographic technologies. I am an artist and photographer with my own studio.