biographical info


I am a technology researcher and experience designer. I use technology in creative ways to create physical experiences, spaces and objects of expression. I've spent many years working at the edge between art and technology, including six years at M.I.T., where I started by creating my own undergraduate program based in architecture and design, and finished at the Media Laboratory, with the Tangible Media Group. After M.I.T., I spent a few years at Xerox PARC, the Silicon Valley research arm of The Document Company.

I've been fortunate enough to work on a wide variety of very exciting projects which have challenged my technical and creative sides, from interactive books, to metalwork, to holography, to an experimental investigation that is bound for Mars. Some of these are detailed in the portfolio section of this site.

With my wife and partner Susan Gorbet, I have recently founded Gorbet Design Inc. We are always looking for new ways to create compelling experiences using technology.

matt gorbet

mgg@gorbet.com

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work experience


Xerox PARC is world famous for being the birthplace of the personal computer, ethernet, the laser printer and more. I worked with a small renegade group at PARC that was exploring the development of new genres of expression, based on emerging technologies. The output of our research was a 4,000 square foot interactive installation called XFR: Experiments in the Future of Reading, which ran for six months at the at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.


Xerox PARC
1998-2000
There was once this great little company in San Francisco that tried to revolutionize 3D graphics. They were called ThinkFish, and they were started by a few friends of mine. I worked there in the summer of '96, helping them get their 'LiveStyles' technology out the door. In 1997, they merged with 3D giant Viewpoint Datalabs, and were subsequently gobbled by the biggest (and most boring) fish of all, Computer Associates.


cartoon rendering
1996

Before working for ThinkFish, I used their rendering technology in a piece called Harmonic Driving. It was part of the Brain Opera, an interactive music experience which premiered at Lincoln Center, New York City, on July 23rd, 1996. The Brain Opera then toured Europe, Asia, and the US, and is now permanently installed in Vienna.

Harmonic Driving is an advanced video-game-like 3D environment in which one can navigate an abstract musical landscape of twists and turns, influencing the musical progression of the piece as the game goes on.



harmonic driving
1995-96


One summer, I worked as a designer at Silicon Graphics. We were working with NTT on a broadband interactive television system for the Japanese market.

SGI is in Mountain View, California, and I lived in San Francisco.



silicon graphics
1995

Another fun project I was involved with as an Undergraduate Research Assistant is the Living Room of the Future project. In this group we were installing computer sensing, feedback, and control systems into a living room, so that systems within the room can be easily controlled through speech and gesture, and can communicate with one another. The project group has now shifted focus, and has become the Things That Think consortium.



living room of the future
1994-95

Before that, I worked for Nynex Science and Technology, in Cambridge, building a prototype system for a broadband-based ITV system, called Planet 9X. That was lots of fun, too. Interactive TV sure seemed like the next big thing back then...



nynex
1994


For two summers while I was still in high school, I worked for Topix, the leading Canadian computer graphics and animation firm. They are a lot of fun and I had the opportunity to work on some TV ads, television show openings, and music videos.



topix
1992-93

These are only some of a bunch of fun jobs I've had. Please check out my on-line portfolio, where you'll find samples of my work as an artist, designer & programmer. I hope you like them.