In my research at NYU I need to do a lot of math and to come up with all sorts of algorithms as I create user interfaces for extended reality. But I have come to realize that none of that is what I am actually researching.
My research is, as it has always been, about people. It’s the same as it was back in the day, when I first came up with what we now call shader languages.
It wasn’t so much about how to do something, but rather it was about what ends up working for human aesthetics. It’s not about the computer — it’s about us.
I am reminded of a visit many years ago to the NY Museum of Modern Art, when I went to see a career retrospective of Jackson Pollock. As his early work showed, he started the same way Picasso did, doing highly realistic and impressively faithful life drawings.
Then, through the years, he continued to experiment with gradually more abstract forms, over time building an entire visual language, trying different things to find out what worked and what didn’t. When I saw, compressed into a single exhibition, the years-long progression of his work, I realized that Jackson Pollock was up to the same thing that I was.
He was doing research.