KEVIN MACK is a pioneering Digital Fine Artist and Academy Award winning Visual Effects Designer. He received the Oscar for his work on the film WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. His filmography of over thirty films can be seen on the Kevin Mack IMDB page. Mack’s work in artificial life and rule based systems, used to grow the tree in WHAT DREAMS MAY COME and the inside of a human brain in FIGHT CLUB, inspired the development of tissue simulation software that has been used for virtual stem cell research. In 2006, Mack received the title of Honorary Neuroscientist, from UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, for his lectures there on perception, visualization and creativity. In 2012 Kevin worked with physicists at CERN on the visualization of recent discoveries in particle physics. Mack’s fine art practice is inspired by a love of both technology and natural phenomena, and is informed by research in a wide range of fields from neuroscience to quantum physics. Mack’s psychoactive images, objects and animations are designed to inspire the imagination and evoke a unique response in each viewer. Among the first to exploit the unique capabilities of 3D printing, Mack produces sculptural forms that cannot be achieved by any other means. He is now realizing a lifelong dream of expressing his artistic visions as virtual reality. Kevin’s work has been exhibited at 3D Printer World Expo, The P.S. Zask Gallery, The Copro Gallery, The Brett Wesley Gallery, The Extreme Futurist Festival, The Laguna Art Museum, Carnegie Melon University, Siggraph Art Gallery and Animation Festival, Art Center College of Design, The Director’s Guild of America, The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, The Barbara Mendes Gallery, The Flower Pepper Gallery, The Banzai!!! Exhibit in NYC, Visual Amalgam, The Hive and various LA art events.
Fall 2015 Seminar 
Kevin Mack certainly seems incredibly passionate about his work as an artist. It’s rare that you’ll find someone as accomplished as he is in both commercial and fine art disciplines. It seems to me that this sets a pretty good example for aspiring animators and visual effects artists. So often we’ll find ourselves working on someone else’s film and contributing to someone else’s vision, it’s important to remember that we also need to make the art we love for our own sake. And hopefully the world will see that art and enjoy it as much as you do.
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I really enjoyed Kevin Mack’s artwork and presentation. Abstract art and surrealism must be my favorite genre of art. I love seeing imagery that transports you to another place, and allows you to fall within the work itself. I really enjoyed his early fine art work because it was similar to the styles of Jackson Pollock, and it was cool to see the gradual progression over the decades as technology evolved and became more accessible.
The virtual reality head-set was one of the best experiences I have ever had. I have never really tried VR like that before, and it was truly amazing. The textures on the sculptures were beautiful, and the level of detail was unreal. I felt like I was awake inside of Kevin Mack’s dream, and I cannot wait to pursue my own VR with my art and characters next semester.
I really enjoyed this presentation, and I am super thankful for the experience. Sorry again this post is late.
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Kevin Mack’s presentation was extremely inspiring to me. His story has certainly been a unique journey but what interested me most was his perspective regarding VR and an artist’s role in embracing this new medium. Mack talked about crafting an experience and the importance of abstract thinking in both scientific and art fields. To me VR presents an opportunity for media artists to craft a totally immersive, widely distributable,interactive, abstract art experience. I am really excited to try my hand at working in VR. I was sold when I tried on the headset and entered his creative world, the forms rotating and floating all around me. It felt like an out of body experience but a comfortable one. Conversely it was also really interesting to witness other people be totally whisked away into their own experiences by the piece. Kevin is exploring intriguing and provocative ideas with this emerging format and I’m all about it.
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I was thrilled to actually meet the man who was sucked out of the single serving airliner in one of my favorite films. What a treat to actually wear a single serving headset, where I viewed a single serving screen that delivered Kevin’s beautiful artwork, which was by far anything but single serving. More like crazy awesome. Kevin’s work has most likely affected my artistic style in a huge way. Being a millennial I’ve spent more time watching movies than eating food. I watched the ‘Abyss’ as a child and I was inspired by the painterly environments in ‘What Dreams May Come.’ Both of these films had a large effect on how I looked at the world, and movies in general.
Then there’s virtual reality! The race is on and everyone is running as fast as they can towards a singular world. What will we do when our best friends are digitized versions of themselves, or when we watch a video online in which newscasters give us the startling details that the adult film industry has skyrocketed with VR? Is that going too far? Not sure, but its difficult to predict what will happen when individuals completely shut the outside world off with a virtual headset. I won’t however shy away from diving into VR. I won’t be one of those guys that denies an emerging technology because I don’t understand or don’t like it. I can see the very big possibilities when we get past the oculus rift and move into the unexpected parts of this visual form.
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Kevin Mack’s work of art and presentation was outstanding. Dynamic workmanship and surrealism must be my most loved sort of craftsmanship. I cherish seeing symbolism that move you to somewhere else, and permits you to fall inside of the work itself. He is truly making the most of his initial compelling artwork work in light of the fact that it was like the styles of Jackson Pollock, and it was cool to see the steady movement throughout the decades as innovation advanced and turned out to be more open.I can’t help suspecting this sets a really decent sample for yearning illustrators and visual impacts specialists. So regularly we’ll end up taking a shot at another person’s film and adding to another person’s vision, recall that we additionally need to make the craftsmanship we cherish for our own particular purpose.In all, the representation was superb
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Kevin Mack is excellent. Dynamic workmanship and surrealism is my favorite crafts style. He is really to maximize the use of his eye-catching work of art continues to attract a variety of audiences to pay attention to him, which is like a Jackson Pollock’s style, which is cool but it is very warm in the decades of innovation, continue to open ourselves. I aspire to be an illustrator and visual effects expert, and he is using his own personal experience to tell me how to go to grow and progress.
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Kevin Mack’s presentation was fantastic. Afterwards he commented that he was worried that it seemed too scripted as he had been reading off of paper, but I thought it was great! He’s done so much and is very passionate about his work, I think having it all written down so he didn’t forget anything added to the charm of his talk. He seems very humble and I liked how he talked to us, not at us (if that makes sense.) It was neat to hear where he’s been, what he’s done, and where he’s at now. I especially loved seeing his current VR work, and the whole experience with it. It was really relaxing; the imagery, it’s movement, everything about it was very zen. As someone who is a bit high-strung, it was super nice to take a moment and see that.
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Kevin Mack’s presentation was very inspiring, and I really enjoyed it. His digital art are looks amazing. Some of the compositions are like roller coaster, audience glide into them on big swooping forms that recede into the depths, looping and swirling among themselves like the veinous system of an android, or vibrating into a crenulated landscape of primary colors. Mack’s sculptures are created using a variety of digital tools and processes, and then produced as 3D printed. Was created using fluid dynamic simulation, procedural modeling, implicit surfaces and digital sculpting. He explained that the concept behind all this is the dissolution of traditional boundaries through technology. Every new use of 3D printers, even the esoteric or artwork, brings the products ever closer to the mainstream and further into the public consciousness
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I really enjoyed Kevin Mack’s lecture because of his sincere attitude toward voicing artist statement and establishing his own conception into virtual reality. When I put on the VR devices, I totally got immersed into his world. With the Zen music, I could feel the strong contrast between fabulous colors and peaceful movement of these abstract objects. Something wordless was spreading in my mind which let me feel the subject matter he always concerned. It is about something below the surface and subtle existence of machine language. Besides, from his work, although all these forms are extremely complicated structured they are also extremely simple when they were coming toward me. He integrates and arranges complex elements all together in one complete unity! Amazing! Process of making choices and possessing experimental spirits in manipulating technology are two most significant reasons why he can handle and discover fantasy of creating highly abstract but real art pieces! Fantastic!
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The first time I heard about What Dreams May Come was on Iran state TV that Universal Studio produced a film that has revolutionized the visual effects and It showed some part of beautiful scenes of the movie. When I watched it for the first time I could not forget the beauty of colors and painting effects. My mother loves this film and I watched it with her many times. It was really amazing to have Kevin Mack the artist who was the creator of that beauty and wonderful work. I never thought I could meet visual effect supervisor of one of the most nostalgic films for me. It got more interesting when I understood he was also in charge of Fight Club one of my favorite movies. Kevin works were really great but I wish I could see making of footages from that scenes. His fine art work were like a dream and that is totally explain why he was that great in What Dreams May Come. I’ve never experienced such thing as the VR experience I had with Kevin’s piece. It was was wonderful to float among those colorful abstract forms and hear that peaceful music.
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For me, it always hard to develop abstract art. I can only create the thing with other stuff I saw before, and have a accurate shape. Yet for Kevin Mack, abstract is everything in life. There’s no a specific story in his works, but they stand by themselves very well. Kevin Mack discover new ideas during making arts. Processing itself is a good way to help him find ideas. It’s such a good suggestion for me, ’cause I haven’t tried that before. Maybe I always think too much before I actually drawing or writing. I will try to see what will happen if I start the working process without a story right away.
Kevin Mack also knows how to let technology help to create his art very well. With Virtual Reality, He produced his own surreal world around the audience. And the 3D printer can print out his characters, too. Making his world and idea more and more clear in the reality.
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He’s involved in too many of my favorite works. And of course his abstract work is great. I don’t have to pay attention to abstract art, but I have to focus on 3D printing. I have friends in China, they have a toy company, or work in a toy company: you know, 3D printing in them is just a “performing technical means” rather than creating itself (or art itself.) I rarely see in China with 3D printing as art to show, great!
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I should mention that the 3d modelings he brought were very bizarre yet awesome. It was very interesting experience that seeing how that complexed forms of digital sculptures turned into real dimensional objects.
The part I want to really appreciate was that he organised what he wanted to tell us, so it was easy to follow all the contents he gave.
When he mentioned that VR can help people, I doubted what he said honestly. However, when put the headset in my head, I must say, I truly enjoyed that amazing experience. I was like, removing myself-physically, and jumping into whole new world – very calm, settled, relaxed and consoling. The music, rotating abstract objects, colours, all of segments on the VR were just awesome.
Thank you for giving me a nice opportunity to experience something very beautiful, and inspiring presentation!
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Kevin Mack’s Digital Fine Art, 3D printing sculptures and his digital media VR exhibition are amazing!!!! First of all I love his digital sculptures. I love how colorful they are. Also the organic shape, the glossy texture, and the liquid like movement are great. Then his organic 3D printing sculpture is impressing as well. The company that I went for internship used to have a 3D printer but we have never gets to that kind of high quality. The only thing that I wish to come true is that I wish the 3D printing can has the colorful quality as the digital work that he had made, although I know that will be much more expensive. In the end, the digital media VR exhibition is my favorite of the day! It is a pretty pioneer idea and I had a very good experience “in” the exhibition.
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I really enjoyed Kevin Mack’s presentation. I tend to gravitate toward abstraction so it was great to hear about Kevin’s process. The abstract defies verbal description, it is the mystery beyond words, the original universal language, is it the machine language of existence? I have no idea. I think his view on VR is great because he seems to understand and is fully aware of the intricacies and the potential (good and bad) of this technology. I look forward to seeing more of his work.
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Kevin Mack is a great artist. I just impressed by his 3D printing work, it’s amazing and extremely delicate!
It’s no doubt that he is very successful in visual effect, the movie he worked on such as Fight Club is really famous in film history. The most interest thing is the visual reality work which he showed to us, It’s really amazing! I really enjoy the experience of the visual reality, the things in the screen just like you can touch it, and you can look around in the screen. As an artist, Kevin Mack is really good at playing with the newest technique, I think that what I should learn from him.
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Kevin Mack is really awesome artist. he is introducing a new world to me. The new visual world of VR monitor.
After watching his artwork, It is really beautiful and unique. He is so successful to combine the new technique into his fabulous artworks. Now, I know the VR world is kind of trend in new media art filed, It is broken the limited of 3D and 2D animation edges. Also, he shows his abstract works in VR monitor, it is really a totally different feeling than we saw it in 2D way.
Also, he shows a lot of 3d printer artworks to us, Those are fabulous and delicate artwork. It is really a good lecture to let us know the development of technique and it can bring a lot of creativity in a new art form.
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What is the best combination of art and digital technique? I think Kevin Mack’s work is~! Kevin’s work is incredible. I can feel the work is related to a sense of ritual in some buddhistical stuffs. The music and video match very well, I feel like I just in a real place where is nonexistent. So this kind of experience is unique. And I also touch the 3d printing stuff, it is so complicated but beautiful~! Thank for Mack’s work~!
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The virtual reality set was one of the most amazing experience I have ever had. I am interested in VR a lot and might do some projects with this new techniques in the future. I was also impressed Kevin’s fine art works and 3d printing exhibition. I do feel he’s doing the stuff that ahead of this time, but I think that’s really crucial. Many thanks to Kevin for being here to gave us such an amazing talk.
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KEVIN MACK
I really enjoy Kevin Mack’s speech. I think the reason is for showing my respect of his amazing painting and passion as an artist.
Kevin has his own unique style. When he was doing fine art, he has already got that beautiful style, every color is mixed together in a unbelievable way. And you can tell the digital calculation gives him a great supporting of making art.
And as an artist, he melts his art idea into commercial. And continually trying new things makes me so touched.
I like watching his work in VR as well.
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Kevin Mack’s presentation was great. I think his printed sculptures where my favorite part. So beautiful and intricate. the shapes were void of color, and I think really represented some of the more interesting aspects of Kevin’s work. Organic forms that interact with their environments feeding off of their positive and negative structure.
The VR experience was very interesting as well. What Kevin had to say about the medium was great. I am a little apprehensive about VR, but I look forward to studying it more.
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I really enjoy Kevin Mack’s presentation today.
When I put on VR devices that he brought in the class, combing with the music, I could feel color, dimension even emotions. Besides, from his work, even if his work often have very complex structure but the feeling and concept of every piece of his work is pure and expressive. it seems that he has the ability to manipulate complicate media and transform these elements into a simple but deep thinking.
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I love Kevin’s presentation and his work, especially his 3D priting work. That is cool!
He has showed some real work to us which we can hardly see in other places. I love the procedure how they put their materials into a whole film. It’s really amazing! And also, I really enjoy the experience of the visual reality, it feels like you can touch the reality.
Kevin is not only a good artist, but also a talented technologist.
Thanks again for Kevin’s presentation.
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Kevin’s presentation is really inspiring. now he is doing some digital arts but he also shows us his early paint art work which makes me feel to be a good artist, a good aethestic well affects how far the artist achieve. the firm and strong basement can help the artists explore the new area with a good foundation.
his experience also encourage me to try new things, to try the newest technology and make advance art work.
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Kevin Mack brought us a incredibly outstanding presentation as well as his experience in filmography. I think he is the most unique visual effects designer that give surrealism art works to fit in the live action movie and still convince the audience. His works tell us the code beneath the form of carrier. We are flowing in his innovative thoughts.
One more thing is Kevin Mack has passionate heart aside with his calm angle of view because he seems quite comprehending the revolutionary VR technology. He show us the both side of VR. I can assure that Kevin Mack will utilize this advanced technology deliberately.
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Kevin brings the interesting point of view for visual effect artist. His sculpture and fine art are amazing, I thought he follows his own voice to create piece yet he is also good at 3D graphic technique. As we had many guests from visual effect field in this semester, I realizing the importance of trying own interest as personal project. Kevin encourage me to think about pursing what I want to do, and try new technique to wide my horizon. His VR was really amazing, I am looking forward to take class to make VR next semester.
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Kevin Mack’s work of art and presentation was outstanding.
I think his printed sculptures where my favorite part. Kevin Mack discover new ideas during making arts. The VR part was fantastic. What Kevin had to say about the medium was great. I look forward to seeing more of his work.
Thanks for Kevin Mack for such a wonderful lecture.
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Kevin Mack’s speech was very inspiring.
I was so shocked at watching VR, which was my first time in my life.
In the VR I couldn’t see my own body, which is very strange experience,
the world we see is a assembles of our beliefs, But using VR the those belief just collapse while we still feel our own body.
I will share this experience to phenomenology professor.
I felt VR is useful for so many other field of studies including medicals.
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Kevin Mack was unique in that he succeeded both as a commercial artist, and as a fine artist. I really enjoyed his lecture because I find the prospect of VR very exciting. I also loved the sculptures Kevin Mack created. I hope one day to create my own 3D prints and integrate it into my work, because I think there’s something powerful in the tactile.
I got to experience Kevin Mack’s VR work, and it was incredible. I disappeared into this other worldly space for a while. it was very soothing and completely different than anything I had experienced. I think VR has potential to help people who are in pain in the future, especially people who maybe are in the hospital and experiencing discomfort. I also think VR is more powerful than any media we use today because of this immersion . I can’tw ait to see the future of this media, and I know Kevin Mack will be one of the pioneers.
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