Danielle Feinberg of Pixar Animation Studios and Neri Oxman of Sony Corporation and MIT Media Lab will deliver keynote presentations at LIGHTFAIR International 2018.
Feinberg (who will speak on Sunday, May 6) joined Pixar Animation Studios in February 1997 and has worked on films such as Monsters, Inc., the Academy Award-winning Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Feinberg was the director of photography-lighting for the Academy Award-winning features WALL•E and Brave. She just completed work on Pixar’s November 2017 film Coco.
At age 23, Feinberg’s first role at Pixar was lead render technical director on A Bug’s Life. She experienced lighting on that film and “quickly discovered her passion for it because of the unique combination of technology and art.” Feinberg then was a lighting artist on many of Pixar’s feature films such as master lighting artist on Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. and then became lead lighting artist on The Incredibles. On Finding Nemo, Feinberg was Ocean Unit CG supervisor leading the team creating the scenes in the depths of the ocean.
Oxman, who will speak on Monday, May 7, is the Sony Corporation career development professor, as well as the associate professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab. At MIT, she founded and currently directs the Mediated Matter design research group. The research her team conducts combines computational design, digital fabrication, materials science and synthetic biology. During her luncheon address “Innovation in Design” sponsored by Eaton, attendees will discover the broad spectrum of Oxman’s forward-thinking work.
Oxman was on ICON’s list of the top 20 “Most Influential Architects to Shape Our Future” and the Fast Company list of the “100 Most Creative People.” SEED magazine called her a “Revolutionary Mind” and she was a part of Esquire’s Best and Brightest. In 2012, the Centre Georges Pompidou Museum (Paris, France) acquired her works for its permanent collection.