Greg Borenstein (@atduskgreg) is a New York based artist and educator whose work explores the use of special effects as an artistic medium. He is fascinated by how effects techniques cross the boundary between images and the physical objects that make them, in media like miniatures, motion capture, 3D animation, animatronics, and digital fabrication. Greg is a Resident Researcher at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, and is currently writing “Making Things See“, the O’Reilly book on Kinect hacking.

Greg’s work with the Kinect has stretched from media art to health applications. He was part of a team that won the 2011 national Health 2.0 developer challenge for the Kinect Abnormal Motion Assessment System, an application for automating the detection and tracking of movement disorders such as Sydeham Chorea and Tardive Dyskensia using the Kinect. Greg has also used the Kinect to create lasercut animations for modern zoetropes, and used its skeleton tracking abilities to create a video performance piece in which he puppeteers a 3D model of his own head.

Greg is an experienced workshop leader, having co-directed, for example, a workshop at Open Source Bridge which developed techniques for playing web browsers like violins, managing windows like marionettes, and controlling text editors with one’s chin.