Mark Stephen Meadows (born September 28, 1968), known by his artist name, pighed, is an American author, entrepreneur and artist. He is the author of over five books and inventor of patents relating to

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

and

avatars Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance ...

. He lectures internationally on this work as well as the intersection of art, technology and culture.Avatars As Self-Portraits
Mediamatic Lecture, Amsterdam, 2008.Emotional User Interface and NPCs
Game Developers Conference, Los Angeles, 2007.Avatars and AI
, SXSW Lecture, Austin, 2007.Artificial Intelligence and World Travel
XMedia Lecture, Singapore, 2006.Interactive Narrative
, AFTRS Lecture, Sydney, 2005. In addition to inventing software, writing books and developing artwork, Meadows is also known for his worldly adventures, specifically for hitchhiking to Baghdad in 2003, interviewing terrorists and sailing voyages. He holds a

USCG The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...

captain's license and has lived aboard his sailboat since 2006.

Career

In 1993 Meadows helped design WELL.com, the world's third dot-com, and also helped develop the first open-protocol 3D multi-user environment in 1995.Early virtual world work; article: "How To Build A Metaverse
New Scientist
14 October 1995 He worked as researcher and artist at Xerox-PARC, as Creative Director for a

Stanford Research Institute SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

venture, and as creative director and co-founder of a VR and Internet company, which he co-founded, named Construct. In 2001 he opened a gallery in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

where he sold his paintings for two years before spending time in the Waag Society in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, Netherlands as a researcher. In 2010 Meadows founded Botanic Technologies, a US corporation dedicated to developing conversational avatars for use in education and

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

. The company worked with a range of European, American and Asian organizations, ranging from

Fortune 100 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along w ...

multinationals to small startups, researching and prototyping experimental products. Botanic Technologies spun off several other companies, the most notable being SEED Token, a

organization which offered natural language processing and animation libraries for conversational characters. Since 2020 Meadows has been leading teams that build avatars for social media, educational and gaming purposes. Additional independent work includes authoring books and ongoing illustrations, paintings and other art.

Books

''Pause & Effect'' is Meadows' first book which addresses narrative, visual art and video games.Mark Stephen Meadows
Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative
New Riders, 2002, .''www.pause-effect.com'' His second book, ''I, Avatar''Mark Stephen Meadows
I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences Of Having A Second Life
New Riders, 2008, . is a first-person travelogue of

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...

and an examination of the culture and consequences of using avatars in

virtual worlds A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

. ''Tea Time With Terrorists'' is a travelogue of

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

and study of the

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

militant movement. This project deviates from other work by Meadows in addressing a more physical reality.Mark Stephen Meadows
Tea Time with Terrorists; A Motorcycle Journey Into the Heart of Sri Lanka’s Civil War
Soft Skull, 2010, . ''We, Robot'', published in 2010, is Meadows' fourth book addresses the emergence of

robots "\n\n\n\n\nThe robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the site they are allowed to visi ...

and societal impacts.Mark Stephen Meadows
We, Robot; Skywalker's Hand, Blade Runners, Iron Man, Slutbots, And How Fiction Became Fact
Lyons Press, 2010, . Other publications include nearly a dozen patents, an unpublished travelogue of

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and a book of illustrated fables, titled ''7Fables''. Meadows is represented by Renee Zuckerbrot, New York, NY.

Art

Since 1987, Meadows has been selling his artwork in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe. He has received awards from

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the ...

,"Difference Engine #3" awarded to Construct
Ars Electronica, Golden Nica
, Prix 1999, Interactive Art category.''www.aec.at'' and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, among others.

Education

Meadows completed his BA in math, philosophy and literature from St. John's College in

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...

. He also received an MFA at The

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

(painting and photography) and studied at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(biology),

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

(philosophy), and Bemis Art School (painting).

Awards

Meadows has received the following awards: * Ars Electronica, Golden Nica, Linz, Austria: 1999 *Stanford Digital Art Center, Stanford CA: 1998 * NII Award Arts & Entertainment, Los Angeles CA: 1997 *Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York NY: 1997 *Electronic Arts Awards, SF Focus/Stoli Vodka, San Francisco CA: 1997 * Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, New York NY: 1993 *Art Institute Of Chicago, Chicago IL: 1986

References

External links

Official home page
''markmeadows.com''
Peachpit Author Bio

Interview
with Meadows on "New Books in Digital Culture"
Digital Health Summit Interview

Patent: Systems and methods for an autonomous avatar driver

Patent: Systems and methods for managing a persistent virtual avatar with migrational ability
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meadows, Mark Living people American portrait painters Virtual reality pioneers Artificial intelligence researchers Harvard University alumni American male writers American technology chief executives St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni Year of birth missing (living people)