Ms Karen Kriss

Karen Kriss is an artist, animator and senior lecturer at UNSW Art and Design. Previously Karen has over 10 years of experience in the Animation and Visual effects industry including Head of Production Management, Visual Effects Producer, Digital Producer (Mr.X Toronto, CA), Senior Production Coordinator (Animal Logic, Sydney, Aus) and Animator/CG Artist (BDE/ BII Sydney, Aus). She has worked on interactive game projects, short form animation and feature films including Happy Feet, Death Race, The Seeker: Dark Is Rising, The Rocker, Resident Evil: Extinction, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery and Flash of Genius. Karen holds a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) from ANU School of Art and a Master of Philosophy (Fine Arts) at College of Fine Arts, UNSW. Karen is the SIGGRAPH ASIA 2023 Computer Animation Festival Producer and the Chair for the 35th Annual Society for Animation Studies Conference. She has recently been awarded the ADCET Excellence award for  Accessibility in Action with her colleagues in group Diversified. She was also shortlisted in the top three for the category of Diversity in the UNSW 2023 Vice-Chancellors Awards. 

Karen’s research lies with the boundary between new media art and animation. Her work mobilises representations of the body through the use of Motion Capture, 3D Animation and techniques such as lenticular imagery and stereoscopic animation. Karen's research includes live performative motion capture and 3D animation as collaborative tools for working with people living with disability. She has managed two large scale Vivid Sydney projects called Dream States (2019) and Crowded Cadmans (2022).