Yael Braha

Originally from Rome, Italy, Yael Braha is a Creative Director, Designer, Filmmaker, Coder, Educator and Fine Artist. Her understanding of art as narrative and dialog has shaped many national and international projects, including interactive installations, interactive media walls, and projection mapping shows.

She is interested in pushing the boundaries of art, science and technology; her explorations involve computer vision, parametric modeling, generative animations, and interactivity utilizing electronics, visual processing, coding, and kinetic sculptures.

Recent personal projects include “Tree of Changes”, an interactive sculpture that captures, aggregates and visualizes the individual and cumulative thoughts, wishes and sentiments, and “/ärtəfakts/ in motion”, a sound-reactive and generative projection mapping show accompanying “Symphony No. 4: From Mission to San Juan” by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, performed by the Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra.

Recent professional projects include “IllUmiNations: protecting our planet”, a projection mapping show on the United Nations building, which coincided with the United Nations Climate Summit 2014, and “Made with Code”, interactive installations created for Google Made with Code to introduce teenage girls to coding in a fun and interactive way, both made at Obscura Digital.

Her teaching experience includes appointments at UC Berkeley, SF State University, Baycat, and at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts, where she was appointed Director of the Motion Graphics Design Program, Director of the Digital Filmmaking Program, and Associate Dean of Visual Arts. She was awarded the “Outstanding Teacher Award” in 2008 and the “President’s Award” in 2009.

Yael’s personal projects have received a “Best in Class” Award and four “Editor’s Choice” Awards at Maker Faire 2015, Robin Eickman Award, John Gutmann Award, and her film “The Waves” won a Kodak Eastman Award and screened at the Cannes International Film Festival. Her professional projects have received two American Association of Museums “Muse Award” (Exploratorium), two “Webby Awards” (Exploratorium), and two “Apex Awards”, one for Public Spaces and one for Arts, Entertainment and Recreation (Obscura).

She earned a Bachelor degree in Graphic Design at the European Institute of Design in Rome, and a Master of Fine Arts in Cinema at San Francisco State University.