Archive · 2006–present
Reporting, talks, an essay, and nine patents.
Journalism
Three projects at The Washington Post, reported as text and video together. The dispatches are republished here from the author’s archive.
PostGlobalOne question a week to about 60 writers around the world, with Fareed Zakaria and David Ignatius
2006
How the World Sees AmericaThirty dispatches from twelve countries, asking people who are not pundits how they see the United States
2007–08
Race in ’08Reporting on how race moved through the presidential election, from West Virginia and New Mexico
2008
Essays
On designing social worldsWhat twenty years of building rooms for strangers taught me about environments and difference
Essay
Talks
Keynotes and conversations on the Portals, public art, and what the internet is for.
Selected talks
Beyond the StudioTsai Center for Innovative Thinking, Yale
2021
New Frontiers for Cultural InstitutionsCultureSummit, Abu Dhabi
2019
Portals and the Future of EducationWith Vesla Weaver and Youseph Yazdi · Johns Hopkins Board of Trustees, Baltimore
2018
Events, Live Technology, and CommunityTIDE, Las Vegas
2018
Food and Community in the Digital AgeGoogle Food Labs, Palo Alto
2018
Internet and SpaceGames for Change, New York
2017
Keynote on Portals, Technology, and Girls’ EducationNational Coalition of Girls’ Schools, Washington DC
2017
Toward a Global Creative EconomyNuqat, Kuwait
2016
The Emergent Chorus: Collaborative CreativityWith Michele Norris and Jose Antonio Vargas, moderated by Damian Woetzel · Aspen Ideas Festival
2016
Creating an Internet You Can Walk Throughre:publica, Berlin
2016
Grounding the Connective Potential of the InternetTribeca Film Institute, New York
2015
Connecting Across Distance Through Public ArtWith Mary Ellen Carroll · Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
2015
How Contemporary Artists Use Law as MaterialIntroductory remarks at The Legal Medium · Yale Law School, New Haven
2015
Earlier talks on How the World Sees America include the New America Foundation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, C-SPAN, and lectures at Berkeley, Chicago Harris, Columbia SIPA, George Washington, The New School, UCLA, USC, and Villanova.
Academic
Promoting Local Culture to Repress DissentHarvard senior thesis, on Zimbabwe’s Information Ministry funding musicians, filmmakers, and theatre companies — including its own critics
Thesis
The Legal MediumA symposium and multi-year inquiry at Yale into artists who use law itself as a creative material
2015
Inventions
Sole inventor on nine United States patents covering the Portal — the network architecture that connected the rooms, and the physical design of the rooms themselves.
Network architecture for immersive audio-visual communicationsFour grants in one family, filed 2015 to 2018 · US 9,706,166 · 9,998,708 · 10,015,444 · 10,694,147
2017–2020
System and method for performing immersive audio-visual communicationsUS 11,356,639 · filed 2020
2022
Design patents for the Portal and video wallFour design grants covering the communication portal, the video wall, the modular video wall, and the at-home portal device
2016–2020
All nine filed by Shared Space Studios LLC, assigned to Shared Space Studios Inc. in June 2023. Records checked against USPTO filings, August 2026.