About

David Gochfeld is an award-winning immersive media creator, specializing in interactive narrative experiences at the intersection of the real and virtual, blending traditional theatrical techniques and cutting edge XR technology. His pioneering work with live performance in virtual reality has appeared at festivals and conferences worldwide, including Tribeca, Siggraph, SXSW and the Venice Biennale Cinema. In 2017, he directed To Be With Hamlet — the first live, immersive theatrical performance in room-scale VR with a distributed audience. He won an Emmy for his work on Zero Days VR. An experienced theatre actor and director, David has devised and performed works internationally. He trained at the prestigious Jacques LeCoq school in Paris and is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab. He marries this creative background with extensive technical expertise in software development, game engines, and UX design. He holds a Masters from NYU’s celebrated Interactive Telecommunications Program, and formerly taught in the Computer Science department at NYU. He is currently a Research Fellow with the XR Stories project at the University of York in England, where he continues directing and producing VR projects and pursues research into experience design for performers and audiences in shared virtual environments, and the use of XR technologies for theatre, live performance and storytelling.

Connect on LinkedIn.

Selected Publications:

David Gochfeld, Alex Coulombe, Yu-Jun Yeh, Robert Lester, Robert Barry Fleming, Zachary Meicher-Buzzi, and Ari Tarr. 2022. A Tale of Two Productions: A Christmas Carol On Stage and in VR. Proc. ACM Comput. Graph. Interact. Tech. 5, 4, Article 41 (September 2022).

Gochfeld, D., Benzing, K., Laibson, K., and Coulombe, A. Avatar Selection for Live Performance in Virtual Reality: A Case Study. IEEE Conference on Games, Entertainment and Media. New Haven, 2019. Accepted for Publication.

Gochfeld, D., Brenner, C., Layng, K., Herscher, S., DeFanti, C., Olko, M., Shinn, D., Riggs, S., Fernández-Vara, C. and Perlin, K. Holojam in Wonderland: Immersive Mixed Reality Theater. Leonardo, Vol. 51, No. 4, pp. 362–367, 2018.

Gochfeld, D. and Molina, J. To Be With Hamlet. In Weijdom, Joris (Ed.), Mixed Reality and the Theatre of the Future. Fresh Perspectives on Arts and New Technologies. Vol 6. IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts, Brussels. 2017.