Arts Division
PhD Candidate
Graduate
Computational Media
Film and Digital Media
Allen Riley is a media artist making interactive experiences about human connection. He designs hands-on learning at Beam Center and builds indie arcade cabinets with Arcade Commons. Riley's work has been presented at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Union Docs, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Spectacle Theater, Slamdance Film Festival, and the Museum of the Moving Image. He has participated in residencies at the Institute for Electronic Arts, the Lower East Side Ecology Center, and Signal Culture. Riley received an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics and is pursuing a PhD in Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Audiovisual synthesis, project-based learning, social practice art, participatory film production, interactive media
ARDIN Scholarship for ICIDS 2024 Doctoral Consortium
2024 Lumen Prize, Futures Finalist
2024 Brooklyn Arts Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council (with Arcade Commons)
2024 Graduate Pedagogy Fellows, Teaching and Learning Center, UC Santa Cruz
2023 Film & Digital Media Summer Research Fellowship, UC Santa Cruz
2023 Brooklyn Arts Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council (with Death by Audio Arcade)
2022-2023 Coha-Gunderson Prize in Speculative Futures (Honorable Mention)
2022 Art Deans Fund for Excellence and Equity, Art Division, UC Santa Cruz
2022 Brooklyn Arts Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council (with Death by Audio Arcade)
2021 NewSchools Venture Fund (with Beam Center and MS 935)
2021 HelloInsight Metrics Cohort (with Beam Center)
2021 Brooklyn Arts Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council (with Death by Audio Arcade)
2021 Arts Education, New York State Council for the Arts (with Beam Center)
2021 Art Works Grant, National Endowment for the Arts (with Beam Center)
2021 Tech and Society Challange: Youth Voice in the Digital Age, Susan Crown Exchange (with Beam Center)
2020 Art Works Grant, National Endowment for the Arts (with Beam Center)
2019 Art Works Grant, National Endowment for the Arts (with Beam Center)
2019 Media Share, BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, NY (with Beam Center)
2013 Verizon Powerful Answers Award (with Bandwagon, Inc.)
2010-2012 MFA Teaching Fellowship, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University
Riley, Allen. “Popcorn Movie: Dynamic Narrative Feedback for Spontaneous Live Action Video Storytelling.” In Interactive Storytelling, edited by John T. Murray and María Cecilia Reyes, 116–29. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78450-7_7.
Changalpet, Alexia and Allen Riley. "AI-Driven Script Supervision and Scene Navigation for Collaborative Video Storytelling." Poster presented at the 2024 M.J Murdock Charitable Trust Partners in Science National Conference, San Diego, CA, January 12, 2024.
Riley, Allen. "Network Enhancement Video." In A decade to download: The Internet Yami-ichi 2012-2021. Edited by エキソニモ, Idpw, 赤岩やえ, 千房けん輔, and Last Fish. A decade to download project team, 2022.
Riley, Allen, Brian Cohen, Grace Freedman, Calvin Stalvig, and Juan Pablo Sarmiento. "Learning Productions: Beyond Project-Based Learning." In Reclaiming Digital Futures. UC Irvine, 2018.
Riley, Allen. "3CC66." In Websafe2k16. Edited by Josephine Livingstone and Ben Sisto. 2016.
Riley, Allen and Fran Agnone. "Let the Truth Be Told." In Free Birthday Songs from WFMU and the Free Music Archive. Free Music Achive, 2013
Riley, Allen. Internet Environments. MFA Thesis. New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Alfred, NY, 2012.
