Alex McDowell RDI is a narrative designer who works at the intersection of design, technology and storytelling.
He is creative director at experimental.design, employing multi-platform, cross-disciplinary world building to design future change in the real world. He is a professor of practice at USC where he teaches world building as a disruptive 21st Century design practice and is director of the USC World Building Institute and USC World Building Media Lab. He has engaged in integrated world building projects that address the future of the ocean, transport, cities, literacy, education, health, manufacturing and storytelling itself, in collaboration with a cross-disciplinary network of domain experts, world builders, artists and scientists.
Alex has over 35 years’ experience as production designer for film and new media. He has collaborated with directors including David Fincher, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, and Anthony Minghella, Zach Snyder, and Colin Trevorrow. As Visiting Artist at the MIT Media Lab, he designed the robot opera Death and the Powers.
His focus remains on leading edge practice and new outcomes using story and design across multiple media, including those not yet imagined.
Presenting ART & SCIENCE & FICTION: WORLD BUILDING & TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY STORYTELLING
ALEX MCDOWELL