Etan Ilfeld

Etan Ilfeld is a London-based entrepreneur, and the author of Beyond Contemporary Art,^[1][2] an image-driven contemporary art book, which spans disciplines ranging from science, design and architecture to new media, film-making and performance art.^[3]

Education

Ilfeld graduated at the top of his undergraduate Physics class at Stanford University and was awarded the David Levine Award. He is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa and holds a Masters in Film Studies from the University of Southern California, and a Masters in Interactive Media from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Media and Art

In 2007, Ilfeld founded Tenderpixel Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in central London.^[4] In 2008, Tenderpixel began hosting an annual experimental film competition known as Tenderflix.^[5] Ilfeld is also a digital artist and his New Kind of Cinema work was showcased at TEDxLondon in 2011, included in the Apparatjik iPhone magazine and archived in Rhizome's ArtBase.^[6] New Kind of Cinema was programmed in Mathematica and inspired by the usage of cellular automata after training with Stephen Wolfram in Pisa during the summer of 2009.^[7] Ilfeld was also an executive producer of the feature films Killer Pad (directed by Robert Englund), and Remainder an adaptation of Tom McCarthy's Remainder_(novel) directed by Omer Fast. Ilfeld also produced the sci-fi graphic novel, Binary,^[8] based on Chris Hinz's award winning Liege-Killer novel.^[9] He has written extensively on contemporary art. His article Contemporary Art and Cybernetics was published in the peer-reviewed Leonardo Journal published by MIT Press in February 2012,^[10] and his book, Beyond Contemporary Art, was published in October 2012 by Vivays Publishing.^[2]

Watkins Media

Ilfeld is the owner of Watkins Books,^[11] London's oldest Mind Body Spirit bookshop (established in 1893).^[12][13] He is also the editor-in-chief of the Watkins' Mind Body Spirit magazine.^[14] In the February 2011 issue of Watkins' Mind Body Spirit magazine, Ilfeld launched the 100 Spiritual List, which ranks the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in the world.^[15] The 100 Spiritual list continues to be published annually.

In 2014, Ilfeld acquired Watkins Publishing, Nourish, and Angry Robot from Osprey Publishing.^[16]

Mind Sports

Ilfeld is a competitive strategy games player having won the World Amateur Poker Championship title at the Mind Sports Olympiad in 2010. Ilfeld is also the inventor of Diving Chess,^[17] a chess variant played in a pool such that each player can think during their turn for as long as they can hold their breath underwater.^{[18][19][20][21]} He is currently the chief organizer of the Mind Sports Olympiad.

References