Chelsi Cocking

Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Chelsi Alise Cocking is a Jamaican-American new media artist, product designer, and creative coder. The foundation of her practice falls within using computing and media technologies for craft in visual art, design, and interactive art and performance. Many of her projects, while not exclusively, explore the inherent possibilities of understanding the human body and its movement through computing and utilizing that understanding to create updated and novel experiences within interactive arts. The goal of her research and art is to use computing to aid and enhance human creativity and expression. Empowering us with new ways to create and express ourselves through technology and also creating new ways in which we experience art, design, and performance in the world today.

Chelsi is an alumna of MIT and the MIT Media Lab, where she received her Masters of Science in Media Arts and Sciences; graduating in September 2023. While at the Media Lab, Chelsi was a researcher, graduate student, and member of the Future Sketches Group, studying under Zach Lieberman. She was also a 2022 LEGO Papert Fellow. Currently, Chelsi is a Ph.D. student in Digital Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she is a 2023 GEM Ph.D. Fellow, sponsored by Adobe, studying under Dr. Brain Magerko as a researcher and member within the Expressive Machinery Lab. Prior to graduate studies, Chelsi worked as a product designer in the technology industry. Most notably, being the designer over the Dropbox Preview and the Dropbox Family product and redesigning Dropbox Photos on the web. During her Bachelors studies, Chelsi received her Bachelors of Science in Computational Media – an interdisciplinary degree that combines computer science, digital media, and design – from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017 with the highest honors.