Larry Friedlander has been a professor of English Literature
and Theater at Stanford University since 1965, with a specialty in Shakespeare
and performance. In May 1997, Friedlander was appointed Co-Director
of the newly established Stanford Learning Lab which is charged by the
President of the University with promoting the research, development,
and deployment of educational technology and innovative teaching methods.
In early 1980's he began working
in multimedia design and applications starting with the Shakespeare
Project, a pioneering investigation of the application of new technologies
for education in the arts and the humanities. In 1990 Friedlander formed
the Interactive Shakespeare Group with professors at MIT to develop
tools for the study and presentation of Shakespeare and to establish
an interactive electronic archive to be placed in the Folger Library
and other institutions. Friedlander has also developed numerous other
educational applications, including the TheaterGame, an animation program
for staging plays, Paris/Theatre, a program for the historical study
of French Theater, as well as plans for an interactive encyclopedia
of 19th Century Art for the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
Professor Friedlander has worked
in major research laboratories on a wide variety of projects. At the
Apple Multimedia Lab, he developed an innovative set of designs for
the Globe Theater Museum in London. At the MIT Media Lab, he collaborated
on a computer-enhanced theater space and narrative piece called the
Wheel of Life, which has become a model for augmented interactive spaces.
At the Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratory in Cambridge, Friedlander
worked on long-distance, virtual, collaborative spaces.
Professor Friedlander has been heavily involved
in museum design and planning, including advising the Museum of Scotland,
a new national museum, on its plans for technology and design, and helping
the University of Art and Design in Helsinki establish a department
of interactive museum design, He was an Osher Fellow at the San Francisco
Exploratorium, has done work with numerous other institutions and has
recently co-organized a symposium on Museums and Technology for the
SF Museum of Modern Art. Friedlander has lectured and written widely
in these fields.