Hiren Kangad




https://www.metalfinger.xyz/
https://github.com/metalfinger/

Hi there! My name is Hiren Kangad, and I am a multimedia artist with a passion for interactive technologies. I have over 9 years of experience in the field, and have a strong background in coding and design.

I completed my B.Tech degree from DA-IICT in 2013, and later attended the Interactive Media Arts Low Residency MA program through NYU - Tisch in 2022. I have also founded two successful startups, including one focused on interactive technologies and the other on promoting independent art in Gujarat.

Photo of Hiren
Skills

3D art and Visuals Skills

Unity 3D, Cinema 4D, Resolume, Unreal Engine, TouchDesigner, Houdini, Blender

Design Skills

Adobe Suite, ShaderToy, HTML5, CSS3, Webflow

Programming Skills

Flutter (Dart), GLSL, C#, Python, JavaScript

Work

FREELANCE PROJECTS

Multimedia Artist Sep'18 – Current

Beside working with Arijit Singh Live, have been working as freelancer as Interactive Media Artist. You can check out more work related to this on metalfinger.xyz


Arijit Singh Live

Visual Artist and VJ Feb'19 – Current

I worked as the official Visual Artist for Arijit Singh's Live shows and toured across the world. Core responsibilities ranged from handling the look of the shows to running the show from the perspective of visuals design.


Candyman Entertainment LLP

Co-founder and Design Head Nov'16 – Aug'18

Co-founded Candyman Entertainment in 2016 with a goal to promote independent artists in India. Fangirl is an IP of Candyman Entertainment which promotes curated Indian Independent music. My role in Fangirl expanded from being a Curator/Production Head for the festival to being Head of the Design and Technology. In the first year of Fangirl, we started with doing small house-gigs to two staged 2-days festival with 24+ indie artists from across India. In the second year of Fangirl, we built a venue from the ground up, The Big Squat. It was the venue for an 8-week festival for which the programming included Independent Film Screenings, Stand-up Comedy Gigs, Spoken Word evenings, and Music concerts; which helped us to create a community for Indie Artists and Audience.


Sofar Sounds Ahmedabad
Co-founder Jul'18 – Nov'18

Was part of the core team with Sofar Sounds Ahmedabad Chapter. Sofar Sounds is a global movement of live music gigs in intimate spaces around the world. My role expanded from curating artists to looking for venues and doing Sofar Shows for Ahmedabad leg.


Dotted Yellow Umbrella

Co-founder and CEO Jul'14 – Aug'16

Started my own company in Bangalore with a focus on Interactive Technologies. We used to work around Multitouch, AR, and VR Products. Ran this startup successfully for 2 years.
More Company had it's own Products with in-house-created Hardware and Software Solutions for different sections like Real-Estate, Automobile Industry. We also used to create customly tailored solutions for different client requirements around AR, VR.


OoBI.in Aug'13 - Sep'14

Worked as Interactive Prototyper with this company. I have worked on different sensors and technologies like Kinect, Leap Motion, AR, VR. My main job was to make the application smooth and robust for live deployments and with a primary focus on work on interaction parts. Some of the interesting projects I've worked with under this company are as below.


Sun-Light Demo with Animation

Team Size: 1 Aug - Sep'13

Developed 3D live Sun-light demo for Real Estate companies. It helps the clients understand how sunlight will come at different times in the day. Here is a video demo link.


Google Map Plug-in

Team Size: 1 Nov’13 – Jan’14

Created a Google Map Plug-In for in-house Real-Estate software called Real-IT. The plugin was used to detect all the amenities and day-to-day places of interest like supermarkets, petrol pumps, etc. around the property.


Color Visualizer for Digital Experience Center

Team Size: 1 Feb'14 – May'14

For Godrej's U and US interior's digital experience center, developed Color Visualizer to let customers have a better understanding of their home interior. Using this Visualizer, customers can recreate their house in 3D and can visualize the interior before buying.
Link


Inkoniq.com Jan'13 - Apr'13

Worked on different on-going projects as Designer and Coder with Interactive Technologies for 4 months.


Interest
36 days of Type Feb'20

Created 3D type-face as my interpretation of the alphabet and numbers for 36 Days of Type
Link to PROJECT


Fanart for
THE HELP
Feb'19

THE HELP is one of my favourite movies. Have created a web-art out of my favourite dialogue from the movie.
Link to PROJECT


5 Stages of Grief Feb'18

This project is a geometric depiction of how we can perceive the 5 stages of grief.
Link to PROJECT


Virtual Dressing Room Mar'16 - Mar’18

Started working on a passion project to create a virtual dressing room using Xbox Kinect Sensor. As interactive technologies are the future of how we interact with things. This was quite an interesting project and what I could accomplish over evolving technologies. Link to the videos are here
Link


Designs

This was a hobby project. Created fanart posters for the songs I really love. :D
Link


AR Gameplay Mar’12

This was a little experimental project where I tried to play Fruit Ninja with Leap Motion using my finger and hand gestures.
Link


Internship

Sign Language to Text using Leap Motion

College Project
Team Size: 1 May’13 – Jul’13

This was my B.Tech final project under the guidance of a professor. I created an application that can teach people Sign Language. I have used Leap Motion as the input sensor which can read hand-posture and translate it from Sign Language to Text. This was also proof of concept for Leap Motion to be used to convert Sign Language into Text in real-time. Demo link


Photo Morphing Desktop App

Internship
Team Size: 2 Feb’12 – Mar’12

Using Microsoft Surface SDK, made a Photo Morphing application for Multi-Touch Devices. In this application, user can take photo and try out different hairstyle on themselves. Later on they can save that photo or share that photo with oter people. Demo link


End-to-end solution for Real-Estate

College Project
Team Size: 2 Jan’12 – Apr’12

This was my final college project as a group project. Our aim was to create an application for multi-touch devices for a Real-Estate firm to showcase their projects in a better and immersive way. This app was created using Java; considering Java's universality for devices at that time and one of the main goals for the hardware was to integrate across devices and platforms. I worked as a Designer and Developer for this project.


Virtual Dressing Room

Internship
Team Size: 2 May'12 – Jun'12

This project was Proof of Concept to use Microsoft's Kinect as sensor and use that data to create live virtual dressing room. My role was to use data from Kinect and translate it into 3d space with cloth simulation.
Link


Multi-Touch Photo Gallery

Internship
Team Size: 1 Dec'11

The goal of the project was to create a better Photo-Viewing experience for multi-touch devices. It included all the core functionalities of gestures with the support of Multitouch. This Application was created using Action Script 3.0. My main role in this project to code all the touch-related functionalities efficiently.


Music Database

College Project
Team Size: 5 Jul’11 – Nov’11

This project was to create a Music Database that consisted of all of the information about different Music Artists and their work. It is what is IMDB for Movies. For this project, have worked around Large Database and their internal linking system with efficient search options.