Puneet Jain (Montreal, Canada/Zurich, Switzerland) is an Indian engineer/artist working at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), eXtended Reality (XR), Critical Design, and Disability Studies. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada under the supervision of Artist/Researcher Dr. Chris Salter.
Puneet’s PhD is also supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) where he is a research associate on the project titled ‘Probing XR Futures’ at Immersive Arts Space, Zurich University of Arts (ZHdK), Switzerland. Puneet’s artistic-research practice investigates how technologies of XR (umbrella term for Virtual/Augmented Reality and body-worn interfaces) can be made accessible for the disabled communities (particularly people with quadriplegia/paraplegia). Concretely, opening the platform of XR for (and with) the disabled communities, developing artistic XR interventions that re-shapes, re-imagines, and provokes the common misconceptions around sensorimotor disabilities.
Puneet’s work has been showcased both in India (from where his roots emerge) and internationally at venues such Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), ISEA (Barcelona, Spain), xCoAx (Treviso, Italy), Electronic Literature Organization (Florida, USA), KunstFest (Weimar, Germany) etc. Puneet also has recently been a part of the FOUNDING LAB program, a close collaboration and initiative between Ars Electronica and Interdisciplinary Transformation University (IT:U) in lInz, Austria.