Kanthi Kadayam Ananthagopal is from India but she is really a citizen of the world. She is an architect by trade, at least she began her professional life as one, but now she has expanded that seemingly subdued occupation into something much larger than anyone could have imagined. She has taken all of her architectural skills and talents, which included designing spaces, along with the conceptual development and design of museums, commercial projects and theme parks, and magically appeared in Los Angeles to work on bridging the gap between live and virtual experiences, with a focus on developing enriching immersive experiences for people in the metaverse.
That was a mouthful. What does that mean? It means that Kanthi is not only a world citizen but that she is also a citizen and designer of virtual worlds in the metaverse. The metaverse is a virtual (digital) universe in which people can manipulate, navigate through and interact with other players or enjoy the immersive experience by themselves. How did Kanthi come to this point from being an architect? Good question. When she was working for an architectural firm in India they gave her the opportunity to work on the design schematics for Theme Parks, and Museums, among other creative endeavors. That, of course, piqued her interest in the entertainment industry and it was all over after that. She flew to Los Angeles, attended the prestigious Masters Program at California Institute of the Arts and came out with a degree in Art Direction, Production Design and Visual Communication for Themed Entertainment. She also gained an incredible amount of practical, hands on work experience in the Art Department on theater and film productions there.
Working as a designer at MODE Studios’ new subsidiary MetaMODE, Kanthi has been on the frontline of ideating metaversal experiences and strategizing worlds that grow continually with the artist and audience. Looking at some of Kanthi’s brilliant virtual world designs made us think of the motion picture Inception, in which an architect designed virtual worlds for people to exist in and interact with in their dreams. Kanthi’s imagination seems to have no limits where designing new and fantastical worlds are concerned. She is definitely an artist with the discipline of an architect, which puts her on a level with the best of the best designers and on par with the top rated architects of the world. Kanthi combines experience driven storytelling with world building design principles to create one of a kind environments where stories come to life.
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