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Arts Division
Art & Design: Games + Playable Media (AGPM)
Assistant Professor
Faculty
Video Games, Game Design, Game Studies
Theater Arts C Studio
207
Theater Arts Center
Dr. Hiba Ali is a digital artist, scholar, whose visionary practice moves across video games, immersive digital environments, sculpture-based installations, and performance. Professor Ali has emerged as a leading voice at the intersection of contemporary art, technology, and embodied knowledge. Ali coined the term digital somatics to describe a pioneering artistic methodology that brings together the body, mind, and spirit through game design, worldbuilding, and narrative systems.
Working with virtual reality, 3D animation, augmented reality, and computational media, Ali creates transformative digital worlds that function as portals for healing, collective imagination, and radical futures. In 2025, Ali founded the Digital Somatics Institute (DSI), a nomadic physical and digital research community advancing experimental digital art through XR, VR, AR, and somatic–therapeutic practices. Ali is the recipient of the 2024 Performing and Creative Arts Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, was a 2024–2025 member of New Inc's Art and Code Track, and served as a 2024–2026 digital fellow At Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, and a Onassis AiR Fellows 2026/27.
Ali's work has been exhibited internationally at museums, biennials, and festivals including the New Museum, Belladonna, Index nyc, UAAD.Art (New York), Transmediale, re: publica (Berlin), Kunstverein Pforzheim, VBKÖ (Vienna), Ars Electronica (Linz), Onassis Stegi (Athens), Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), Centre A (Vancouver), The Horse Hospital and 15 Folds (London), Portland Art Museum, Interaccess, Trinity Square Video (Toronto), Alserkal Avenue (Dubai), Dhow Countries Music Academy (Zanzibar), Rehnsgatan 3 (Stockholm), Kalakendra (Dhaka), UMAM D&R (Beirut), Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, imc5533 (Istanbul), and FILE – Electronic Language International Festival (São Paulo), among many others.
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