About
Ioan Cernei
Ioan is a Romanian interdisciplinary artist and creative technologist whose practice spans interactive installation, XR/AR, and media art. With 18 years of programming experience and a long history of creating technology experiences for cultural institutions, his work has been exhibited at Ars Electronica, WRO Media Art Biennale, and FILE Festival São Paulo. He holds an MA from Interface Cultures at UFG Linz and has been pioneering the use of immersive technology in cultural heritage contexts since 2008. By day he works as a lead architect engineer building complex enterprise systems; by night he builds worlds.
Skills & Stack
Experience
Managing Parner / Chief Innovation Designer
Black & Field SRL
Leading strategy, innovation architecture, and experience design across all studio projects. Responsible for defining interaction concepts, system architecture, and the technical and creative direction of each commission — from initial concept through to delivered experience. Day-to-day this means translating ambiguous briefs from cultural institutions and exhibition clients into concrete interaction systems: deciding how a visitor moves through space, what technology stack serves the concept, how hardware and software communicate, and what the experience feels like at a human level. Projects range from distributed IoT installations with custom hardware to WebAR cultural heritage tours to generative print pipelines. Also responsible for client relationships, project scoping, collaborator selection, and the overall positioning of the studio.
Senior Backend Engineering Technical Lead
K2 Corporate Mobility
Tech lead for enterprise mobility platforms on serverless AWS + GraphQL + React. Architecture ownership, delivery quality, stakeholder alignment. Zero-failure migrations across 7,000+ partners, PII-secure document pipelines, penetration-tested security implementations, and AI/automation R&D with n8n, Flowise, and LangChain.
Senior Full Stack Developer
MVD Austria Collective
Full stack development for state museum and interactive installation contexts. Web applications, exhibit systems, project management, UI/UX. Node.js, React, Laravel, Three.js, WebSockets, MongoDB.
UI/UX Lead
Snapscreen Application GmbH, Vienna
A/B testing design and remote developer team coordination for a Vienna-based app startup. Tools: Sketch, Illustrator, InVision.
Full Stack Developer
Pratersauna GmbH / Lichterloh OG, Vienna
Networked interactive systems for club environments and dynamic lighting control. Web DMX interface for real-time light manipulation. Node.js, Three.js, VVVV, Linux, Python.
Creative Technologist / UI Team Lead
WeTouch e.U.
Design and implementation of multitouch and natural user interface applications, interactive signage systems. Interface lead on a European Ambient Assisted Living project. Node.js, C#, Python, Java, WebSockets, MySQL, SASS, Hammer.js
Graduate Studies
Interface Cultures, Kunstuniversität Linz MA
Interdisciplinary postgraduate program at the intersection of art, technology, and design. Research focus on interaction design, physical computing, and immersive systems. openFrameworks C++, Arduino, Processing, Unity 3D, AR/VR, natural user interaction, industrial prototyping, cum laude
BFA Student
Universitatea Națională de Arte București BA
Studio photography, digital processing, video production and editing, 3D modeling and animation. Graduated with a specialization in virtual reality. Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, 3ds Max, XSI Softimage, Quest3D, Unity