User:Aliasrob
Alias Robert Cummins is an Irish commercial artist, working mostly in the digital sphere. He currently lives in London.
Early Life
[edit]Alias was born in Dublin, on June 24th, 1978, to Peter and Laura Cummins. They decided to name him 'Alias', for cultural, philosophical and religous reasons - they were, at the time, students of Prem Rawat, and firm believers in the principle of reincarnation. The name "Alias" was intended to convey an agnostic stance on the true name of their child, who, having presumably lived many lives beforehand, would actually be called something else. He was given the middle name "Robert" after his paternal grandfather.
The name was also a reference to the character played by Bob Dylan in the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Alias went to school at Greenlanes primary school in Clontarf, Dublin, until the age of eight, when he was awarded a musical scholarship at St. Patrick's Cathedral Choir School. He served as a Treble (boy soprano) on the Cantoris side of St. Patrick's Cathedral Choir until 1992.
He continued his studies at St Patrick's Cathedral Grammar School (the secondary level depatement of the Cathedral school) where he was awarded a 50/50 musical/academic scholarship.
College
[edit]In 1997, Alias was admitted to the National College of Art and design, where he studied Fine Art Sculpture and Jewelery Design in his foundation year, going on to specialise in Jewellery Design.
In his second year, Alias won a design competition run by the Assay Office of Ireland to design a commemorative hallmark for all plate silverware made in Ireland in the year 2000.
Departure from Ireland and career in London
[edit]Due to clashes with tutors over the validity of his work, and following the advice of some of his tutors, he decided to withdraw from formal art education and go directly into commercial practice. His first interactive design job was developing a brand identity and online presence for the supply chain optimisation software company STG (Scheduling Technology Group). He has gone on to work for various high profile commercial clients, including News International, Sony Europe, Samsung, Ideo, Diageo, and Egg.
He currently works as a freelance Creative Technologist. He is a resident at Something Labs.
His Saatchi Gallery profile can be seen here
Teaching work
[edit]Alias has given several talks and presentations on various digital subjects in London, via the London Flash Platform User Group and the London Flash User Group. He has also mentored several younger digital creative professionals in different commercial settings over the past ten years.
On April 5th-6th, 2008, he led a workshop for professional Flash developers who are interested in learning more about the open source hardware platform Arduino.