About

Lisa Niedermeyer is the founder of Handmade Future Studio based in San Francisco. She is an artist and tech educator with decades of creating magic stashed in her giant skirt pockets.

She creates sculpture and portraits with human subjects in the dark using an infrared scanner.

Inspired by portrait photographers such as Annie Leibovitz known for designing the conditions around a portrait in order to tap into authenticity from the subject, Niedermeyer applies this intentional design of conditions within an emerging medium. The decisive moment of a photograph has expanded into infinite points of view of a volumetric capture, the relationship of subject as object becomes subject as co-author. She is forging volumetric portraiture as an emerging art form.

Niedermeyer’s introduction to 3D scanning came at an MIT Media Lab hackathon, in a sea of people exploring the latest in volumetric tools she built a team to explore scanning human bodies in total darkness. That meant hunting down the only space without motion-sensor lights: a lactation privacy booth. Turning a medical imaging device into a tool for seeing the body as art was the origin of a new creative practice. The following year she was invited back to the hackathon as a judge.

In addition to volumetric captures offering infinite possibilities of point of view when composing 2D portraits, it also opens up the possibilities of 3D printing as sculpture.

In 2021 Women in 3D Printing Santa Fe invited Niedermeyer to inspire others by sharing her experiments in pushing beyond the obvious materials and methods. Printing in conductive metals such as stainless steel, plating with nickel to achieve a mirrored surface, custom dyeing liquid resin to achieve a fused glass illusion, even pushing to be life-sized for a sculpture of feet required rethinking. With each 3D print collaborator or material expert she expands.

Today Niedermeyer teaches the general public of all ages as a Creative for Apple, and includes volumetric portrait workshops with every exhibition of her own work.

In 2026 Apple selected Niedermeyer as an experience designer to collaborate on developing Apple Camp for kids ages 6-10 across 27 countries. 30 years earlier in 1996 was her first teaching job, as high school senior in small-town Idaho she asked by a community mother to keep the local dance studio from closing. She said yes and taught the younger students.

Recent recognition includes being the featured artist in the Feb 2026 issue of Photonics Focus, the flagship magazine of SPIE, the international Society for Optics and Photonics. As well as being selected to represent LGBTQ+ legacy in action by The Pride@Apple Los Angeles chapter. The published article was for Apple employees and celebrated her creative practice being rooted in shame-free relationships to our bodies.

Niedermeyer has an extensive background in dance and an extensive cowboy boot collection (not related).

Niedermeyer’s upcoming solo show in Fall of 2026 will focus on computer vision and speculative sculpture. Building upon experiments with rendering 3d models in impossible to sculpting materials such as petrified wood, coral, rose quartz and putting the material selection in the hands of the human subject, literally their hands it has to be a material they have inherited or held.