Recently, one new media critic said “The interface is the message”. Indeed, interface is a powerful tool to provide information in a way that engages the user as an active interpreter and sometimes even as a creator of the message. With the new media technology, I believe that we have the opportunity to design an interface that would closely connect the human, the computer, and our lives, which in turn would stimulate our creative ideas.
I grew up in the transitional stage from analogue to digital. I experienced how the media has evolved to provide virtual experiences that are becoming augmented and tangible. I envision that the overall direction of the media and interface development will be to make digital information more humane, and to better assist our means of communication and expression. I would be thrilled to contribute as a researcher and an artist in the field of new media arts and encourage the networking of our senses.
My research interest is in database and algorithm as art, virtual and immersive environment, and tangible interface. I use a computer not only as an expressive tool, but also as a creative agent to work with multi-dimensional information in the digital world where the space and time become fluid and transparent. I work on generative video, information design, interface design and interactive installation. I am a hybrid multifunctional artist who combines three roles of artist, designer, and a technologist.
I went to art high school. I also majored in fine arts, more specifically painting, in college. My art practice background provided the basics of visual communication skills. It also taught me how to develop my concepts and how to communicate with others. At Pratt Institute, I studied Digital Arts and Interactive Media and learned how to handle digital and interactive technology, which I believe would be a suitable medium for art in the dynamic digital era.
Through my basic coursework, internship, visits on conferences, I started to dream designing interactions and interfaces that would define our future life style. My artistic background led me to value projects that are emotionally resonating in its concepts by augmenting our senses in its technology and design.
My graduate thesis project, “Where the Wind Blows”, which used the visitor’s breath as a life force in the virtual world, helped me further developing my interest in designing an experience that would lead the users to build an intimate relationship between the virtual world and the real world. After my thesis project, I came to envision my aesthetics currently entitled “Soft Dialogue”; an interactive fluid dialogue between a human and a computer, between the viewer and the message.
More research and art practice will help further developing my vision for “Soft Dialogue.” Converting and connecting the two different worlds –the digital and the real world– will be the main focus for the research. The research will include developing input and output system, which would closely and naturally attach with our real lives. I am currently working on multi sensory data visualization, interface for expressive computation, and on-line communication as tangible experience. I am very excited to design the future of media arts and the dialogue of its interactions.
Dec 2011