Hello, I'm Christine

Designed page architecture.

Interactive TilePuzzle from Rune Madsen on Vimeo.

Tile Puzzle

This interactive video installation incorporates multi-channel video into a tilepuzzle interface. One or multiple images are broken up into tiles, mixed, and then projected on to a life-sized tile puzzle. The user may then try to “solve” the puzzle by moving the tiles to recreate a new face. The installation can be used for interactive storytelling. Made by Christine Q. Nguyen, Amy Chien and Rune Skjoldborg Madsen.

Fashion Mixer (FM) is a branding platform that uses music technology in order to promote new clothing designs while booting consumer traffic and publicity for designers. The main aim of FM is to connect the fashion and music industry together to provide an enhanced user experience to sell both products We will assign a clothing line to a new and upcoming artist or a musician that is well known and represents the style of the clothing line. Each item of clothing will have one song attached to it. As an entire collection the potential clothing line will represent an an album.

Fashion Mixer Ad

A promotion for Fashion Mixer: www.playyourstyle.com

Role: Design and Animation

http://vimeo.com/16703408

Role: Filming and Editing

We all reach the end of our rope at some point in our lives. This piece is an exploration of what it is to be at your lowest point when you feel like you’ve already been pushed to your limit and are stuck in a bad situation.

Oftentimes, paranoia, anger, sadness, frenzy, stress, and self-reflection are part of this process. I remember when I was at the end of my rope, I could barely recognize myself and was completely lost. I felt like a ghost of the person I once was and didn’t know who I was or where I was going.

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Even with all of the new technology and everything Hi-Def, I’m obsessed with old technology, especially bad TV. When I was younger, I would constantly cycle through TV channels because I couldn’t hold my attention. I didn’t watch a lot of TV growing up, but I learned a lot about people and different cultures and ideas through the shows I did watch.

Often, I get sick of watching the same thing over and over again so I just turn off the TV and find something else to do. While I was at the end of my rope, I finally got sick of watching myself go through the same cycle and channeling the same emotions and energy, I just abruptly decided that I was going to shut that part of me off. By doing this, I was able to discover other positive aspects of my life.

Get Out of My Space! (Violating Christine)

Role: Filming and Editing

This piece confronts my issues with personal space and explores non-verbal communication through facial expressions.

This idea came about after watching Yoko Ono’s “Cut Pieces.” I openly invited people I knew and didn’t know to come and put make up on me. Although I feel like I am a friendly person, I am also very private and shy. I don’t always express how I feel in words, but usually communicate my feelings with my facial expression and non-verbal communication. By inviting people to get up close and personal with me, I was inviting them to have a conversation with me by having their actions speak to me and having my facial expressions react to their actions.

My relationship with make-up is that I use it to hide imperfections or enhance people’s features. I gave no instruction on how to put the make-up on me. I relinquished all control and gave the participants free will to do whatever they wanted with the make up and my face. I expected people to approach make up the same way that I did, however, the participants instead used my face as a blank canvas to draw pictures and create patterns. As they fully transformed my face, I watched this process through a monitor directly in front of me that captured the entire process. I was forced to see myself physically as I am and how other people wanted to recreate my image. I was also in a position where I had no control (short of getting up and walking out) and was forced to watch it. By doing this, I felt violated on many levels that words can not adequately express.

Despite being covered with layers of make-up, nothing could hide my facial expressions. During this hour and a half process, I cycled through emotions of annoyance, anger, dislike, uncomfortableness, amusement, and reflectiveness. These are emotions that I normally prefer to keep private, but in this project, there was no hiding and no escaping.

Papel is a retail and decorative display that mixes paper art, illusions, and human interaction. This display will consist of 4 24×24 frames filled with paper art stacked in a 2×2 grid to create a wall-like structure. The paper art, influenced by fans and spikes, creates a multi-layered texture that filters the image to create a soft ambiance. Behind the piece, there is an abstract video projection of the installation space. When there a viewer is not present, the wall paper will radiate a soft blue glow. When the viewer stands in front of the installation, the blue glow fades out, and their image is back-projected onto the paper structure. They will not immediately recognize that it is their image that is altering the video. In this way, the viewer will becomes a part of the decorative environment. This installation is currently in it’s prototype phase.

Collaborators: Benji Canning-Pereira
Role: Conceptual Design, Fabrication, and Programming (Processing)

Magnetic Play is an exhibit about the magnetic principles of attraction and repulsion that is being designed for the New York Hall of Science. The exhibit consists of 6 different activities meant to emphasize the principles of attraction and repulsion while appealing to the different learning styles of museum visitors.  This exhibit is currently in it’s prototyping phase.

The Sandbox

• Purpose: An open-ended activity that encourages participants to stretch their imagination using magnetic attraction to create sand designs or play collaborative games.
• Description: A large table with a recessed box containing magnets and sand. Underneath the box are magnetic handles that attract the magnets inside the sandbox. When moved by the user, the handles may be used to create designs or play games in the sandbox.
• Interaction Expectation: Sand is a versatile material that invites participation and provides a potentially comforting sensory experience. The sand also creates an inherent physical challenge as the magnetic force and friction between the moving magnets and sand work against one another. The sandbox is a captivating activity that may be enjoyed by one or many people of all ages; it can become an interactive game or a design challenge for a group, as well as a quiet time for observation and play by one. It is an excellent opportunity for participants to learn about the properties of and physical differences between magnetic and non-magnetic objects. They will be able to observe how magnetic forces can penetrate through different materials.
• References:  http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Magnets_Gravity

Magnetic Wall

• Purpose: Participants create imaginative patterns and sculpt scenic topographies using magnets and iron filings. They discover that gravity will work against their designs, but with a bit of cleverness and ingenuity, they can attract filings to the side of a plexi wall by increasing the magnetic force by using multiple magnets.
• Description: A large shallow plexi-glass container holds a pile of iron filings. The filings stand much like a topographic hill at the bottom of the container. On the walls are small, strong magnets adhered to different shape cutouts. By pulling the cutouts up and down the walls, the bottom topography is altered and the fillings attach to the wall to become uniquely shaped bunches. The user may combine magnets on the wall to create larger bunches of iron filings and different patterns.
• Interaction Expectation: The Wall is an open-ended activity that invites both group activity and individual exploration. Much like sand, iron filings is a provocative material that invites play and exploration. The multi-sided nature of the shallow box also invites play.

TriMags

• Purpose: TriMags are triangular building blocks with each side assigned a magnetic pole. This allows the principles of attraction and repulsion to be explored. By attempting to adhere like and unlike poles together to create different structures, the dynamics of magnetic attraction between opposite poles becomes apparent. Also, the concepts of North and South as assignments to magnetic poles are introduced.
• Description: Colorful triangular pyramids are dispersed on a surface. Each side has magnets that are assigned to a pole. Compasses placed on the table will be used to demonstrate that the magnetic north of the compass should be attracted to the south fields on the TriMags. There will be design guides as well as opportunity for open-ended construction. Participants may also draw fields on a paper surface between structures using the compasses as guides.
• Interaction Expectation: TriMags can be a group activity or be used for individual exploration. Younger participants or those seeking guidance may reference illustrations provided by the signage. These illustrations will also provide design challenges for older participants. Others may simply use their imagination, creativity, and design skills to make their own creations.

Magnetic Propellers

• Purpose: The Magnetic Propellers create opportunities for experimentation and participation using magnetic repulsion in a physically, dynamic system. The propulsion of these propellers are often considered a dynamical system that may appear chaotic. For older participants, the ability to explore complex dynamics can encourage thought and discussions about scientific theory and systems. For younger participants, this will aid the discovery of the stimulating, open-ended aspects of science. The challenge of apparent chaos or unpredictability presents opportunity for further exploration and imagination.[Corno et al 2003] [Dubois 2005].
• Summary: The propellers are two rotors, each with three arms, lined up equidistantly on a board. The propellers must also be lined up perfectly in height. Each arm has a magnet with its North Pole oriented away from the rotor center. As the propellers spin the magnetic fields interact witheach other and transfer momentum from one propeller to another. Since dipoles are subject to forces due to external magnetic fields. The field produced by the magnets on one rotor affect the rotation of the opposite rotor and vice versa.

Levitation Rings

• Purpose: Maglev Rings offers a simple structural view and experience of attraction, repulsion, and propulsion when the magnetic rings are arranged to either stack or levitate. When the rings are restacked by participants, they experience hands-on physical and visual constructs of both attraction and repulsion.
• Summary: Magnetic rings are placed on a wooden dowel with like poles facing each other. By restacking the magnets, principles of magnetism and physical games can be played, such as: the order and pattern of pole directions and the effected structural integrity of a stack by the amount of magnets stacked in variation with pole direction

Collaborators:  Amy Chien, Melissa Clarke, and Joshua Kleiner

Role:  Conceptual Design, Content Development, Fabrication, and Graphic Design.

Illustrations:  Amy Chien

Photographs:  Shimpei Takeda

Collaborator: Saul Kessler

Role: Filming and Editing