My holistic goal and vision of the thesis project is,
  • Connect the physical and digital world,
  • Increase the awareness of body,
  • Inspire connections between people,
  • Developing the skills of technology, thinking, and practice
After these days of interests exploring and discussing with my study group members Haoqi, I have a very vague direction that I want to explore in the future. The feeling of ambiguity is really uncomfortable for me, which probably stems from a lack of self-understanding.
#1 City as a medium
City-walk in China gradually becoming a new way of lifestyle, is not only for travelers but also for the local people as well as immigrants to build the connection with the place, the city he or she lives in. Just like any other vibrant city, there is a lot of Stories, cultures, and people worth exploring in Shanghai not only historical memories, architectures but also new emerging changes, and try to capture or envision something meaningful when we are undergone tremendous changes in Shanghai’s rapid development period. What and who is not ignored, and what and who is worth exploring? What we will experience in the future?
There are three cases that are stand out to me.
  • Berlin Patrol by Machina-Ex is a digital interactive theater performance that uses the city as a medium to play with. It not only lets the participant self-explore the cites by multi-tasks during a day, what’s more, but it also creates the strong emotion and tension how the participant is controlled and manipulated by system and machine(phone).
  • Blast Theory’s Rider Spoke, which is an interactive mixed reality game in London, first launched in 2007. It is a hide and monitoring game in cities, which offers participants a touch screen of tablet, bike as well as earphone set. I particularly love the moment that – It invites participants to look for a place to stop and give themselves a. Name changes a participants’ behavior that they will try to find appropriate locations feeling safe or resonate and do the recording.
  • Stories through space, ITP thesis 2019.
    This project is asking the question that I am also curious about, how can technology help us engage with historical content? What is the potential of emerging mediums to transform the way we experience and learn history? Stories Through Space is an exploration of Augmented Reality and Geolocation as a tool for interactive digital storytelling.
Initiate ideas parking,
Sensorial storytelling and experience of cities.
Space will probably be chosen along the Suzhou River, or several buildings in the concession area. The experience content of different roles might be developed, and different time and space scenes are selected for the experience through tasks, sounds, vision, or other interaction modes. During the process, participants may trigger interaction behaviors to generate association, and they will also participate in information collection, such as interaction with city residents, address observation records, etc.
#2 Meaningful interaction in the public space
Inspired projects:
    • This project brings out energy into the unwanted or declining public space. It invites people to aware of space, gather together, participate by voice, and communicate with others. To me, the most lovely part is that this project changed the relationship between people and this silent place, as well as asking the question of how to better use this place?
  • Secret NYC Subway Installation by ITP student.
    • This project moves me a lot because it creates surprising interactions in the city, making a lot of joy and happiness.
    • This project redesigns the experience of the bus stops, transfers waste time to quality time. It got me thinking that how does the infrastructure of a city re-connect to people?
Initiate ideas parking,
Tactile devices in urban public space, human body, plants, or buildings could trigger attention, awareness. To test whether people in different backgrounds and classes could build connections with each other. This could be made for a place for the activities of people across the ages.
#3 Architecture media of the Metabolism
Fascinated project from Refik Anadol make – WDCH Dreams (2018)  
Metabolism was a post-war Japanese architectural movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth. I like this concept because it makes me feel that architecture is a part of nature, it will grow and change with the environment and I think it fits in the genre of architecture media, which the surface of the architecture communicate with the observer by (live) data visualization triggered by environmental data or behavior data. Meanwhile, the development of interactive technology makes it possible for the skin of the building to be kinetic. I wonder what is the future architecture media looks like? I don’t have a very clear image of this direction, the rough idea is about the narration of the building exterior (dynamic change + projection, to study the influence of three-dimensional change on lighting narration).
Last but not least, I am also thinking about how to re-develop my previous project relates to nature.