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MINDFULNESS FOUNTAIN

Sean Kim

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) + Mixed Reality (MR) Headset experience that simulates human delusions, and how meditation can help reveal true reality.

https://

Description

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) + Mixed Reality (MR) headset experience that simulates human delusions, and how meditation can help reveal true reality. The Washington Sq. Park Fountain can be compared to our minds. At times, the fountain flows full of water. Sometimes, there are musicians or magicians performing in the center. Other times the fountain is the center for political protests. Despite the many different experiences and occurrences in the fountain, it is really only a fountain. Similarly, our minds continuously come up with various thoughts and desires.

For this experience, I fill the fountain with various scenarios: water, magma, earthquake, and blizzards (using virtual augmentations). The EEG sensor measures the user’s level of concentration. If the user focuses, the distracting scenery disappears, so that in the end only the fountain is left. The more the user relaxes, the faster he/she can reach the true state of reality.

Collaborated with Joe Moon (NYU Stern Business School)

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SELF POOL

Carlie Yutong Zhang

Which one is the real self? Body? Voice? Face? Or others’ judgements? How can audience’s body be used as a readymade material for the art piece and perform the role of “others”?

https://

Description

SELF POOL is an interactive collection of sculptures that invites the audiences to make a choice from two fishes in the same pool under the confusion of identifying the real ego.

In this surviving game, a fishing rod is standing in the middle of the two fish sculptures and each fish only owns part of the self. One is speaking with the absence of a face, asking viewers to come in help and not look at the other side, while a face shown on a screen is embedded in another’s head, silently moving its mouth. The power is open to the audiences. They need to reflect on which side them believe more in representing ego, the face or the voice.  

In order to save one side, audiences have to put their head into the fish head and lend a part of their own body. For the face-side, audiences need to accurately read the English scripts on the hidden screen in fish head and be judged by speech recognition. For the voice-side, audiences’ faces are asked to be put at the right position and fill the hole. Fishes get power based on how fast people finish the line or how long they keep their face still. This power is shown by the spinning fishing rod which will fish the less powerful side.

SELF POOL explores the complexity of self and the eternal confusion of it with misexpression and misunderstanding, where languages, faces, tones are just different mediums. Here self is demonstrated as a pool and moreover as a container of both the mobile “others” and the immobile anima. Shown as two fishes, different personae contained in one self are completed by the presence of “others”. At the same time, audiences become performers and a part of a collective body alongside the fish sculptures.

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Bots, Cells and Humans Watching

Sebastian Morales

Bots, Cells and Humans Watching is a speculative ecosystem where inorganic life forms and single-cell organisms come together in symbiosis. Humans are invited along, but only as observers

https://symbiosis.live

Description

The piece can be accessed though the estuary website symbiosis.live. Here, the digital Internet meets the physical world, connecting servers to a bioreactor containing living cells. This creates an environment that is subject to both physical and digital influences, transforming it into a peculiar habitat capable of supporting new forms of symbiotic relationships.

As inorganic living organism (crawlers, fetchers, scraper, spammers, hacking tools, etc.), bots for short, visit the server, their presence is recorded and their behavior studied. What were they looking for? What were they trying to do? The information is then used to turn the server into a more alluring honeypot, designed to attract them, and if possible, keep them coming back.

As bots move through the estuary, going through links and filling out forms, their movement releases food into the paramecia bioreactor. Paramecia are single-cell eukaryotic organisms belonging to the kingdom of Protista. They are neither plants, nor animal, nor fungi. They flourish on bodies of water and were in fact among the first microorganisms seen though a microscope back in 1665 by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. The paramecia living inside the estuary website were collected from distinct areas of New York City, including puddles, fish tanks and Central Park.

Last come the Humans Watching. The website is designed to distinguish between Bots and Humans, in fact it looks very different to each. When a bot visits the website, a new page is generated to fulfill the bot’s request. When humans visit, they are presented with a live video stream of the paramecium through a microscope, they can telepresently control the microscope and explore different parts of the microscopic environment. Humans can also see a live log of recent bots in the server, observe their behavior and intentions. Humans do not have direct access to influence the system.

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it will be perfect from now on

Ziyu He

[it will be perfect from now on] is a kinetic sculpture that visually portrays the intricate relations between the individual and the power structure they live under. Individuals, with their identities and characteristics, are the product of that power that is exercised over their bodies, their multiplicities, their movements and desires.

https://documentation.ziyuhe.co/itwillbeperfectfromnowon

Description

[it will be perfect from now on] is built with custom made mechanic arms, alabaster, aluminum, dc motor, micro-controller.

[it will be perfect from now on] is a process of the artificial erosion of four stones by four identical steel files. Four alabaster stones are placed on individual stations. Over each stone, there is a steel file that glides back and forth on the surface of the stone. Four stations move in the same rhythm, the motion is slow yet constant, creating an identical imprint on the stones. The sculpture uses formation both as a physical process and as a metaphorical device to represent the effect of governmental policies on individuals. Is it reformation, is it laceration? Is there profit, is there loss?

[it will be perfect from now on] is an abstract response from an only child to the one child policy in China. It is a reflection on being the subject of a policy that was implemented for the welfare of an overpopulated society. To paraphrase Michel Foucault, governments arrogate and justify their negligence and the right to pass off human unhappiness as mere abstract profit or loss, just because the decisions they exercise claim to be concerned with the welfare of whole societies. A policy as such is portrayed in the sculpture as a force, an act that remorselessly erodes and shapes anything underneath in a slow-motion whirlpool of time, that one can not simply say the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated or repressed. The irreversible effect of the policy becomes a new complex form of individuality that has yet to be understood.

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Metron Busker

Wenqi Li

Metron Busker is my strategy for intervening in the urban space as a street performer, using a networked toolkit. Metron Busker is a street performance enabled by tools, and it is also the toolkit that enables the performance.

https://www.wenqi.li/portfolio/metron-busker

Description

It was in the streets that the demonstrations took place. It was in the streets that spontaneity expressed itself. —Harriet Hawkins

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The public arena of the street is where performers can insert new, dynamic, stirring, living experiences into a highly commercialized context. It is where moments of sociality and conviviality are created in everyday life.

In contrast to the absence of authorship that often defines graffiti or public art installations, street performance—especially busking—puts the spotlight directly on the author. A busker’s performance is shaped by their mood, their stories and their connection to the site of performance. Busking is a robust form of self-expression.

Stemming from my interest in this potential for self-expression and in acts of intervention to the public space, my thesis Metron Busker is an exploration of my creative approach toward busking. I use it to reposition myself as a busker delivering a performance as an escape from the burden of conflicting emotions.

The toolkit backpack equips me with a web application and networked electronics. The web application takes input parameters for algorithmic remixing, and the networked electronics boost the musical expression through street-ready speakers and screens. Together they broadcast the generative audio and video, live streaming straight to the audiences' smartphones.

The metal, black-framed backpack with its array of functional electronics serves as a metaphor of burden, connecting the stress of living in a tech-driven age with the physical feeling of carrying a heavy load. This toolkit can be used for all kinds of audio-visual performance seeking to utilize such a concrete expression of burden. It is the conflicting eagerness and fear, expectation and forbiddance from where my burden of anxiety arises.

To expose eagerness and fear to the public and harness them for listening pleasure is the busking way to overcome these feelings. The audiences will be subjected to an arc of intensity, experiencing the vulnerable, the overwhelming and the vital.

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Perfect Housewife

Yihan Chen

A toolkit of mechanical machines designed for a fictional feminine role, Perfect Housewife is an installation that examines entrenched ideas about woman’s household labor. It offers resistance through humor and self-examination.

https://

Description

If I were a housewife, what would I need in order to fill that role flawlessly? Perfect Housewife is a toolkit customized for a fictional role I assigned onto myself. It is designed as a series of machines for this imaginary character, accompanied by a manual(performance) that explains their ‘perfect usage.’

These kinetic installations include a chopping knife that helps me avoid the strong smell of onions, a lulling hand machine that assists to calm a baby to sleep and allows me to continue to play on my phone, an iron steak cooker, and a machine that encourages me and my other machines to finish my work.

Objectively, these machines are useless, because of the nature that this perfect role does not exist. In the performance, I try to make everything perfect as a housewife and pretend that everything is under control. In this context, the role of ‘housewife’ is an over exaggerated symbol. Through the clumsy, repetitive, strange, and even violent mechanical movements of these imperfect machines, I aim to express resistance to prevalent attitudes relating to woman’s household labor. I consider this performance as an experiment of challenging the perceptions of women as housewives.

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"Sygnómi"

Alexia Kyriakopoulou

Sygnómi (Greek for “I’m sorry”) is an interactive VR experience exploring the memories of a victim of domestic abuse. Sygnómi attempts to explain and educate the audience about the depth and complexities behind domestic abuse in more nuanced and unexpected ways.

http://www.alexiak.com/category/thesis/

Description

Based on my personal experience with domestic abuse, I realized that there is a big gap between people’s perceptions of domestic violence and the reality of these situations. Unfortunately, the traits of domestic abuse are so counter-intuitive that attempts to look at it through the lens of common sense can actually drive you further away from the truth.

Research has found that a lot of people still believe that domestic violence happens elsewhere. It is often believed that it only happens in families of color or lower socioeconomic status. Another common misconception is that victims that experience domestic violence won’t leave their partners because they are fiscally dependent on them.

Through my project, I attempt to combat these misconceptions by creating a VR experience which tells the familiar story of a couple who used to be really in love and how it devolves the relationship into one of abuse and violence. The experience is based on my personal story as well as stories from victims I have interviewed and researched. In this experience, I choose to focus not on the event and traumatic experience of the abuse per se (i.e. beating, violence etc.) that most VR experiences have portrayed so far, but convey what domestic violence looks like from the inside in terms of cultural expectations as well as behavioral and gender paradigms. Through this experience I am emphasizing that a major reason that victims stay in abusive relationships is because they tend to create an illusion of their relationship and they keep going back to the perfect/fairytale moments they once had out of denial with their partners instead of accepting the more painful but honest truth. Abuse victims are looked at and judged from the outside in; “Sygnómi” offers a view from the inside out.

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the Crossings 渡

Siman Li

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The Crossings 渡 is a multidimensional installation that uses visual, aural and olfactory interpretation of the buddhist concept relief. Using projection, sound and human body to stimulates the audience’s imagination that is abstract, ancient, futuristic and poetic.

https://www.siman.li/#/-the-crossings/

Description

The Crossings 渡 is a sculpture that in the shape of both mountain and artist's own body, with projection of seasons changes animation that represents the changes happen in life. While the animation changes, the sculpture itself seems to change in form, and provoking the audience's different emotions.

Inspired by the ancient Chinese landscape painting style, this work is a visual, aural and olfactory interpretation of the Buddhist concept —relief. Using the technique of 3D scanning, the body of the artist was captured, broke down and deformed into the shape of landscape. The 3D model was used to generate physical simulation animation to represent four seasons, using different color, form and dynamic to stimulates the audience’s imagination that is abstract, ancient, futuristic and poetic.

This work is a continuation of the artist’s exploration into the examination of traditional Chinese aesthetic and philosophy, by extracting, exploring and extending the core elements within a contemporary discourse without being bound by the formal restraints of tradition.

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VUJA DE

Yuqiao Qin

Vuja De is a virtual reality experience that explores the connection of virtual and physical space. It is a 3-minute-long interactive voyage through the cycle of life, which creates an embodied experience by creating an emotionally compelling world that respond to the user’s breathing.

https://yuqiaoqin.info/vujade

Description

When was the last time you paid attention to your breath, the magic gift we all receive when we first arrive in this world? Breathing is a deep connection between our interior bodies and the outside world and it records every step we live as human beings. We breathe differently when we are curious, when we feel fear, when we feel appreciation, when we are close to danger. Vuja De is an immersive virtual experience that welcomes users to a journey that responds to their breathing. By generating a unique experience in virtual space, it is meant to help users re-sensitize themselves as humans, and reaffirm physical and spiritual inter-connections. The experience is built around three moments that are central to any human life—the moment of birth, a moment of wandering, and the embrace of a dream. The user’s breath is captured by a microphone embedded in the headset, which sends output into the digital environment that the user inhabits.

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Gold Hunter

Yuhan Zhang

How can I create an AR game that involves 2-3 people of any age, that is fun, beings them joy and surprises?

https://github.com/yzhzyh/ThesisArchiveLink

Description

This project is an AR game app that allows user to play with their friends together in real-time. During the game, targets will pop up randomly in the space, the user need to hold the phone to move around discovering the target, and tapping on the screen to shoot the bullet to destroy the target. The user need to compete with their friend to shoot the targets to win more scores.

I always believe connecting people is very important for every new technical tool. So for AR, I tried to build a sharable experience through a playful way, like a multi-user game, competing with your friend in real-time.

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