Category: IMA/IMB Shanghai

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Hit the Letter

It's a game that you can hit the letters in the sequence of the alphabet by using your wrists.

Joseph Yang

https://vimeo.com/418776701

Description

It's an entertaining project using the Posenet to detect the motion of the user and the user can hit the falling letters in the sequence of the alphabet by the wrists. The more letters the user could hit correctly, the more scores the user can get. And the user can compete with other users with the final scores.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.134.1
Movement Practices and Computing
Play/Games
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Remodeling the Mundane

Building a memory palace with 3D-scanning technologies

Zehua Wang

https://youtu.be/XfIIaKWmHZI

Description

This project is inspired by Fred Dretske’s theory on our ontological development and Derren Brown’s interpretation of the “memory palace”. Dretske argues that information is the core of the development of our “umwelt”, the consciousness of our “self” and the surroundings. He further defines “knowledge” and “perception” as the two main status of our acquired knowledge (Dretske). Derren Brown challenges the interpretation of the “memory palace” merely as a tool for the purpose of memorizing better. He sees the “memory palace” as a virtual space that helps with a more successful spiritual development (Brown).

Many scholars and artists have touched upon either the ontological discussion of the “self” or the various representations of a “memory palace”, but few of them have explored or discussed the privacy nature of these topics. Thus, this project attempts to challenge the long-believed privacy and self-centered nature of the ontological development and explore the possibility of building a “umwelt” shaped from both individual and collective experiences.

The project will be an interpersonal experience in which the audience can both annotating their own memory and experience in a digitalized virtual environment and actively interact with others’ annotations. The project turns physical public space into a digital environment by 3D-scanning the space and reconstructing the environment using photogrammetry. This reconstructed digital environment allows the audience to associate their own memories and experiences with different parts of the environment and annotate the related memories right on the spot. Besides annotating their own memories and experiences, they can also explore others' annotations in this digital environment, leave comments, learn other's experiences and memories, further extend their own memory palace, as well as use them as part of their own spiritual development.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.401.3
Capstone Studio (Shanghai)
VR\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\AR,Narrative/Storytelling
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華韵（Melody of Vines and Flowers)

A sound visualizer inspired from flowers and vines.

Zhuochen Yuan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrkMZXtbKxE&feature=emb_title

Description

Project 華韵 aims to associate the animation presenting the growth of vines and flowers(red spyder lily) with input music. The idea is that to use music to create the animation of nature, and I love the artistic expression of flowers with vines so I decide to make the animation based on this concept. The project mainly involves the implementation of OOP to make vines with stings and flowers on it, and the synchornization between music and animation is realized by implementing p5.sound.js to analyze the music and get parameters from it to feed into animation. I develope an easy beat detection based on volume, and each time a beat is detected will generate a flower, and its size is based on the volume of that beat. Also the reason why there are five vines growing at the same time is because each one represents a range of frequency and the energy of different sound frequency will influence the opacity and the thickness of the corresponding vine.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.254.1
Nature of Code
Art,Music
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Mirror

Mirror is an animated short film visualizing depressive feelings resulted from extreme self-criticism.

Chenchen Zhou

https://vimeo.com/417160347

Description

Mirror is a digitally-drawn animated film depicting the inner struggle of a person who experiences extreme self-criticism. The initial idea comes from my personal experience of doing self-criticism in an extreme way and ending up with negative feelings. Self-criticism as an objective evaluation of oneself can lead to improvements. However, based on Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality structures, while experiencing extreme self-criticism, the unbalanced psychological parts of an individual can reduce mental well-being. The way I visualize the two conflicting minds of a character over self-criticism is based on how Freud divided one’s personality into psychological parts.

In my depiction, I let my character experience harsh criticism towards his/her self to show how extreme self-criticism can lead to strong depressed feelings. When I was struck by the anguish of criticism, the inner struggle was hard to convey verbally but I perceived it in a visual form. In this project, I turned my visions into a film to convey this chaotic inner state. The black and white visual style fits in the dark tone of the story. There are two conflicting parts inside the character: one part of the character does self-criticism, while the other tries to resist it. The conflict between the two parts is translated into the action of consuming and fighting between a figure outside the mirror and his/her reflection. The figures in my film don’t have distinguished characteristics as I intend to present the self-criticism concept in a universal way. The character can be understood as every person so that audiences can project their feelings onto the film character. The usage of a mirror in the film is inspired by Jacques Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage. As a mirror can reveal the psychological state, in the film, the mirror serves as a trigger for the process of self-criticism.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.401.1
Capstone Studio (Shanghai)
Art
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The Final Blessing

From the first words one may speak as an infant, to the last statement one may make on the execution bed, a timeless space in-between is created, questioning what “the final blessing” entails.

s

https://vimeo.com/418781754

Description

Texas is the state with the most executions in the US, with 569 in total up to date. These last statements from the executed offenders are controversially public information, but the dataset is pretty well-known and widely used. Bearing in mind the debate between justice and humanity, my project’s concept largely has to come to the evaluation of what is to be included versus what to be excluded. It’s also a dynamic between the collective “offenders” and each offender’s individuality. I decided to focus on the statements without the stereotypes of a person’s race, gender, etc. The other dataset from Stanford, A wordbank of children’s first words, came across immediately as an introspection of the thinking process. First words in life to last words in life. By cross-matching and visualizing the two datasets, the project creates a space for ponders of a person’s lifetime journey. We all become the witnesses of this final blessing as a symbolic act of rebirth, for the offenders or the victims. The project utilizes the features of different “time indicators” from the last words dataset: time of offense, time received sentence, etc. to visualize the seemingly definable extents of what happened and the timeless personal and social collective influences.

Is an act forgiven once the final sentence is executed? Is this a blessing for the offenders or the victims? Or perhaps, for us who are indirectly related to this social process? This website creates a space of imagination, contemplation, and introspection, from one's birth to death.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.204.1
Critical Data & Visualization
Narrative/Storytelling,Social Good/Activism
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The Ticker Pin

This installation collects sexually offensive message sent to children detected by NGOs on various social media platforms; by exposing and cumulating these messages, it calls for more attention to child sexual abuse in the cyber spaces and better child protection on multiple levels.

Yunzhu Pan

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1phvwSSWnskkX_RHnxGJsss0uYMUpuG57/view?usp=sharing

Description

This project collects sexually offensive message sent to children detected by NGOs on various social media platforms; by exposing and cumulating these messages, it calls for more attention to child sexual abuse in the cyber spaces and better child protection on multiple levels. Most messages in this project’s database is collected by organizations like Bark, ChuLe, and individuals who has personal experience with the stated CSA issue, or involved in related activisms in various ways.

The installation is a stand-alone art installation, with a Raspberry Pi mini-controller running a program collection input data, and a thermal printer reacting in real-time, printing out the gathered data. The core components will be placed in a round-shaped transparent glass cover on a pedestal.

This project is a response to the issue of child sexual abuse in the online world, hoping to invoke attentions of parents and tech companies, which through research, are clearly proved to be the two parties that plays the most significant roles in dealing with online CSA(Child Sexual Abuse). The form of the installation is inspired by the “ticker tape machine”, an installation used by businesses to transmit and keep track of stock price information around the late 20th century. This particular installation was chosen because despite of any particular topic it serves, it perfectly embodies the role of a “perfect listener”; the ticker tape is a small device pinned into the real world, listens to live-data that’s constantly produced and updated in the real world, and acutely reacts to what it hears. This installation is designed to embodied the role of such a “listner”, that would monitor and “listen to” offensive languages and messages targeting children in social media and games, and would stay acute to any updates or changes.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.401.1
Capstone Studio (Shanghai)
Social Good/Activism
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To Comment

A toy that help people understand power of consensus and cyberbullying

Shenshen Lei

https://wp.nyu.edu/shenshenlei/

Description

Due to a serial of influential social problem about cyberbullying recently, I want to create a toy that help people to understand the feeling of being bullied online and the negative impact of showing malicious intentions to others. Also, play can learn some appropriate way to dealing with cyber bullying. My idea now is to create one computer like box and one heart like bag that hang on a holder. Player pick up cards from computer box and read comments on it. If the comment contains offensive words, the player should put the card into the bag. If the card has positive words, the player can take out one card from the bag. When the cards in the bag are heavy enough and the bag fall down from the holder, the game end.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.238.1
Toy Design and Prototyping
Culture,Education
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Concerts under pandemic

To challenge the idea that: screen limits the powerful effect of a concert, I use multiple screens and mirrors to create a space which audience and walk into to experience the powerful sound and visuals from concerts under this pandemic background.

Jiayan Liu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_in-fdbLB54

Description

This exhibition is called “concerts in pandemic”.

It aims to create a space where people experience the heart-shaking feelings of audio and visual that concerts provide. Based on interview responses from my friends, one biggest reason they go to concert is to “broke the screen” and feel it in person. However, I want to challenge this idea of “screen is a barrier”. I use several screens and mirrors to create a space where people can go in feel the strong visual, audio and emotion provided by screens. No matter with screens or not, concerts and music itself has great power especially in this pandemic period. I put my work in this historical background. In the pandemic period, we are not able to feel the concert in person. However, with a lot of online concerts going on, we still feel connected by music. Music has great power.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.242.1
Exhibition:Next
Music
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On the Way Back

On the way back is a storytelling based installation based on true history to explore the isolation and essential loneliness of human.

Wenhan Dou

https://vimeo.com/417101570

Description

The project is based on and adapted from historical events in 1992. A Soviet astronaut was on his mission in space when Soviet Union collapsed so that he was trapped in space longer than he expected, unsure about when to go back. The project sets up the scene in an office desk of a rocket launch center, the staff working on this desk is receiving messages from that astronaut in the space station. The supporting documents and newspapers on the office desk, together with the message from the universe will bring the audience back to 1992 and have an immersive experience.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.401.1
Capstone Studio (Shanghai)
Narrative/Storytelling
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Lashi Conservation Park

Lashi Conservation Park is a photo book project that reflects on the social media induced tourism and its impact on the landscape of Lashi, Lijiang, China.

Yutong Lin

https://youtu.be/BABlw0LdtCM

Description

Lashi Conservation Park is a photo book project that walks on the popular horseback riding trips which take tourists up to the source of the Lashi Lake (拉市海) in the mountains. Lashi Lake is located in Lijiang, Yunnan, China. It was a pathway in the ancient Tea Horse Road before the twentieth century, the trading route between Tibet and China. However, the designation of Lijiang as World Culture Heritage in 1997 gradually turned the whole town to a tourist destination, which drastically reformed its landscape and demographics. Lashi Lake now operates more around tourism and its infrastructure than it used to be. Similar to many other famous sites for sightseeing in China, it also has been decorated with “scenic spots” for tourists to take photos for social media posting, which are the sculptures, props, and advertising billboards. To an extent, social media-induced tourism dominates the landscape, rendering the landscape secondary as the backdrop for tourist photography. Therefore, the local and historical context of Lashi is silenced and alienated. The further recontextualization of the tourist imaging on social media forces the landscape to acquire new meanings as embellished souvenirs. Collectively, the online circulation and repopulation of such maintain and reproduce the imagination of a tourist attraction.

The book aims to explore the visual language of the vernacular forms of tourism architecture, investigating the social media tourist’s experience through the photographic delineation of a foreign land. The linguistics of such can be shared and implemented to different places, forming a bizarre visual unity, a sense of “touristy.” Contrasted with more everyday visual encounters in the same region, together, they constitute the hyperreality of Lashi Lake, a sense of deracination from the typology of the land. By taking a camera with me everywhere I go, in a sense, I am also a tourist, eager to take photos when I feel conflicted or don’t know what to respond to what I see. As someone who has family ties to this village, who can’t speak her native Nakhi language, is the action of photo-making and photo documentation of this politicized landscape a form of reconciliation with my identity? Or does the intrusive camera further deepen the gap between me and my people, distancing myself from the water and soil of Lashi.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.401.1
Capstone Studio (Shanghai)
Culture,Art
NYU Tisch School of the Arts provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations should be made at least two weeks before the date of the event when possible. You can request accommodations at tisch.nyu.edu/accommodation