Angler
Angler explores non-verbal, indirect, and metaphorical communication & boundary setting through the use of personally meaningful symbolic objects. In our familial, platonic, and romantic relationships, we use gestures to communicate codes as concise as “I’m glad you’re here”, and as complex as “I don’t want things to change,” “I wish you were different,” or “I need help but I’m embarrassed to ask.”
The piece consists of a game in which users perform gestures for a screen with a live webcam feed. They progress the game narrative by accepting and rejecting fruit, giving awkward Soviet cheek kisses, changing their clothes before seeing family, brushing their grandmother’s hair, and other day-to-day communications. This collection of gestures becomes a choreography that drives the relationships in the story. Users will perform with objects found in their homes or with printable 2D props. As a companion to the project, I’ll facilitate all-ages workshops in which participants will identify and create their own symbolic objects and gestures. Through these iterations, I aim to create a playful dialogue about what we attempt to leave unsaid, and what we reveal despite our best efforts.
Angler is supported by Isla Hansen at Carnegie Mellon University.
Soft Wear
Soft Wear transposes memories of my body onto others' bodies through Augmented Reality temporary tattoos. Each tattoo features an illustration of a communication technology that has become antiquated in the last two decades (a floppy disk, a cassette tape, a flip phone, etc).
When a "tattooed" participant stands in front of the camera, AR software scans the unique illustration and triggers an animation of a memory to appear on screen. The tattoos remain on the body for up to a week, allowing the participant to carry my bodily memory with them after they leave the exhibition.
Exhibited at Layered Beyond at The Mike Kelley Gallery - Beyond Baroque, Authentication Error [SOLVED] at UCLA, and at Sexual Activities at Open Plan Collective. Thank you to Sofia Rossi Torres for modeling.
Feed Me Colors
Feed Me Colors is an interactive, color-reactive website that asks users to show their webcam objects of different colors to trigger an illustrated narrative. This project was born out of a desire to explore whimsical alternative interfaces for human-computer interaction.
The site encourages users to search their physical environment for colorful items that trigger a digital reaction. When a color is detected, a corresponding illustration animates onto the screen. Each illustration represents an anthropomorphized computer memory that embodies a feeling associated with the color.
Feed your webcam your favorite red shirt, or pick up your laptop and show it the sky.
Phantasm Atlas
Phantasm Atlas is an interactive video installation reimagining our bodily anatomy. In this installation-performance, participants wear a silicone sleeve and steer through an Atlas Scan of their body, without the hassle of outdated imaging technology or dissection. To navigate through the experience, users hit the pods on the wearable, and they softly glow in response. This project begins as a diagrammatic journey, but becomes an expressive meditation on the structures that quietly restrict the autonomy of certain bodies, while framing radical re-imagination as a way to set us free.
Phantasm Atlas Intructional Video
Phantasm Atlas, inside the experience
Made in collaboration with Sara Haas. Music by Amanda Glover.
Exhibited at UCLA Game Art Festival at The Hammer Museum, LA Weekly's Artopia, and International Games Day
Mnemosyne
Mnemosyne is a fashion collection that turns dresses into AR artifacts “hidden” inside each pocket. Each garment features patterns that trigger 3D models when scanned with a smartphone. In one pocket, you’ll find your first concert ticket, in another you’ll find your long-lost Tamagotchi.
Dresses feature patterns that trigger graphics that hint at the history of the garment. Users can see the life cycle of a Tamagotchi, or lipstick graffiti once scribbled on a wall.
We created 3D models of objects that triggered childhood nostalgia, and 2D illustrations that visualized their backstories. Stories included showing off Tamagotchis at school, losing sunglasses in the ocean while on summer vacation, seeing lipstick graffiti on a bathroom mirror, and pulling on a cassette tape until it unraveled.
Collaborative project done with Sara Haas.
Sewing: Irene Wang and Shirley Xuemin He
Make up: Sofia Rossi Torres
Research: Pallavi Samodia
Models: Gia Liu and Lilly Lin