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Mixed Signals

PROJECTS: Bio

Mixed Signals

Thesis project
Project Instructors: Tim Durfee

“Mixed signals” proposes a dynamic, interactive filter into an ambient, media ecology. With simple gestures, viewers can alter the populations – casts – of streaming media. Inspired by the Bechdel-Wallace test, which evaluates gender representation in media, it exposes the inequities through dynamic erasure, transformation, or emergence of movies, series, or news broadcasts. it aims to prompt viewers to reevaluate their viewing habits and the embedded gender inequality it seeks to expose.

PROJECTS: Bio

LUNG #16800

GMDP-598-01.23SP_studio3

Eco-Imaginaries
Project Instructors: Tim Durfee & Mashinka Hakopian

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In the scenario of urban life, plants usually exist around us in the capacity to green the living environment and improve air quality. When this invisible "contribution" becomes a habitual perception in our subconscious, we take the benefits from plants as granted. As insatiable demands gradually shatter our dreams of a "habitable planet," we ought to reconsider the relationship between humans and plants to explore a new coexistence model.

The daily oxygen demand of humans can be satisfied by the oxygen supply of 16,800 leaves, which you can visualize this as a mature oak tree allowing you to inhale fresh oxygen. Lung #16800 is a post-human urban communal installation, a giant artificial oxygen chrysalis.


As you poke your head into this microscopic ecosystem, you might realize that plants are not merely urban ornaments, but rather oxygen generator human relies on. By reading this hymn, humankind's arrogance of believing themselves as the "masters of the planet" begins to be shaken.

PROJECTS: Bio
PROJECTS: Bio
PROJECTS: Pro Gallery

The Unnamed World

GMDP-599-01.23SP_studio4
Mount Wilson Welcome Center
Project Instructors: Sean Donahue & Ben Hooker

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“The five colors make man's eyes blind, the five notes make his ears deaf, the five tastes injure his palate. ”
--- Lao Tzu

PROJECTS: Bio

We used to name and classify the world based on our subjective understanding.
We name the artifacts because we created them. We likewise name nature's species because we decided to do so.

A systematic classification of things helps people develop a shared understanding of the world, which is necessary for further knowledge sharing and exchanging. Meanwhile, thousands of fixed notions also constrain the dimensions of how we perceive nature. They are like our default output, which was already set when we first learned the name of this plant. The things we missed are the complexity & diversity of this world and a more a more subtle perception we had. Only when people forget the inherent conceptions/names, they are just starting to recognize what is in front of them.

It's not a piece of moss, but island #011, weighing 14 grams.

It's not the lichen, but the tiny pioneer plant and a mysterious graffiti created with natural pigments.

It's not a stick of pine branch, but a broken feather fan someone lost.

You are in an unnamed world.

PROJECTS: Bio
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Project Breif

Based on the native species of Mount Wilson, this project deconstructs and assigns them with unnormal textures. By replacing the virtual species into the realistic setting, it places people in an unfamiliar scene, making it difficult to recognize what they are familiar with daily. 

Once giving up fetching inherent names/concepts/categories from memory, people have the opportunity to focus on perceiving nature in a broader dimensional and sensory context, thus establishing a more intimate relationship with it.  Moreover, the recognition reversal caused by an unanticipated outcome has a chance to stimulate people's perceptions, making them more plastic.

PROJECTS: Bio

Project Process

#1 Research on the indigenous plants in Mount Wilson.

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PROJECTS: Bio

#2 Deconstruct and recreate the plants in blender in accordance with their characteristics.

modeling
PROJECTS: Bio
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#2 outputs

PROJECTS: Bio

#2 outputs

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PROJECTS: Bio
rock

#2 outputs

PROJECTS: Bio

#3 Scene Setup, Lighting, Rendering & Compositing in Blender.

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PROJECTS: Bio

The unnamed world would be like...

01/ Skin pores

PROJECTS: Bio

02/ May's hemlines

PROJECTS: Bio

Now you can name the existence in front of you any way you prefer.

PROJECTS: Bio

"Post-it notes" City

Dev Studio 3_ 22SP Media Production_Final Project

What do you expect your community to look like?
If you are given a paintbrush to portray the city, what might the lines, colors, shapes, forms, values, spaces, and textures be like? 

Now, we invite you to participate in urban planning. Leave your opinions on these Post-it notes. No matter what it is, it will have the opportunity to be taken on board and influence future decisions. 

In this video, I attempt to objectify myself as the city. People were granted permission to write down the symbolic meaning of each part of my body to make it more straightforward. The head symbolizes the government. The arms signify transportation facilities. 

Via a form resembling public art, I intend to convey a complicated and subtle emotion that the inanimate city is like a lifeless painting; pick up your brush and leave your comments to let it be reborn. For sure, it's a challenging attempt for me.

PROJECTS: Bio

Excerpts from The Video

PROJECTS: Headliner
PROJECTS: Pro Gallery
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Social Relationships in The Camera Perspective

GMDP 569_Studio2_22FA_"Everything As Input"

Sponsored by Meta Reality Labs_University Collab Program

Group Project_Yanyi Wang  &  Xiaomeng Wang

Stranger · Acquaintance · Friends · Intimates 

How can we identify relationships between people through the camera? In this project, we respectively recreate scenarios that we usually encounter in our lives from the 1st and 3rd perspectives.

PROJECTS: Bio

What you see on camera shows the relationship between someone and you. Or the relationship between them who are in front of your lens.

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PROJECTS: Image

​what would it be like?

PROJECTS: Video

Carmoji

Dev GradLab_IxD 101

Group project_Yanyi Wang   Rongda Tao   Xiaomeng Wang

"Road rage" refers to aggressive or angry behavior by the car driver. It can cause altercations, injuries, and crashes that result in injuries or even death, and aggressive driving has become a topic of concern over the past few decades.


One of the main reasons is the lack of communication with other drivers. For instance, some road rage happened because of driving in the wrong lane. The road rage drivers would yell obscenities to or honk their horns constantly. Suppose drivers could communicate with each other to convey their emotions, express their intentions, and even apologize for doing something wrong. In that case, it might help calm the emotions of road rage sufferers.

PROJECTS: Bio

“From rage driving to peaceful driving,
all you need is a

CARMOJI"

PROJECTS: Quote

Design Process

HMW Statement

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Questionare

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PROJECTS: Features

Interview

How do drivers feel about road rage?

PROJECTS: Features
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Analysis

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Sketch

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PROJECTS: Features

Projector Design

A projector device capable of 270-degree surround projection enables drivers to display emoticons on three sides of the car window, which helps them express their current status.

App Prototype

We also designed an application, "CARMOJI," to work with the in-car projector. Drivers can select the emoji they would like to project through it. It features three modes, including automatic control, manual control, and voice control, to assist drivers in operating the app in various driving conditions.

PROJECTS: Features

User Senario

PROJECTS: Features

"TA-DA"

Dev Studio 4_Interactions_Final Project

The moment when I track down who once owned my personal items.

By designing a "gift trade" event named “TA-DA”, the event Initiators will randomly invite people they meet in public spaces to exchange personal items with them. This project intends to create a new communication channel to increase the possibility of communication between strangers.

Why we need a "TA-DA" ?

We are generally attracted to someone we have a lot in common, which may be analogous to the catalyst that push a relationship forward. It could be a common hobby, a YouTuber you're both obsessed with, or an elegant diner you "check-in" to every week, etc. Whether tangible or intangible, physical or digital, they are all reasonable opportunities to start new dialogues between you and them.


What if the "common" is a personal item that both of you possess, certainly, on different timelines? Does it intrigue you to explore further about this person?

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PROJECTS: Features

Prototype

Gift Box

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Select a gift blindly or openly.

Scan the QR code to check more details of your gift on the TA-DA app

Each gift comes with a unique ID card. By scanning the QR code on the backside, Participants can learn more story of that gift,  track the "trading history" and even get in touch with the previous owner.

PROJECTS: Features
PROJECTS: Projects

"TA-DA" Rules

  • First, decide what gift you would like to exchange with me.

  • Then tell me your reason or story for why you want to trade on this gift.

Field testing #1

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Field testing #2

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Field testing #3

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PROJECTS: Features

Insights

from the field

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PROJECTS: Portfolio

"You think you know me well?"

Dev Studio Lab - 21FA Sec01_project1_"portrait"

The technique I used was 3D meshing to create my portrait by taking screenshots of the results of the 3D meshing and presenting different angles of me.

The camera, speaker, and guitar around the body represent my hobbies and passions. You will never have a comprehensive picture of me until you understand my passions, experiences, and inner world.

When you think you have a thorough understanding of me, you will realize that I am not a perfect person. The broken parts of my face, the twisted hands, and the amount of noise are all attempts to suggest that I am just a natural person with virtues and flaws.

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PROJECTS: Welcome

Design Process

PROJECTS: Projects
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Map

Dev Studio Lab - 21FA Sec 01_project 2_"map"

The map is inspired by hieroglyphs, which is consist of two parts. The part on the left is the Chinese radical for "dog", which means "dog" in English and usually represents an animal. It is the smallest meaningful lexical item and is quite similar to the morpheme. 

For instance, in Chinese characters, 猫 means cat, 狐 means fox, and 猪 means pig. The same radical gives the audience a clue to infer the meaning of the character.

In response to the hieroglyphic character, the right part was chosen to be presented with a dog graphic. I believe the visual effect of the combination of text and graphic is more straightforward and vibrant than using only one of them.

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PROJECTS: Welcome
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"​狗"

A Chinese character that means dog in English.

Character
Disassembly

In Chinese characters,

猫 --- cat,

狐 --- fox,

猪 ---  pig.

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PROJECTS: Services

Dev Studio 2 - 21FA Sec 01_project_Texts

This project explores the possibility of changing the process of "experiencing" a text through the lens of design. Various ways of "dialogue" between the text and the audience unfolded before me from experimenting with different media, formats, and techniques.

The video presented is based on an article discussing the differences in type in Chinese graphic design. By creating a text-based response to the original article, I intend to provide a "dialogue" between the author's statement and my voice, that is, unlike Western typography, Chinese typographers consider the concept of calligraphy and the pictorial meaning of a character.

PROJECTS: Welcome

Collection of Iterations

PROJECTS: Text
PROJECTS: Work