For my further artistic practice I would like research the accelerating effect the implementation of digital technology and algorithms has on an individual.
For my further artistic practice I would like research the accelerating effect the implementation of digital technology and algorithms has on an individual.
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
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Ich bin ein Textabschnit. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt.
Sougwen Chung
© Sougwen Chung
“For me, it’s all physical. The virtual is just a different type of physicality, a designed tangibility perhaps. To me each physical artwork is a memory of the virtual, a capture of the moment of the experience of the dimensional work.”– Sougwen Chung
virtuality as physicality
AI, robotics, painting, and VR
poetics of mark-making
bridging the organic and synthetic
ritual and world-building
dynamics of human-machine collaboration
technology as a tool
computer vision, biosensors
AR and VR, neural networks
automatisation
co-creation and care
figural fluid studies
drawing in a simulated environment
entanglement of realities
Artist website → https://sougwen.com/
Chinese-Canadian artist and researcher Sougwen Chung is paving the way for the collaboration between art and technology. Chung’s innovative thinking is cutting-edge in terms of aesthetic, process and execution. Her work spans a breadth of mediums including AI, robotics, painting, and VR. For more than a decade she has been exploring the poetics of various modes of mark-making across myriad disciplines and her interest is in hybridising contrasts to build bridges between the organic and synthetic. Chung creates a narrative using improvisational and computational forms and her practice goes well beyond the discovery of novel artistic tools, as the act of drawing now becomes about ritual and world-building. As a former research fellow at MIT’s Media Lab, Chung is considered a pioneer in the field of human-machine collaboration exploring the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine as an approach to understanding the dynamics of humans and systems. (GJG, 2022)
Since 2014, Sougwen Chung has designed and constructed custom robots programmed with neural networks trained on her drawings gestures and biometrics. The artist and (re)searcher rejects understanding technology as a tool, but she embodies the idea of constructing robotic collaborators. Working with computer vision, biosensors, augment and virtual reality, and neural networks, Chung performs along with these mechanical arms, which imitate her sketching movements and draw in perfect synchrony with her. (…) Chung thinks of these robots as ‘co-creative systems’, blurring the edges of creative agency between humans and systems. Finding the technical challenges inspiring, her creative process is marked by her intuition and trust in unexpected automatization outcomes. Through this intimate connection, Chung rejects human control and envisions ‘robotics that focuses on collaboration, co-creation and care. (Prendes, 2022)
She is the founder and artistic director of Scilicet, a London-based studio exploring human & non-human collaboration. Scilicet (→ view on instagram)
Virtual Ink
Gillian Jason Gallery
Virtual InkGillian Jason Gallery / us without a world (2022) / resurfacing (2022)
“GJG launches 'Virtual Ink' a series of works by Sougwen Chung showcasing figural fluid studies whilst expanding the boundaries of art and technology.”(GJG, 2022)
“This exhibition is the first of its kind and merits recognition not only for its incredible relevance in today’s ever-evolving technological scene but also for its influence on the future of the art world. This pioneering work will lay the foundation for many artists to come.” (Foster, 2022)
‘Virtual Ink’ is the culmination of almost seven years of development. (…) It contributes to Chung’s ongoing research practice exploring and expanding the boundaries of collaboration between human and non-human. (GJG, 2022)
Building a unique process over a Virtual Reality headset, the series is almost exclusively drawn in a simulated environment. The collection displays an entirely new drawing methodology, achievable only through a virtual media. The possibilities of drawing within the digital landscape extend traditional painting approaches with new spatial orientations. These artistic marks take on a dimensional quality as every stroke of virtual ink is produced in three dimensions, rendering the work almost sculptural in its creation. Each work is made in thin air, and takes on a new physicality. In this way it becomes art where the viewer can move through, live, and create a place for themselves. While it might seem unusual or even contradictory to translate the digital into physical, Chung’s perception of the two realities goes back to their entanglement. (GJG, 2022)
“My creative process is led largely by intuition and wayfinding through materials. I find the challenges inspiring. Technical – teaching a robot to improvise, creating models for intelligence vs automation, humans and machines see things differently. Sensor malfunctions. Relational – Developing machine intuition, the right kind of feedback. Letting go of control. Trusting the process.” (Chung in Prendes, 2022)
“I encourage artists and practitioners to think of AI systems as creative catalysts; permeable and fallible, and rife for interrogation and reinvention.” (Chung in Prendes, 2022)
What is your chief enemy of creativity? “Expectation.” (Chung in Prendes, 2022)
References
GJG (2022) Virtual Ink - Sougwen Chung. Available at: https://www.gillianjason.com/virtual-ink (Accessed: 10.11.22)
Prendes, A (2022) SOUGWEN CHUNG, becoming entangled with machines. Available at: https://www.clotmag.com/interviews/sougwen-chung-becoming-entangled-with-machines (Accessed: 10.11.22)