Body of Work
Interactive body part sculpture installation
exhibited at Ctrl + Art + Delight @ NYC Resistor (lead curator + producer)
May 2024
Body of Work is a series of sculptures that come together to make a self-portrait. Over the course of a year, I explored one aspect of how I experience my body in each ITP course I took and created a body part sculpture or manifestation based on my reflection. In that time I created A Nervous System (Brain), Thoughts for Food (Stomach), Bun in The Washing Machine (Womb), and interFACE.
These sculptures cover a variety of themes including my anxiety, femininity, and my love of play and are expressions of trying to reconnect with my body. I thought a lot about my body as an interface, as inputs and outputs. Between these individual items are recurring visual symbols of spirals, mirror and reflection, color, illustration, and light. These elements have been deployed as a sometimes humorous deflection from serious topics.
This was my graduate thesis project for NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program. I documented the full process extensively on my blog: ideation, research, interviews, design, prototypes, debugging, and building. Feel free to check my latest post where the whole installation magically comes together!
A Nervous System (Brain)
Printed circuit board sculpture (read more)
Thoughts for Food (Stomach)
Hand-made paper pop-up book (read more)
A Bun in The Washing Machine (Womb)
Kinetic washing machine sculpture (read more)
The act of creating these artifacts was a very embodied practice because they were mostly all crafted by hand. Exploring different materials and electronic mediums is also important to my process.
The series invites the viewer to touch, listen, see, and engage with my embodiment. I curated a body scan meditation to go along with the items to prompt the viewer to touch base with their own relationship with their body. Spoiler alert: our relationships with our bodies can be complicated and are constant work.
Thanks to Hank Hsu and Andriana Mereuta for a lot of the great photos!
ITP graduate thesis presentation, 05/08/2024
