Techart Conference

Han, Yoon Chung (San José State University, USA)

■ Abstract

As an interaction designer, media artist, and researcher, I have been researching effective ways of visualizing big data with new media technology to understand meaningful narratives and share complex information. In the past twelve years, I have created interactive data visualizations/sonification, multimedia interface design, biometric data art, and 3D printed data sculptures. My data-driven design suggests creative and innovative platforms where users experience surprising results and learn meaningful narratives about social, cultural, and environmental issues.

In this presentation, I will share two main projects I have been working on in the past ten years: 1) biometric data visualization/sonification and 2) environmental data visualization/sonification. The questions of identification and the insecurity of biometric data have become my inspiration, providing an artistic context and becoming the main concerns in my artworks. I believe artistic approaches to the manipulation of biometric data have the potential to answer those questions and suggest new directions for solving the problems with the use of biometric data. I used fingerprints, iris, and vein data and created interactive audiovisual installations that transform human's biometric data into musical sound. The idea is to allow the audience to explore their own identities through unique sound generated by their biometric data based on algorithmic computing and a physical device. As a California-based artist, I have been observing and directly experiencing various environmental issues including drought, air pollution, wildfire, and endangered animals. I created data art installations that provide an interactive audiovisual experience to reveal the reality of climate change to audiences. Audiences can participate in the interactive arts that present two regions' wildfire data in visual and audio forms. This work is documentation about one of the environmental issues and explorations of new ways of visualizing data with materialities.

■ Bio

Yoon Chung Han is an interaction designer, multimedia artist, and researcher. Her researches include data visualization, biometric data visualization and sonification, a new interface for musical expression, and multimodal sensory user experience design. Her recent research focus was on multimodal interactions using body data, in particular on creating a personalized experience in media arts using biometric data visualization and sonification. Her works have been presented in many international exhibitions, conferences, and academic journals such as ACM SIGGRAPH, Japan media arts festival, ZKM, NIME, ISEA, IEEE VIS, ACM CHI, and Leonardo Art Journal. She holds a Ph.D. at the Media Arts and Technology, UC Santa Barbara, and currently is an Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at the Department of Design in the San Jose State University.