My previous drawing robots have a very simple mechansim for holding markers—either a series of holes on Minus E or a tube on Scribbot. There was also no lifting mechanism, as my robots’ scribbly drawing style did not require it. This year, inspired by the pen-holding mechansim on pen plotters, I decided to add a similar mechansim to my drawing robot.

In my past code sketches, I have created patterns in various forms. Most of the time, the patterns were formed simply by repeating the same visual. In a recent class, Tega gave us a systematic overview of different approaches to make patterns. It was mind blowing to see how extensively people have studied patterns. In particular, I was very much drawn into Truchet tiles.

[ View Freshly-Synthsized Banner Ads ]

Banner Depot 2000 is an interactive archive of over 20,000 banner ads from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The authors of this project, Richard Lewei Huang and Yufeng Zhao, published a dataset of these banner ads. This project brings out so much nostalgia of my early memories of the Internet and I have been meaning to make a project using this dataset.

In the past three years, as a part of my ongoing research, I have created well over 1000 computational sketches, in the forms of still images, short animations, and interactive visuals. I have always wanted to experiment more with analog mediums as I am curious about how visuals that are usually shown on digital screens will render on analog mediums. This fall, I am taking Tega Brain’s Print and Code at NYU’s Integrated Design & Media program, where I learned techniques of risograph printing. I decided to turn three videos of my past sketches, each representing a distinct style of my work, into risograph animations.

[ Try Mouth Synth | View source code on GitHub ]

In my previous experiments, I integrated hand pose detection in my sketch. Hand-driven interaction feels magical, but also somewhat conventional. For this new series, I wanted to try something less conventional—mouth-driven interaction.

For this series, I wanted to create a simple interface for “drawing” melodies on the screen. I started with a mouse interaction where clicking and dragging the mouse drew a sequence of linked nodes along the path of the cursor movement. It worked much like how you would expect any drawing app to work. The melody would start playing as soon as you release your mouse. The nodes were sequentially highlighted as their corresponding notes were played.

Yaogu, also known as the Waist Drum dance, is a traditional folk dance popular in my hometown region of Northern Shaanxi, China. Having lived away from my hometown for over a decade, I wanted to create something that would remind me of my fonding memories there.

For the graduate course, Introduction to Fabrication, that I took at Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), I spent a few weeks learning and experimenting with a variety of fabrication machines, tools, and materials. I embraced an iterative approach to fabrication and integrated computational techniques into my process. Here are all my experiments, each linked to its respective post:

A collection of computational sketches I created with code in the year 2022.

[ View sketches on Instagram | View source code in p5.js Web Editor ]

A series of code sketches that render visuals changing in real time based on viewers' presence.

[ View source code on GitHub ]

A series of experimental digital paintings that deconstruct images of myself into small scribbles.

A web application that turns words into fireworks.

[ Launch | GitHub ]

A series of works that attempt to encapsulate the neighborhood I was living in in a mixed-media format.

An award-winning robotic system that creates large-scale representational drawings with scribbles.

[ View drawings | View source code on GitHub | Read in-depth documentation ]

An experimental web-based camera app that captures pictures in the form of pixel art consisting of Mandarin Chinese characters.

[ Launch app | View source code on GitHub ]

A series of photographs of abstract straight lines formed by lights and shadows.

A duo of acrylic paintings of eyes of my father and my mother.

A series of works based on Clay Shirky's Twitter profile picture.

[ Documentation ]

A graphite drawing based on a photograph of myself that I took in Washinton DC.

A web application that allows users to create sketches and share creation processes.

[ Launch | GitHub ]

A device aimed at helping people with limited mobility to control a computer with a single joystick.