Member Spotlight: Sei Jung

Olivia Sherman
This is Olivia Sherman with the New Media Caucus interviewing Sei Jung.
Who are you and where are you located?

Sei Jung
I am currently based in Boston.

Olivia Sherman
What brought you here?

Sei Jung
I am currently pursuing my PhD.

Olivia Sherman
What is your PhD in?

Sei Jung
The program is called interdisciplinary design and media. It's a mix of art, tech, and design.

Olivia Sherman
So, what does new media mean to you?

Sei Jung
That's a good question. I think there is a discussion about, is it right or is it OK to call media art, or some technology and art as new media because technically what is “new” could be very different by definition. But I think new media means, to me, where the artist is experimenting their artistic expression or creative practice through relatively novel technology that's up and coming, or even if it's not completely novel. Something that's not considered traditional.

Olivia Sherman
What inspires your work?

Sei Jung
What inspires my work? If I answer that as a joke, I say sadness.
But, I'd say it could be categorized into two big groups. One is more of a societal, social, technical context. So, how we use technology in in society and what is wrong? Ethically, what are the issues that we can talk about? I tend to extend that discussion through creating an artifact. So that's one thing and the other is, I'd like to express how I feel through my creative practice- say, how I feel the wind or more about senses. So those two are my main inspirations, I think.

Olivia Sherman
I thought that your work was really interesting.
I really liked Scruffy the Robot Dog. I thought that the idea of consent and boundaries within electronics was interesting. How did you reach that idea?
What was your thought process behind it?

Sei Jung
Sure. So, the initial idea was I wanted to explore harassment, mitigation or what can we do in a digital space or technological usage. And I started thinking, we can just tell people what to do, right? Like, you can do this, you can do this.
It is impossible, and that is not right. So, I started thinking, well, what if I can make people to experience something unexpected and then let them think about, what are the implications or assumptions they're already made towards this technological object? Like, “it should obey me or, this should be OK, whatever I do,” type of notions. I wanted to point that out.

Olivia Sherman
You had mentioned something like that in your artist statement.
You wrote that your work had a lot to do with the sociopolitical implications of biomimetic technology. Could you talk a little more about that?

Sei Jung
Yeah, sure. So, that includes my Scruffy project, biomimetic in general just means making something looks that looks like biological species, so like humanoids or even digital characters that look like animals or humans. And I think it is a very interesting idea to explore why we decide to mimic the forms of living creatures. So, say if you're making a virtual assistant, it doesn't really have to look like a person or even a dog, right? But people choose to make that, and I think the certain design decisions involved in the processes shows something about us and how we treat those living creatures, or how we perceive them. So, that's what I'm researching, investigating.

Olivia Sherman
Both of your pieces were really interesting.
Could you talk about your other piece, Habitual Orbit?

Sei Jung
Well, creative coding can be a lot of different things, right especially AI.
People tend to make so many different things through codes. But to me, making something through code kind of feels like translating the traditional like positioning, placement, composition into digital space. So, my series of code sketches tend to be.
I wouldn't say it croaky, but it feels like very quick sketch of an image that I want to express. And the themes I choose are, as I mentioned before, I try to translate how I feel or how I perceive or I choose abstract ideas and then I want to visualize it through codes but with a very simple form not like 3D. Colors, yeah.

Olivia Sherman
What factors led to the development of your style and your use of new media rather than traditional media?

Sei Jung
That's an interesting question. Because I was originally interested in painting. And in undergrad, I studied art theories, but at the same time I was trying to do painting. And then I enrolled in this media art course just out of curiosity, and then it was a very different experience because digital media itself involves something totally different, or it often involves artifacts. That interested me, intrigued me, and I was always into computers. I just grew up playing with it. I think that played a big part because even when I was a kid, I used to have this pirated version of Photoshop and like even I was using PowerPoint to make digital images. So, I think it was a natural process for me to make something through that.
What differentiates from traditional media for me- I think it’s a fun process because if I make something through drawings or sculptures, I can express what I want to express for sure, but through new media I can employ new context like another layer of it- say, for Scruffy. There are a lot of voice command assistants or existing personal robots. I can include those existing social discussions into my work by manipulating them or by using them. So I think that's another fun aspect of media art, that I can just employ social existing social connotations.

Olivia Sherman
So then from there, what brought you to the New Media Caucus?

Sei Jung
Word of mouth.
I heard there's a New Media Caucus by the faculty I work with.
“Oh, there’s this organization and the website is there.” So, I started browsing, and there's open calls and stuff, so that's how I got started. I got familiar with the website first and then-this is more personal- but it is not very common to see folks who do new media art in a more critical way. It is hard to find a list around me, so I was really glad to find a group of people who are actually like-minded.

Olivia Sherman
What does receiving the award mean to you?

Sei Jung
Well, when I applied, I thought I wasn’t going to get it. Especially considering the current political climate, I just had a bit of concern. Like, is it OK if this award exists even? I think it's very meaningful to pursue such things like encouraging artists who are students because they are not in the same place as other artists, right? I think it's a very meaningful practice just by doing this award. And I'm very honored to be a part of it. I wrote it in the personal statement I think too, but just by acknowledging this group of people kind of means a lot to me and it feels like an encouragement. And as a person of color, I do encounter certain you know, microaggressions or discouraging moments. But through this award, I feel like still there are people who are acknowledging us, supporting us so I can keep going.

Olivia Sherman
So do you have any like current projects that you're working on that you want to share with us?

Sei Jung
Sure. Kind of embarrassing, but currently I'm working on a project that's about surveillance pigeons. Do you know that conspiracy?

Olivia Sherman
Yes, I do.

Sei Jung
It aligns with my topics that I discussed earlier. I think it's a very interesting topic.
Because why do we choose to envision pigeons as surveillance machines, right?
It could be, I don't know surveillance cameras, but we tend to think of these biological species as some sort of authoritarian agent. So, I started exploring that and I am trying to make some artifacts that could be a little bit of a satire, or exploring, why do we choose to employ such animals as surveillance agents. So, there I have a subset of projects that I'm trying to make.
I start from a hypothesis- that, what if these surveillance pigeons actually exist?
And people think there's a camera inside a pigeon and there is a network device inside of a pigeon. But actually, if I really want to make a surveillance pigeon,.
I'd make the pigeon to actually look like a pigeon, and they do a lot of different things than just filming people. Like, they like groom themselves, they just walk around people. And bird robots in general, people think their main function is flying, but actually pigeons just walk.
So I'm trying to emphasize those biomimetic functions that are overlooked by people. And I think that's how people perceive technology as well, right?
It can do a lot of different things, but people choose to make them surveillance or choose to think that they're just going to fly and watch us.
So I want to point that out by making some silly objects that actually do things that are not expected like…pooping pigeons? Something like that.
So that's what I'm currently working on.

Olivia Sherman
Awesome. Last question.
Do you have like a website or anything that I can link where people can find your work?

Sei Jung
Yeah.
It's https://meepbeep.com/