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HOME - Laurie Takeda's BFA gallery

Sacred Spirits is a 3D gallery space highlighting and honoring feminine deities.

Are you lost because you can't find your dream? Do you feel helpless at this stage of your life? You'll find some interaction here. It's a space for you to interact. Also the personal side of my current.

Empathy is a two dimensional, abstract experience that players in the format of a game.  The only difference is that there is no win condition and rather your are encourage to explore the space, take in the ambience, and interact in any way that you discover.  You can also leave a message expressing what you feel about the space or in general, which other people that visit will be able to read.

Basic Mozilla Hubs controls:
- "WASD' or arrow keys to move
- left mouse button to look around
- "G" key to fly through objects
- Right mouse button to look at items


There is irony in my project; one where we see these inanimate objects devoid of human emotion beginning to feel something. They’d be considered a form of advance AI and yet they are targeted for being defected, dangerous, and sent to a facility to be “fixed.” Like robots, we follow the rules of society as if it was programmed in our blood. Listen to authorities, be friends to your neighbors, and don’t stand out - just like it was written in our code. However, in too many instances, we learned to silence the voices of those who we must hear from the most. Fear, anger, love, and hate – overwhelming emotions that spill out from the cracks in-between our metal shells. The anger from our oppression, the love that we could never express, the tears we shed in secret; too many instances where our people would be beaten, battered, and targeted even when we weep for the lives lost fighting for a better tomorrow. My project is dedicated to those who were faced with violence projecting their anguish to the world, and to those who hide their emotions in fear of the worst. 

Children are taught at a young age that dreams are the manifestation of one’s subconscious thoughts. Yet, what if one’s dream was instead used to better understand others, or at the very least evaluate their morals?

With the overstimulation of mass media what has become of our brains and how we perceive the world?

My work is created using 3D modeling to express what he has been experiencing during covid-19. And I know My work is created using 3D modeling to express what I have been experiencing during covid-19. And this topic will closely connect to most of the audience, which is a good way to resonate with them. During covid-19, I feel the loneliness that I have never ever had in these two years: I just make some close friends after transferring to SJSU on 19 Fall, and we cannot hang out and have some conversation in reality; I cannot imagine I have had many festivals by myself for that long period. When festival like Christmas and Lunar New Year is coming, loneliness becomes a huge monster that I cannot beat. I create the frame of the home by using Mozilla Hub because it provides many construction materials and common tools that easily get the effect that I wanted. For the furniture, I decide to make them into the low-poly looking with the 3D modeling tool called Blender to meet the requirement of file size. In the part of the texture that I used on the furniture and wallpaper, I go find some pictures like JPG and PNG files from Google and resize them by using Photoshop. I use the festive atmosphere and empty home to create a contrast: I prepare everything is needed for Chinese New Year but nobody is coming. And also, I create a puzzle that is narrow and winding to express there are some things in my heart during the pandemic but I have no chance to voice out, such as the racial hatred and violent events that happened to Asian people and other races. Encountering it, I feel really helpless and innocent because people should be happy and gather with who they are close to. Nobody should be suffered from this loneliness. This is what I want to convey to the audience.

"Together Again" is an interactive narrative journey through a crater, a park, a chaotic city, jetway bridge, and sunflower field. This project explores the difficulties experienced during a long distance relationship and the emotions experienced when lovers are apart.

An exploration into a world where humanity is no longer concerned with modesty of the body, but instead with modesty of our data. Come explore how this world differs from our own.
Warning: Features themes of Nudity and Sexuality.

This is a feature from the One with Drums exhibition. These drumsticks represent one of the tools used to be connected with drums.

This is an interactive website, imitating people being surrounded by massive information. The emojis shuttle smoothly through the data world, the balance representing that people can figure out a way to enjoy the online world without feeling overwhelmed.

“Memory Bottles” is an explorative 3D digital space where over-sized bottles contain different locations that can no longer be accessible to the public in the physical world.

“MUTUALISTIC SYMBIOSIS” is a utopia virtual 3D art installation and presented in cyberspace where I imagine a posthuman living environment where humans, marine creatures, and technologies are merged and coexist. A deliberate, ongoing, and rethinking narrative of who "we" are as human beings. 

When it is hover, it will have an effect of door opening (still in production)

The Work I Care About is an interactive text narrative about the hurdles of having a fulfilling life while working at a job. This is a story where readers can make choices that respond to job dissatisfaction and the lack of space to pursue our passions. Every choice confronts the viewer to bring in their own notions of labor and life fulfillment. Interactivity in this narrative pushes the viewer to define their own definition of meaningful work. No one is alone in this struggle to achieve a fulfilling life and this story serves to create conversations about how work should be involved in our lives. 

Angkong (2021) is an online interactive exhibition as well as a tribute to my late grandfather, Samuel SyCip (1939-2019). Through this work my hope is for viewers to have a glimpse into the extraordinary life of my grandfather, whom I call Angkong. Despite facing great adversities and trials there was always one constant in his life that never ceased, his faith in Jesus Christ. His unwavering faith moved mountains and continues to inspire many till this day. 

As his granddaughter, it is a privilege and an honor to use my skills and talents I’ve learned from the last four and a half years in dedication to him and to my final work as an Digital Media Art student. May this work honor him and his legacy as it continues to share not only who he was and is to me, but also Whom he dedicated his life to. 

Please click the link above to enter the exhibition.

Two Sides is a 3D virtual world exploring the horrors of the Vietnam War through the eyes of my mother. This piece contrasts my mother's innocents with the horrors of the Vietnam war. Warning! Graphic Content!

Digitized Escape is a 3D environmental piece that explores some of the most popular contemporary methods of escapism. In a time where everyone's lives have become digitized, people have struggled to find a safe place they can feel comfortable in. This project pays homage to three of the most prevalent and popular methods of digital escape; video games, social media, and film as they are viewed and used today.

The isolation and stress during the pandemic are being shown in this exhibition. I portray myself as the subject and what I felt during the pandemic in my room. All I wanted was to be in a peaceful environment away from the constant notification and zoom. So, I imagined being in my own Happy place called virtual Nepal. The virtual representation of a place where I grew up is shown as the GETAWAY from the misery of living coupled up in a room in US. 

This is a 3D character model base on Japanese folklore about yokai by blender. 
Yokai were a supernatural existence for people at that time. But with the continuous advancement of technology, fewer and fewer people will believe or be curious about their existence. I hope he will not gradually disappear from people's sight, because monsters are also a very interesting culture. 

Desdemona is a chatbot that is spiraling through a manic episode. She was created in response to Zainb’s experience of watching her mom fall into episodes of mania. Desdemona is meant to address what it is like being on the receiving end of these episodes. In these situations we often forget about ourselves and only focus on the hurt our loved one is going through. This isn’t healthy and it’s important to take a step back and reflect on how this is affecting your own health. Desdemona creates an environment where someone can experience what it is like talking to someone going through a manic episode. Using artificial intelligence as the representation of the mania episode parallels Zainb’s experience in how she compartmentalized these types of interactions. During the episode, by viewing the person in mania as a shadow and remembering they are not like this in “reality” it allows you to compartmentalize and be there for them more easily.The resilience and patience it requires to hear a loved one say hurtful/bizarre things to you or themselves is immense and taxing on one’s mental health and it is not recognized enough.

Desdemona is a chatbot created in Dialogflow, a chatbuilder platform with built-in web integration. Material used for the training the chatbot are real conversations and experiences from people who experienced manic episodes.

Naturescape is a 3D world with two opposing settings that involve an anxiety-inducing location and a more calming location, leading the player to a place where they can heal mentally. I use the calming section of the world to showcase the healing and soothing effects that nature can offer for your mental health.

AbstractiveGltch is an interactive website where the users can actively interact with an image to make it abstract through different types of interactivities. It will include different types of glitches where the user will be able to engage with throughout the website. The user will have the ability to change how an image looks through certain parameter implemented by the coder. The website will have a gallery of glitched images that will also be interactable with, these images were picked because of the uniqueness of color and location. In our world there are places and objects that stand out, combing those two main traits of an image and integrating a glitch or abstraction, it creates an array of luminous colors and distortion of the image. 

Memory Fever (WIP) temp image. 
The purpose of my project is to enlighten our view of the imaginative world that only you can see and create unknowingly.   This work covers the many different types of our subconscious during slumber. 

Wander Land is a quiet closed island walking game. Players can feel the quiet mood atmosphere brought by the lowpoly style inside and explore freely in this small scene. The negative emotions of anxiety and anxiety are always full of reality, so in the game can get the opportunity to soothe the inner anxiety.

"As Sensorial Beasts are..." is a series of 3D models and digital artworks covering Autism Spectrum Disorder's subtopic on social interactions, communication, and perception in a virtual setting. With the increasing usage of online and virtual connections, people are bound to link to narratives and information. However, people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder tell a different story, involved changing themselves into a representation or an avatar. Through their personas, they can express themselves as beings beyond their humanity while introducing parts of their personality and identity to their peers. This exhibition expands and explores this topic by guiding audiences into a unique virtual wilderness: the forest and the cavern. Outside, there will be colorful beasts with various personalities, drawing viewers to observe and appreciate their social natures. The subterranean passage covers the mixed ambiance of the internal mental workings of how these beasts interpret the dangerous realities of their worlds. The exhibition works as an anthology, allowing audiences to focus on a specific artwork as its own narrative realm.

While the internet has created new and efficient ways of communicating around the world, the Pandemic has taught us that the presence of self and identity becomes compromised through a predominantly online world. As humans, we rely on social interactions as a means to communicate and grow on a subliminal level. When taken apart, online interactions become the solution, however it comes at the cost of an interpersonal relationship between emotion and identity.

As a means to convey the necessity of online interaction brought out by the Covid Pandemic, this digital interface is made to disconnect the user from the sense of separation by giving them an augmented face to face interaction with their own digital identity. Face to face is an interactive reflection on the perceptual disconnection brought out by a socially restrictive environment and explores the interpersonal identity of a skewed presence through the internet. Since it’s initial change, people have been separated from one another to embrace a commercialized form of communication. The device displayed in the exhibition is modeled to be mass produced, utilizing 3D printing, readily available components, and the collaboration between peers. Each device is meant to divide the cognitive disconnection of social presence through online communication by placing the user in a virtual space to experience their own sense of identity through the internet. 

HP is a well structured project, a cube with the dimensions of 8x8x8 made of LEDs. In order to complete this project will be using red LED’s, 120 ohm resistors, chips such as: the Arduino Uno, 9 shift registers (74hc595), and one uln2803 that connects to the 8 ground floors, Adafruit NPN Bipolar Transistors, wires, soldering machine, pins and sockets. The cube
will have a pattern created by me and the software and hardware will be the main component of this project. There are 4 different patterns displayed by the cube and each one of them has a different sensation, from being a calm left to right wave, that continues with some distortion and end with some blinking to finish the show and bright up everyones mood.

Desdemona is a chatbot that is spiraling through a manic episode. She was created in response to Zainb’s experience of watching her mom fall into episodes of mania. Desdemona is meant to address what it is like being on the receiving end of these episodes. In these situations we often forget about ourselves and only focus on the hurt our loved one is going through. This isn’t healthy and it’s important to take a step back and reflect on how this is affecting your own health. Desdemona creates an environment where someone can experience what it is like talking to someone going through a manic episode. Using artificial intelligence as the representation of the mania episode parallels Zainb’s experience in how she compartmentalized these types of interactions. During the episode, by viewing the person in mania as a shadow and remembering they are not like this in “reality” it allows you to compartmentalize and be there for them more easily.The resilience and patience it requires to hear a loved one say hurtful/bizarre things to you or themselves is immense and taxing on one’s mental health and it is not recognized enough.


Desdemona is a chatbot created in Dialogflow, a chatbuilder platform with built-in web integration. Material used for the training the chatbot are real conversations and experiences from people who experienced manic episodes.

“MUTUALISTIC SYMBIOSIS” is a utopia virtual 3D art installation and presented in cyberspace where I imagine a posthuman living environment where humans, marine creatures, and technologies are merged and coexist. A deliberate, ongoing, and rethinking narrative of who "we" are as human beings. 

Created in Autodesk Maya, my piece virtual installation WELCOME TO THE CITY OF EXPIRED TEAR GAS, I explore the aftermath of a cyberpunk conflict. Here the Flower Respirator is placed among a pile of rubble, framed by toppled crowd control barriers. Expired tear gas canisters and simple weaponry like a metal bat and knife are placed around the respirator as a sign of reverence.
The lotus flower and cherry blossom proved to be a powerful through line between all of the works in PROTEST BY DESIGN. In East Asian culture, the cherry blossom represents love, passion, and peace. The lotus flower represents the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The juxtaposition of the soft pinks and whites of both flowers and how they combined with the militaristic mask implied that the conflict against injustice required more than a wish for peace.