UAL Online Foundations

A video using the webcam as an input, and me waving at the screen. 
This piece uses the creative coding software p5.js and creates a shader that is applied to all the information from the webcam, which is used as the source. 
My inspiration for this piece is the hyperreal and making new digital worlds for people to explore. 

This digital work attempts to display the reset of humans. It was inspired by the process of the reset of digital devices. It includes mosaic shapes for showing the progress of the reset. It links to the camera that tries to bring humans into the screen to start the reset process. But humans are more complex with emotions or memories compared with digital devices. Thus, I use colours and disorganised reset directions attempting to express the complexity of reset.
People often regret or want to cancel something they have done or experienced. But the fact that it is impossible. Sometimes we might envy the machines because they could reset and begin a "new start" anytime. But for people, many things they could not change. So, I created this work to illustrate this 'desire'. In the meantime, I tried to create the feeling that humans seem to be overwhelmed by those mosaics and the faces are difficult to identify, which demonstrates that the process of resetting is quite hard and random due to human emotions and other elements. Also, I think about the edge and choice of humans and machines. Would we like to be a machine that could be reset all the time rather than be a person who can maintain unique memories even though those are sad experiences?
I also consider that mosaic shapes can be the implication of human memory, which might mimic the phenomenon of "life flash or review". Finally, humans would not entirely recognize on the screen which implies that this person has been reset.

As summer is approaching, a large number of flowers are blooming around the place where I live, so I created this art piece. The artwork with bright and vivid colors to express the joyful atmosphere. Flowers appear on the canvas in random places, which conveys the magical power of life in nature. At this special time, there are still also a lot of people locked at home due to the coronavirus. People suffering from this would like to go out to breathe and to feel the spring. But unfortunately, they couldn’t. I create these digital blooming flowers so that people, who could not go out, will be happy at that moment when they see this work online.

This creative coding art is inspired by Mogaoku Zaojing (敦煌莫高窟藻井), the caisson ceilings of the Dunhuang Mogao Caves.
I was deeply fascinated by the mural and ceiling art in Mogao Caves when I visited Dunhuang in 2021. 
I tried to create a modern and abstract version of the ceiling with p5.js which can show the creation process in 10 seconds.

Strong contrasting colors were used to bring the subjects a more 3 dimensional look. Deep blue color surrounds the steaming coffee, it stands out and lure me closer. Clouds of smoke danced like a train's steam engine, signaling for actions.

Who wouldn't be tempted to lift the piping hot cup of coffee?

Recently, I began to attend yoga classes in my community. People at class are encouraged not to be rushed to do any yoga poses. Everyone here are in a peaceful mind and does not think about anything out of the class for this 60 minutes. We just focus on what we do in class and adjust our own breath. The last five to ten minutes of the class is the time for meditation. During that process, I lay on my mat to relax the whole body and think about lives.
The atmosphere I created in this artwork simulate the meditation part at yoga class, which allows the audience to turn on the camera to see themslves on the screen in a peaceful and magical way. Also, this process could boost energy, mood, self-confidence, and compassion. At the same time, the audience could use the mouse to control the direction of where the changing eyes look at, just like looking at yourself. Hope the audience could not to be anxious, but satisfied and confident with themselves, and also be grateful for the present life, full of hope for the future life.

This work depicts a view inside a room while rain falls as time changes from day to night. According to the clock, daytime elapses from 5 am to 6 pm, while nighttime from 6 pm to 5 am. 

The source code, which generates a rainy scene, inspired me to make a moving artwork showing different perspectives of watching falling rain. Then I conjectured a person sitting inside a room watching rainfall, relishing different atmospheres as time elapses. Correlating time to the clock, I wrote conditional statements to simulate two situations where the room's color changes during an entire 24-hour cycle.  

As someone who has always maintained a love of fine art and music, I would love to combine the two of things in one project. In terms of music, my idol is Billie Eilish. After I heard that Billie recently held a solo concert in London, I regretted that I couldn't make it to the venue. Because of the epidemic, I can only listen to Billie's music constantly at home in China. The song pretends that I can feel the atmosphere of the scene. My first exposure to digital artwork, and Hydra, I found a new way to show arts. This interesting tool immediately attracted me. I tried to study related tutorials after get off work, and after constant attempts, I chose to combine music with hydra and made a simple program.

Because Billie has suffered from various rumors since her debut. She often has various evaluations, and these evaluations can be confusing, like the swirls that appear in the middle of the graphics. This also caused her character to become increasingly sharp, so I chose the triangle as the main shape. In terms of color, I choose Billie's representative color: green, and the whole color matching is the same as Billie's favorite hair color. For the choice of music, I prefer Billie's famous song "bad guy". The video performance is to adjust the mouse according to the music rhythm to show my understanding of the song "bad guy". Of course, many of Billie's other songs can be represented with this code.

What I coded is called rotating flowers. Just as what it name is, the coding including two rotating flowers which are jumping from two holes.
It was probably the first time I used p5.js to code a quite complete project. Of course it is not perfect. Technically it is just a test for me be more familiar with the tool what I use. What I actually try to show is that flowers can really jump from the holes while meantime they show up smoothly. And I used transparent petals to create more changing. The dark background makes the pattern more clear.