December 3-6
Transmedia Lab (ACW 103) and Art and Technology Learning Lab (ACW 102) York University
Exhibition hours: December 4 12-4:30, December 5 and 6 8:30-4:30
Performance: Electroacoustic Orchestra, Tuesday, December 3, 2:30
Opening celebration December 5, 2024 1-3 including FOOD and a special presentation of Kyle Duffield’s interactive installation Spectral Forms.
The works included in this exhibition are representative of students from across our program, Graduate and Undergraduate presented in a wide variety of mediums and formats. From games, web-based, to electronic, to mixed reality, the common thread to most of these works is the computational basis in their conceptualization and realization. Many of the works presented here use content that is generated in real-time using algorithms as their creative toolset. All of the works embody computational thinking and aesthetics in their execution that include systems-based methodologies, hybrid art, and interdisciplinary approaches to making art.
Digital Media is a joint program between Computational Arts (School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design) and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Lassonde School of Engineering) that mixes arts and media with engineering. In the program students use code and programming as tools for creative expression in forms such as immersive and 3D environments, interactive performance, data visualization, games and apps.
List of works
Title: Broad Daylight
Creator: Vagus Truman – Kenneth Hu
This game takes inspiration and elements from my history and sentiments. Set in an unnamed city where the player tries to find a reason to go out into the city, rather than waste away in his apartment and social isolation. It has characters that the player can converse with, and has replayability and small teases as to who the player character is, with a world that can respond when the player demands as such with stories behind locations and objects. The killer is not obvious, and can spawn at random, and disappear in the crowd should it ever appear. Whether or not the player can end the day as they planned is up to them. Regardless of what they choose, one truth persists — Carpe Diem.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3224560/Broad_Daylight/
Title: Radio DATT3074
Creators: Students in DATT 3074 Creative Generative Audio Signal Processing
Course: DATT 3074
Radio DATT3074 is an online radio that can tune into different stations of endlessly generative sound and music. Each station continuously uses the current date & time to manipulate parameters of a unique sonic algorithm to ensure that it sounds different whenever you tune in – mornings are different from evenings, weekends from weekends, as the months and seasons pass. Each station was written by a different student as an assignment in DATT3074 “Creative Audio Signal Processing”, using gen~ and RNBO from Cycling ’74.
https://alicelab.world/datt3074/radio/
Title: Gameboy Model
Creator: Caedmon Tosh
This is a 3D Blender scene that took a couple weeks of on-and-off work to model and compose. The focus of the scene is made up of self-made assets (Gameboy & Games), with other self-made and imported models acting as background support. The inspiration came after I had completed a couple Blender YouTube tutorials, at which point I was itching to try something original, and seeing as I was a massive Nintendo fan growing up, I landed on modelling a Gameboy.
Title: Sonic Swarms
Creators: Maximilian Eder, Jubelle Paa
Sonic Swarms is an audio-visual installation where two visual worlds coexist in parallel, connected by a shared soundscape. Both installations offer a digital interpretation of flock and particle movement, forming an abstract narrative about coexistence and individuality. On one screen, flocking boids generate organic visual patterns, triggering sounds upon collision. Simultaneously, the second projection displays particles that continuously evolve, emitting tones as they transform. While these elements inhabit the same space, they operate independently, their interplay creating a dynamic, ever-changing harmony that blurs the boundaries between autonomy and connection.
Title: 水琴窟 (Suikinkutsu)
Creator: Hiromune Kubayashi
Welcome to Kyoto, Japan! Have you ever heard of a Suikinkutsu? A Suikinkutsu is a traditional Japanese garden ornament—a large earthenware jar buried upside down with a hole at the bottom to collect water. Water flows through the gaps between small stones, dripping into the jar and onto the water pooled at the bottom. The droplets create resonating sounds within the hollow jar, producing distinctive tones. In this piece, I’ve created a sound work inspired by the Suikinkutsu. Please take a moment to relax and immerse yourself in the auditory experience, imagining that you’re in a tranquil temple in Kyoto, Japan. Created with MaxMSP for DATT 3074 Assignment 3: Robot Clockwork Radio – Create an endless radio station that sounds uniquely different depending on the time and date you listen.
Title: Synth Sanctuary
Creator: Abdullah Al Fuad
This is a model I am making as the Final Assignment for FA/VISA 3033 – Modelling for 3D Fabrication. In this piece, I present a dream room of mine and how I would decorate and have it look like if I was given complete freedom. As a musical enthusiast and someone who is in love with Hollywood, I wanted to make a fusion that expresses that love. In this space, I have designed various items like a Moog 25 Synthesizer, 3 electric guitars (Fender Stratocaster), and a music studio space with speakers and monitors along with a chair, lava lamp and a circular bed. The prime colours of this piece are red, black and white, which makes my work extremely appealing and artistic. The room altogether appears to have a stage feel to it which I was able to achieve with my design and colours.
Title: Diallogues
Creator: Kyle Duffield
Diallogue is a surreal interactive scenario where participants interact with a rotary telephone that has recently gained self-awareness.
Title: Spectral Forms
Creator: Kyle Duffield
Spectral Forms is an immersive, multiplayer environment where light and sound merge as instruments. Featuring three moving head lights, the piece invites participants to explore, play, and socialize while collaboratively creating volumetric light-sound compositions, accessible to all regardless of musical background or skill level.
Title: Rabbit Hole
Creator: Yinkan Chen
Course: DATT 4300
In a forest laid a small rabbit. They lived in harmony with everyone else in the forest. Until one day, ravenous carrots started attacking. Forcefully feeding themselves to unsuspecting victims. It intoxicates them. Your friendly wolf comrades will give you a good wack in order to return you back to normal. With their help escape the grasp of the carrots.
https://hambagah.itch.io/rabbit-hole-v2
Title: Hopbot Deluxe
Creator: Gialuca Sabatini
Course: DATT 4300
Hopbot is a factory defect, and this factory doesn’t want defects. Help Hopbot escape through the conveniently complex network of puzzles that lie within! Press buttons, push crates, and… cause every other bot besides Hopbot to jump? There might be something wrong with this bot… Hopbot Deluxe is an expanded version of Hopbo (https://aspencuozzo.itch.io/hopbot)t, featuring a new set of levels with a new type of bot, various bug fixes and miscellaneous improvements.
https://gianlucasabatini.itch.io/hopbot-deluxe
Title: Map Tuner
Creator: Yidan Zhang
Course: DATT 4300
This is a 3D first-person platform puzzle game where players interact with a mini-map puzzle by rotating each section based on their exploration of the actual map. Each section’s position is fixed, but the orientation needs to be adjusted. Once all sections are correctly aligned, the game concludes.
The game’s art style is inspired by Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, with a blend of industrial and cyberpunk elements. It features four main areas: an underground shopping mall, a small neighborhood, a residential playground, and a pipeline factory, providing players with an immersive experience.
https://yidanzhang.itch.io/map-tuner
Title: Grave Runner
Creator: Delvin Salman
Course: DATT 4300
Take the role of a defeated Death. Imprisoned to the mortal plane, you are forced to serve a corrupt king and conquer his enemies. Race after terrifying bosses while dodging their overwhelming attacks as your own power wanes.
A first-person boss rush, that gets simpler over time. Lose your speed, health, and abilities as you try to fulfill your tasks before your time is up.
https://delyy.itch.io/graverunner
Title: Curse of the Hidden Beat
Creator: Annabass (Chistiakova?)
Course: DATT 4300
You’ve been cursed and now you can only move through convoluted dance steps. Now you have to stealth your way to the witch’s hut to have a chance at finding the cure. Don’t get caught!
https://annabass.itch.io/curse-of-the-hidden-beat-finale
Title: Coins 1000 Problem
Creator: Hao Qian (Harry)
Course: DATT 4300
The development of our game was greatly inspired by Pony Island, which offered us new perspectives on game design. Who says players are the ones who play games? Game designers can also play with the players.
We even had crazier ideas, like writing some Visual Basic code to use Windows desktop dialog boxes to simulate the feeling that we had “hacked” into the player’s computer. However, we ultimately decided against it, worried that antivirus software might delete the game. Instead, we simulated these scenarios within the game itself.
In any case, please complete the first level—the game is definitely more than just a platformer.
https://woodenball.itch.io/revised-coins-1000-problem
Title: Dreamwalker
Creator: Zhihan Ru
Dreamwalker is an audiovisual journey created using Max8, inspired by Max8’s official tutorials. The project combines music and visuals to craft transitions from slow, dreamy sequences to fast, tense moments. It aims to recreate the experience of falling asleep, entering sweet dreams, ultimately descending into nightmares, and finally returning to calmness upon waking. Inspired by the finale music of the game Omori, Dreamwalker invites the audience to embark on a unique inner journey.
Title: Dessert Headphone
Creator: Zhihan Ru
Dessert Headphone is a 3D modeling project created using Rhino 8, inspired by the idea of combining two seemingly unrelated elements: headphones and desserts. The goal was to transform the sharp, rigid lines of electronic devices into something soft and sweet. The process began with modeling a donut in Blender, followed by sourcing additional components from online copyrighted materials. These elements were then integrated in Rhino 8, where further details were added to bring the concept to life. Dessert Headphone combines elements of sweetness and utility, inviting viewers to reflect on the intersection of creativity and practicality in everyday objects.
Title: Garden Light Gallery
Creators: Sayid Allie, Behroz Durani, Donglin Yu, HanWei Zhang
Course: DATT 4933
Inspired by classroom knowledge about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Garden light brought in by group members, we have developed an exhibition introducing the materials used to make Garden lights. This interactive exhibition showcases Garden lights and the three main materials used in their production. Additionally, it presents the environmental impact of manufacturing from four different personas. Use WASD keys to control the camera movement up, down, left, and right. Press ESC to lock the view (clickable when the Windows pointer appears).
Title: Febreze Air Freshener Personas
Creators: Alice Chai, Sze Hang Lam (Sherri), Amenan Kouakou (Emma)
Course: DATT 4933
Air fresheners like Febreze have become a staple in many households, celebrated for their ability to mask odors and create a sense of freshness. This project invites users to consider the broader implications of everyday products, emphasizing empathy and the interconnectedness of our actions and their consequences. Based on the lifecycle mapping we did for the components of an air freshener, we created personas representing humans and non-humans affected by the production and use of these products. Using different media, we showed their needs, challenges, and how we could help them.
Title: Headphones: The Real Dumb Way to Die
Creators: Lisa He, Saneea Khalid, Sneha Vijayakumar
Course: DATT 4933
Our project focuses on the harm the production of headphones does to humans, animals, and the environment. Our video starts slow and dramatic, but we end with a light-hearted and catchy song (based on “Dumb Ways to Die” by Tangerine Kitty) with lyrics that discuss Life-Centered Design and making the world a better place. We each took responsibility for exploring a single persona–ecosystems, non-humans (animals, birds, etc.), and humans–and showcasing the impact of the headphone production process on them. The purpose of exploring each persona is to address the various problems that negatively impact everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeldhNSTm7g
Title: Xbox Controller Teardown and Persona Character Cards for Life-Centred Futures
Creators: Thalia Godbout, Laurel Green, Rachel Remesat, Omar Shabbar
Course: DATT 4933
Many of us play games, but environmental impacts of the gaming industry are often hidden. From materials extraction to labour exploitation in factories and game studios, internet pollution from online gaming, and pollutants from discarded e-waste and plastics poisoning environments and wildlife, the processes that sustain the gaming industry continue to place pressure on our ecosystems and societies. For a Life-Centred Futures class, we tore down an Xbox One Wireless Controller, documenting our teardown and mapping out the lifecycle of the controller parts from manufacturing to supply chain, use, and discard. After analyzing the impacts of this lifecycle on humans, non-humans, and ecosystems, we identified stakeholder personas that were most deeply impacted by these systems. We designed a conceptual roleplaying game and framed these personas through playable character sheets, with the goal of highlighting the often-overlooked impacts of game controller production to inspire collective change in how we design, use, and care for our technologies throughout their lifecycles.
The final output of this series of projects will be a workshop with Sensorium on game controller repair and recycling in March 2025.
Title: Electro-Acoustic Orchestra
Performers: DATT 3070, DATT 4070, DIGM 5070
Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Title: Echoes of Existence
Creator: Trinity Mae Robel
Course: DATT 2040
My project seeks to encourage self-expression by using sound, text, and visual art to transform participants’ voices into dynamic, generative artwork. The program relies on the user’s speech for transcription and generation of the abstract flower objects. The voice audio input is also processed to have an echo like effect as the user speaks. It utilizes Web Speech API for the speech-to-text features. Object oriented programming principles is also applied in generating unique abstract flower objects and for the archived floating texts.
https://sihwapark.github.io/DATT2040_F24_Select_Works/Echoes_of_Existence/
Video documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86oat-CLaL4
Title: Fractal Fantasia
Creator: Ethan Wu
Course: DATT 2040
This project explores the intersection of randomness, recursion, and interactivity in generative art using fractals. The design makes use of previous frames to simulate fractals that repeat throughout the design, featuring dynamic colour transitions, layered recursive transformations, and the ability to adjust the zoom, rotation speed, and background colour. The artwork evolves continuously over time, creating intricate and unique patterns.
https://sihwapark.github.io/DATT2040_F24_Select_Works/Fractal_Fantasia/
Video documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw_HpoHGBEk
Title: Code as Art – Wings of Wonder
Creator: Zaina Khan
Course: DATT 2040
In the interactive UI based art Code As Art: Wings and Wonder, users are immersed in the lenses of code being used to create random generative art. The user has the choice to make the artworks themselves, where they have the option to craft their own design. They can choose between having a canvas of birds, rectangles, pedals, or a different canvas each time. The outcome portrays a different canvas each time, ranging from different colour palettes to different outcomes. Overall, I feel like if someone isn’t familiar with coding, this could inspire them and show what generative art could turn out to be!
https://sihwapark.github.io/DATT2040_F24_Select_Works/Code_as_Art/
Video documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqZwQqcUBGE
Title: Passage of Time
Creator: Uday Pal
Course: DATT 2040
My work is an audio visual piece that revolves around time and different modes of time. I made a time lapse to sequence the events at specific points in the song and each sequence corresponds to either the lyrics or the general theme of passing time, there are also cursor interactions with some sequences as well.
https://sihwapark.github.io/DATT2040_F24_Select_Works/Passage_of_Time/
Video documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WP8SY8-QQ
Title: The Sumo Rush
Creator: Vinh Quang Tran
Course: DATT 2040
The Sumo Rush is a dungeon-style game where players control a Sumo Wrestler tasked with protecting and transporting a fragile crate through multiple rooms. Each room presents unique challenges, including swarms of flies that damage the crate or walls that block the way of the Crate. The Sumo Wrestler must act as a shield to prevent damage and collect keys by defeating the flies. These keys open the gate to the final destination, marking the player’s victory.
https://editor.p5js.org/tranvinh/full/pXtpC2PuM
Title: Beat Jam
Creator: Isabela Zheng He
Course: DATT 2040
The project’s concept is to create a visual representation of music. It is a simple rhythm game in which players press designated keys on the keyboard in sync with the beat patterns of a predetermined song. The goal of this project is to integrate visuals and sound into an interactive experience, allowing the players to immerse themselves in the music through a playful, dynamic, immersive, and multi-sensory experience.
https://editor.p5js.org/isaz017/sketches/kZJ8tXa06
Title: Eye of the Storm: Finding the Beauty
Creator: Jasmine Porter
Course: DATT 2040
My project explores the intersection of generative art and dynamic systems by creating an interactive 3D simulation of hurricane and wind patterns on a virtual globe. The primary design goal was to visualize chaotic yet structured natural phenomena, such as hurricanes and wind currents, using computational agents guided by a flowfield. This simulation employs WebGL for 3D rendering and audio analysis to influence the code’s behaviour. Users can initiate sound by pressing a Play button, which directly influences the motion of simulated agents based on volume. Users can also save snapshots of the simulation by pressing the ‘S’ key. The result is an immersive, audio-reactive generative art piece where the user’s control of the volume directly impacts the motion of simulated agents.
Video: https://youtu.be/6LEP2w6SNk8
Code: https://editor.p5js.org/jclp23/sketches/NNA6MGpEj
Title: Digital Arena: Echoes of Light
Creator: Chigozie Duru
Course: DATT 2040
The light trails created by the vehicles in Tron served as the primary inspiration for the creation of Digital Arena: Echoes of Light, an interactive generative artwork that explores light, motion, and user-driven change in a virtual environment. The artwork recreates the neon-lit grid of Tron’s digital landscape, with autonomous agents representing light cycles that leave glowing trails as they move across the screen. Users can influence these light cycles by adjusting parameters such as movement speed, trail length, and interaction patterns, enabling them to shape the agents’ movement, turning, and even colliding.
Video: https://youtu.be/7VfKNt_8f2U
Code: https://editor.p5js.org/Morpheustheone/full/sZWPCgSsI
Title: Labyrinth of souls
Creator: Ksenia Shkarina
Course: DATT 2040
This project combines generative art and game mechanics, making it both interactive and visually beautiful. In this game you play as a soul, searching for its gate into an afterlife. You need to collect all of the lost pieces of yourself before you can move on to the next level, and finally out into the future. The design goal was to create an engaging game with dynamic gameplay and elements of generative art.
Title: The Sound Toy
Creator: Calvin Tang
Course: DATT 2040
This program was largely inspired by music making sandbox games such as Incredibox and My Singing Monsters, which offer flashy and intuitive environments where the user can place down simple note generating elements to produce music. Every musical element that can be placed within the canvas using the mouse has its own unique visuals and sound. The canvas is split in two for more fine control as the top half is the standard pitch, while the second half is 50% lower.
The goal was to make an intuitive and entertaining program that can be used for light artistic expression with its combination of drawing shapes and producing notes. Each element being unique presented an interesting design hurdle as they would all need to sound and look different; in the prior assignments it was largely 1 big goal to aim for, while this project required problem solving for many different elements.
Title: Camera 78: in plain sight
Creator: Susan Wu
Course: DATT4930
The video analyzes surveillance and continuous observation; it looks at being seen in natural and unorthodox/unsettling environments. There is surveillance in a variety of ways in which humans cannot perceive. Hence, some of the clips in the video are unsettling, unusual and interesting. It draws inspiration from Big Brother, The Surveillance Camera Players and tries to express how surveillance has become obscure and concealed in our everyday lives. Though the narrative behind the video is quite skewed, leaving the audience to interpret it themselves, there is a recurring theme of eyes and ‘birds-eye view’ of various frames to elicit the feeling of ‘security cameras’ being unnoticed.
Title: Oceans of Data
Creator: Riordan Palmer
Course: DATT4930
Description:
A short interactive experience that explores the role of algorithmic identities in data surveillance. The work is based on and uses quotes from John Cheney-Lippold’s “We Are Data”.
https://riordan-palmer.itch.io/oceans-of-data
Title: TTT
Creator: Aspen Cuozzo
Course: DATT4930
LLMs (large-language models) have taken the world by storm. Highly sophisticated at text generation, it has become the corporate playbook for countless companies in the technology sector over the last few years. However, one aspect of LLMs that is still brought into question is its ability to reason. On a functional level, LLMs are simply copycats that are very good at copying a lot of data in distinct ways. They “learn” from this data in the sense that they retain it and are able to identify when to regurgitate data they have stored when a situation calls for it. But if a situation arises that their data doesn’t cover, the model is left to its own devices. Tic-tac-toe is a game that has been enjoyed by humans of all ages and cultures for many centuries. It is an exceptionally simple game: given a 3-by-3 grid, two players take turns placing down X’s and O’s (each player taking on one of the symbols respectively) until one player completes a continuous line of their symbol. It is the type of game that young children play in a school playground. I wondered how LLMs would perform with tic-tac-toe, a game that requires an extremely primitive set of reasoning skills from a human. I used the four most prominent LLMs (ChatGPT, Meta AI, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude) and made them play rounds of tic-tac-toe against each other. They didn’t do very well.
Title: Untitled
Creator: Xinya (Lysia) Zhang
Course: DATT4930
This video reflects on the relation between AI and humans and how the two have become deeply connected. At first, AI is just something people find interesting online—a new tool that sparks curiosity. As time progresses, however, this curiosity turns into dependency. Society becomes so intertwined with AI that life without it seems unimaginable, even as its presence increasingly shapes daily existence. As people get more dependent, they also start to feel uneasy. They realize that AI is always watching, tracking their choices and behaviors, creating a sense of constant surveillance. People feel trapped, aware that leaving this AI-connected world is no longer an option.
By the end of the video, the viewer is left to ponder the implications of this inescapable connection, questioning what it means to coexist with a technology that has both liberated and confined humanity in unprecedented ways.
Title : Metalhead
Creator: Prachi Sadhwani
Course: DATT4930
A prototype of an application titled “MetalHead”. The intention behind creating this application is to make users aware of the production of the devices they so heavily rely on. Numerous people use technology on a daily basis, it is difficult to survive in the current day and age without it. However, many technology users have no clue about the disastrous and dangerous processes involved in the creation of their most beloved devices. “MetalHead” is my attempt at closing this knowledge gap. I wanted to create something beautiful enough to pique people’s interests and keep them engaged long enough to learn about the phenomenon that is metal mining. I classify this project as “environmental media” because it focuses on educating the general public of the environmental issues they are often unaware of. I especially wanted to create some kind of application in order to not waste too many physical resources, an argument that was explored in class. Specifically, I was trying to answer the question of “How can we promote awareness for environmental issues without participating in the extractivist economy?”