Sougwen Chung
{{Notability|Bio|date=August 2024}}{{Short description|Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist in London}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Sougwen Chung (鍾愫君)
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| birth_place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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| occupation = Artist
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| website = {{URL|https://sougwen.com/}}
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Sougwen Chung (鍾愫君) is a Canadian-born, Chinese-raised artist residing in London.{{cite web|last1=Marletta|first1=Donata|title=Organic Form and Digital Visions. An Interview with Sougwen Chung|url=http://www.digicult.it/news/organic-forms-and-digital-visions-an-interview-with-sougwen-chung/|website=Digicult|date=23 July 2013 |accessdate=26 March 2017}} Chung's artistic practices are based on performance, drawing, still image, sculpture, and installation.{{cite web|last1=Noergaard|first1=Ulrik|title=Sougwen Chung|url=http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/10733/1/sougwen-chung|website=Dazed|date=30 June 2011 |accessdate=26 March 2017}} Chung's work investigates mark-made-by-machine and mark-made-by-hand for understanding the encounter of computers and humans.{{cite web|title=Sougwen Chung|url=http://fitc.ca/speaker/sougwen-chung/|website=FITC|accessdate=4 March 2017}}
Early life
Chung grew up in Toronto, Canada, and Hong Kong. Their father, an opera singer, made sure that his children had experience with musical instruments at a very young age, and Chung grew up playing violin and piano. Sougwen Chung moved to the United States as a teenager and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Indiana University Bloomington before obtaining a Masters Diploma in Interactive Art from Hyper Island in Sweden.{{cite web|last1=Shin|first1=Nara|title=Charged: Sougwen Chung|url=http://www.coolhunting.com/culture/interview-sougwen-chung|website=Cool Hunting|date=11 April 2014 |accessdate=4 March 2017}}
Career
Chung's work has been shown at galleries and museums across the world, including EMMA in Espoo, Finland, MAMCO in Geneva, Switzerland, Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada, and Istanbul's Akbank Sanat.{{Cite web|url=https://www.akbanksanat.com/en/exhibition/yokyerler|title=NonSpaces |publisher=Akbank Sanat|language=en|access-date=2019-11-18}} Chung has spoken globally at conferences including Tribeca Film Festival, New York; The Hospital Club, London; MUTEK Festival, Montreal & Mexico City; Sónar +D, Barcelona; The Art Directors Club, New York; Stockholm; SXSW, Austin; Tokyo; Internet Dargana, Barcelona: FITC; New York; OFFF, Barcelona; Gray Area Festival, San Francisco; and SIGGRAPH, Vancouver.{{Cite web|url=https://www.tfiny.org/events/detail/tfi_interactive|title=TFI Interactive|website=Tribeca Film Institute|language=en|access-date=2019-11-18}}{{Cite web|url=https://grayareafestival.io/bio/sougwen-chung/|title=Sougwen Chung|website=The Gray Area Festival|language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-18}}{{Cite web|url=https://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP18268|title=Schedule |website=SXSW Schedule 2014|access-date=2019-11-18}}
Sougwen Chung's work has also been featured in multiple international press outlets including The New Yorker, Art F City, Artnet, Artsy, Dazed and Confused, The Creators Project, MASHABLE, EXIT Magazine, Engadget, Business Insider, Fast Company and USA Today.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/10733/1/sougwen-chung|title=Sougwen Chung|last=Dazed|date=2011-06-30|website=Dazed|language=en|access-date=2019-11-18}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/robotic-arm-draws-by-mimicking-an-artists-movements-2015-7|title=This robotic arm draws almost as well as a human artist — because it sort of is one|last=Saini|first=Shivam|website=Business Insider|access-date=2019-11-18}}
An example of their work is the 2017 "Drawing Operations Unit." It is an exploration into how machine learning might be applied to the drawing style of the artist's hand. The robotic arm's behavior is generated from neural nets trained on the artist's drawing gestures.{{Cite web|url=https://aiartists.org/sougwen-chung|title=Sougwen Chung – Artist Profile (Photos, Videos, Exhibitions)|website=AIArtists.org|language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-18}} In a sense, the robotic arm has learned from the visual style of the artist's previous drawings and outputs a machine interpretation during the human/robot drawing duet.{{Cite web|url=http://nips4creativity.com/art/sougwen-chung/|title=Sougwen Chung – Art Gallery|website=nips4creativity.com|language=en|access-date=2018-03-04}}
Chung is a former researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab and an inaugural member of NEW INC, the first museum-led technology and art in collaboration with The New Museum. According to the World Science Festival 2018, they are an Artist-In-Residence at Bell Labs exploring new forms of drawing in virtual reality, with biometrics, machine learning, and robotics.{{Cite news |title=Sougwen Chung |language=en-US |publisher=World Science Festival |url=https://www.worldsciencefestival.com/participants/sougwen-chung/ |access-date=2018-03-04}}
In 2019 Chung presented a talk at TED@BCG Mumbai titled "Why I draw with robots".{{cite web |title=Why I draw with robots |url=https://www.ted.com/talks/sougwen_chung_why_i_draw_with_robots#t-15227 |website=TED Conferences, LLC |date=25 November 2019 |access-date=2 October 2021}}
In 2022, Chung's work MEMORY (Drawing Operations Unit Generation 2) was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The acquisition of MEMORY comprises a fine art print, a film documenting the artist's process, and a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) model contained within a 3D printed sculpture.{{Cite web |date=2022-12-14 |title=The Algorithmic Gesture: Sougwen Chung's MEMORY • V&A Blog |url=https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/digital/the-algorithmic-gesture-sougwen-chungs-memory |access-date=2023-01-06 |website=V&A Blog |language=en-US}}
In 2023, as part of Bulgari's '
On December 7, 2023, Chung contributed a guest essay titled "Where Does A.I. End and We Begin?" for The New York Times.{{Cite news |last=Chung |first=Sougwen |date=2023-12-07 |title=Where Does A.I. End and We Begin? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/special-series/artificial-intelligence-art.html |access-date=2024-02-26 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}
In 2024, Chung was honored with the TIME 100 AI designation, acknowledging their substantial contributions to the field.{{Cite magazine |date=2023-09-07 |title=TIME100 AI 2023: Sougwen Chung |url=https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6309455/sougwen-chung/ |access-date=2024-02-26 |magazine=Time |language=en}} Additionally, they were awarded the TIME 100 Impact Award, further affirming their significant contributions to the intersection of art and technology.{{Cite magazine |date=2024-02-11 |title=Sougwen Chung Brings Together Art and AI |url=https://time.com/collection/time100-impact-awards/6692042/sougwen-chung-ai-time-impact-award/ |access-date=2024-02-26 |magazine=Time |language=en}}
Selected works
- Praesentia Sculptures (2013) – 3D printed drawn sculptural prototypes printed in gold, made with custom software. Exhibited at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab 2013. Currently, they are prototypes for a forthcoming series examining dimensional mark making.
- Embryo (Étude OP. 5, No. 5) (2015) – Mixed media, commissioned by OFFF for OFFF Unmasked.
- Mimicry (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1) (2015) – An ongoing collaboration between an artist and a robotic arm.{{Cite web |title=Drawing Operations (2015) – Sougwen Chung (愫君) |url=https://sougwen.com/project/drawing-operations |access-date=2023-01-06 |language=en-US}}
- Praesentia (2015) – "As a pencil moves about the paper, its path is local and confined; freed from the need to consider the totality, it can respond immediately to "where the hand is now in praesentia.".{{cite web|title=sougwen|url=http://sougwen.com/filter/selected|website=Sougwen|accessdate=4 March 2018}}
- Memory (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 2) (2017) – Performance involving robotic memory.{{Cite web |title=Drawing Operations (2017) – Sougwen Chung (愫君) |url=https://sougwen.com/project/drawingoperations-memory |access-date=2023-01-06 |language=en-US}}
- Omnia per Omnia (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 3) (2018) – Collaborative drawing performance exploring the composite agency of an human and machine as a speculation on new pluralities.{{Cite web |title=Omnia per Omnia (2018) – Sougwen Chung (愫君) |url=https://sougwen.com/project/omniaperomnia |access-date=2023-01-10 |language=en-US}}
- Exquisite Corpus (2019) – A performance installation exploring the feedback loop between bodies – the human body, the machinic body, and ecological bodies.{{Cite web |title=Exquisite Corpus (2019) – Sougwen Chung (愫君) |url=https://sougwen.com/project/exquisite-corpus |access-date=2023-01-10 |language=en-US}}
- Flora Rearing Agricultural Network (F.R.A.N.) (2020) – A performance and exhibition featuring the creation of a speculative blueprint for a new robotic network connected to nature.{{Cite web |title=F.R.A.N. Flora Rearing Agricultural Network (2020) – Sougwen Chung (愫君) |url=https://sougwen.com/project/florarearingagriculturalnetwork |access-date=2023-01-10 |language=en-US}}
- Assembly Lines (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 5) (2022) – A performative installation featuring a custom multi-robotic system driven by meditation and biofeedback.{{Cite web |title=Assembly Lines (2022) – Sougwen Chung (愫君) |url=https://sougwen.com/project/assembly-lines-2022 |access-date=2023-01-10 |language=en-US}}
References
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External links
- {{Official website}}
{{Digital art}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chung, Sougwen}}
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:21st-century Chinese women artists
Category:21st-century Chinese artists
Category:Artificial intelligence art
Category:Artificial intelligence researchers