full_interview_sougwen_chung_2 (240p).mp4
Sougwen Chung [00:00:00] My name is Sougwen Chung. I'm an artist and researcher working in the intersection of art and technology.
Speaker 2 [00:00:11] So okay, artist and researcher. That's not something you hear all the time. How did you end up there? What got you into this space?
Sougwen Chung [00:00:21] I ended up in the space of exploring human and robot collaboration from a pretty young age. My mother is a computer programmer and my father is an opera singer. So we really grew up with those two somewhat disparate elements in our household. So I got started as a digital native, I would say, as well. I had always an interest in technology but also music. And really learned about creativity and exploration of the world through being on the internet and also playing the violin. So those are two really defining practices in my mind at a young age.
Speaker 2 [00:01:12] So one of the big themes of driving the show is this idea that art and science has been siloed in a way that is sort of unnatural, but they really are kind of one and the same. So I'm curious, your background, your mother and father, did you grow up without that, the sense that creativity is sort of agnostic?
Sougwen Chung [00:01:31] Yeah, very much so. I mean, I think growing up in a household of music and technology, instruments and code was definitely a privilege. And in that way, they became both vehicles of my own expression, my own way of navigating the world. So I think there's a real hybrid mentality in that space, especially from that young of an age. I think there's something that I've really come to over the past few years, which is this idea that instead of interdisciplinary, we're really anti-disciplinary in how we think about working with different substrates in the world. So I think these false divisions and this false duality is something that push up against in my practice a lot. And the more I reflected on it, the more that I've been bringing into some of the thinking. But this hybridity is really at the center of so much of what I do, this alternative approach to dualistic thinking, like not human versus machine, but human and machine trying to really blur those lines, thinking about that with art and technology and art and science as well. And approaching them as this already interconnected configuration is very much how I grew up. Being a Chinese-Canadian too. So it's like an interesting thread that I've come to appreciate a little bit more.
Speaker 2 [00:03:07] So just to cover that one more time. So growing up in this, you know, hard music, hard coding environment, as you grew up, did you have a sense that your creativity, did think of it as creativity in both worlds?
Sougwen Chung [00:03:34] Yeah, I find the idea of creativity, I think of it as more expression, you know, expression using the materials and tools that I have at my disposal and maybe discovering and creating some new ones as I go along. But for me, it's always been about the process of expression and the process exploration and that ends up. Looking like creativity and I'm interested in that as well. But it always just came really naturally to get into a flow state of making that has been at the center of my work that is on some level non conscious, spontaneous and something that expresses a very intrinsic need to be in an environment in the way that feels authentic to me. So. You know, I think creativity ends up being about making a final image or creating a painting or a piece or a robotic unit. And I'm really interested in the flow states in those those sub configurations, maybe. So that's more what I'm after.
Speaker 3 [00:04:52] What do you mean by flow state?
Sougwen Chung [00:04:55] I think it's really interesting when when a process leads you to an unknown destination and non cognitive destination, not an unintentional artifact. So I think with the background as a musician, you know, you perform and you practice over and over this notation, your scales, the piece. You play what someone else has written a lot of the time when you're classically trained as I was. And when I knew that I was I was able to master the piece when I could perform and enter into a flow state while I was performing, when I forgot, you know, my presence in it and I forgot what I was doing and just inhabited the work. So I think that coming from a very young age, being a violinist, I think. State really stuck with me and I try to bring that into my performances and I use that as my own research goal, I think.
Speaker 2 [00:06:00] Somewhere along the line, like the painting violin. Yeah, yeah. Let's let's talk about the present and how this mindset carried you to today. First of all, what would you call yourself an artist researcher? How would you describe to someone who just met you what it is that.
Sougwen Chung [00:06:21] How to describe what I do to people and what what I find. I was going to I was gonna give another answer, but I'll start again. How would I describe what? I do. I have so many ways of describing what I. I guess on its simplest level, I think what gets people really excited is hearing that I draw with robots and they always say, oh, wait, you. A robot draws for you, a robot draws, for you and I'm like, no, no. I create a collaborative setting for my robotic units to draw with me. I think that always piques their interest about what it is to draw, what it. Is to paint and what it, is to work with robotics. So I've I've definitely described it in that way. I think there's something that I've. Come to in how I describe what I do, which is I'm exploring new forms of craft and art through emerging technologies, often building my own. Machine learning algorithms and my own robotic forms to explore that evolving idea of what art is, and they may be an involving idea of whatever robot can be.
Speaker 2 [00:07:39] Was there a point at which you were just painting yourself and then the robots came in?
Sougwen Chung [00:07:44] Yeah, yeah, I, I really find drawing to be a really centering practice. It's always been the simplest way of getting into a flow state, that state of gesture and that state is really free form, creative expression that has grounded me for my whole life. So when it came to working with technologies and really. Finding a creative outlet through screen based and interactive media. Back before, before all the robots and before that exploration, I found there was a disconnect between what I was able to do with code and generative work on screen and what really made me feel that sense of grounding, which was the gestural act of drawing. So in 2014, I really wanted to. Find a way to work with an interactive system that could ground me just really that was embodied in the way that my drawing was. So that's when I thought about what it would be like to draw with the robotic unit. And that was generation one, and it was a long time ago, but that was the very impetus of this creative journey for me.
Speaker 2 [00:09:05] Maybe come back to that idea in a second, but I'd love to know about your collaborators. Can you tell us a little bit about.
Sougwen Chung [00:09:13] Yeah, so I've been working with a range of interactive media as well as developing my own robotic systems for quite a while now. We're on our fourth generation, but I call the project drawing operations unit generation one, two, three, four. We're in our fifth generation now. It's a multi robotic system set of systems that I invoke in different ways using the technologies of the day. I've used computer vision. I've been feeding my own biometrics into the work, and I trained a recurrent neural network on two decades of my drawing data. I'm really trying to think about what that translation between things like human marks, human memories, human brain waves, what we can learn about that through extending it through a robotic system. So it's really followed my. My curiosities and my own explorations in technological development, but also taught me a lot about my own art practice as well.
Speaker 2 [00:10:20] Very briefly, just highlight what those iterations are.
Sougwen Chung [00:10:24] Absolutely. So it started with a simple project called drawing operations unit generation one. I really thought about embodiment and just the mark and how disembodied that was in a interactive screen based system. So I use a really simple computer vision system to track the position of my pen and the robotic unit would relay it on the same canvas in real time. So it created this. Duet for generation one that was a bit of a revelation for me because I realized in all my time working with screen based media, perfection was always really the goal of the system. But after working with this strange embodied collaborator, I realized that the imperfections and the glitches in the robotic unit gave me a real substrate to adapt to. It was unexpected. And I felt like so many different aspects of my senses were, you know, stimulated by this strange robotic movement. So that was the very first generation. And it really, it really changed how I thought about working with technology and the goal of it, because I think with the interactive system, it's always about a fully functioning, fully perfect engagement with. You know, a system. But this was really different. And that really piqued my interest. Generation two. Should I go through?
Speaker 2 [00:11:59] Yeah, freezing.
Sougwen Chung [00:12:00] Sure, sure. Generation. Sometimes, yeah.
Speaker 3 [00:12:06] OK, because if you wouldn't lie, that helps us.
Sougwen Chung [00:12:09] Yeah, yeah, I actually used to refer to them as Doug's a little bit. I used to, I call the whole project one of the ways to find out more about the project is I call it Drawing with Doug. I, I find anthropomorphization of the work really, really interesting, because it really brings. Almost like a human, a very relatable way of thinking about the work. I don't refer to the robotic units as Doug as much anymore. In all honesty, I think because sometimes I'm aware that anthropomorphizing the machine in that way can be a little manipulative in a way, like, you know, like Alexa being Alexa or Siri being Siri. I think there there's a tone there that sometimes I want to walk a tread back from a little bit. But that's more of a explanation for you guys than something that should make the edit. But I'll probably just refer to the robotic units in the way that I will. And we can work with that probably. Great.
Speaker 2 [00:13:27] I do, I do just want to make the distinction because we'll see it between the sort of Doug threes roaming around Doug four and you said there's a five as well. Yeah, yeah.
Sougwen Chung [00:13:38] Yeah, there, there are many generations of Doug now Doug to drawing operations unit generation to focus was on memory and also a really. Interesting time for me as I was thinking about drawing as a centering practice and how much drawing I've done over the course of my life. So I took two decades of my drawing data and digitized it and trained recurrent neural network on on those drawings. And I think extended my memory of, you know, my own practice through the robotic unit, which is really interesting. So, yeah, that was generation two. Should I go through the generations or.
Speaker 2 [00:14:21] I guess it'd be nice to have just because we're going to see. Yeah, but you don't have to expound so much just sort of what are the nuts and bolts differences.
Sougwen Chung [00:14:30] Okay, great, great. Generation three was a multi robotic system connected to the flow of the city and generation four was connected to my own biofeedback that I developed during the pandemic to really think of a new way of catalyzing robotic units in a non gestural non cognitive way.
Speaker 2 [00:14:52] So the distinction I'd like to discuss is this idea of them as collaborators, you're working with them.
Speaker 4 [00:14:58] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:14:59] But in some sense, they are also sort of a tool. I'm curious if you how you make that distinction, because as you said, you've not got to promote them as much.
Sougwen Chung [00:15:09] Yeah, yeah, it's it's an interesting area for me. Actually, that's constantly evolving. How I think about it is constantly evolving its its I don't necessarily think of the them as tools because they're performers of me in the space and they're based on something on an interactive system that responds to me and evolves with me over time evolves through. Integrating different types of data sets. So it's actually an interesting recursion and recursivity with the interactive systems that that don't in my mind, like a tool like a hammer or a paintbrush, it doesn't change the more you use it. It doesn't evolve. It doesn' grow. It doesn't learn from your own marks, but these systems. Really start to hint at what a human and machine collaboration could be a human non human collaboration could. So because of the nature of their being linked to my own input and my own body and their existence as evolving systems, I really do think that them as collaborators is the feels the truest way to define what it is. I think it's also meant to invite speculation in that, you know, what what do these tools or what do the tools evolve into? What do these collaborators evolve into. I like the prompt about when when we think about machines as collaborators, I think invites us to think about what kind of collaborators we want to design and what kind configuration we want this dynamic to be. So. Yeah, it's been a really speculative way of thinking about it that I'm enacting with with real engineering.
Speaker 2 [00:17:13] Yeah, if you were to work with another human.
Sougwen Chung [00:17:17] Yeah, yeah, never. No, I'm kidding. Why would I know I'm I'm getting is that I I I'm very grateful to the collaborators that I've had and I find collaboration to be a really intimate and and really profound creative collaboration is really. Should be about balance and uncertainty and communication and and I try to bring those. What I've learned with human collaborators into how I design and work with machine collaborators.
Speaker 2 [00:17:53] I think the question I was getting at is, yeah, what can Doug forgive me for saying that we can we can work with.
Sougwen Chung [00:18:00] We can we can work with Doug.
Speaker 2 [00:18:04] That human.
Sougwen Chung [00:18:07] That's interesting. I think the. Robotic Doug Doug as a collaborator can. Work from a database of two decades of my own drawing data can work work from. A system of my on biofeedback. It can translate what's machine readable through all these new and interesting sensors that are constantly evolving to create something that a human. Sensor human being a human collaborator doesn't have access to you know we can and I think that's in part what interests me about the project it's that. We have so much data that we're we're inundated with and data that shapes the world around us but as human beings we don't really have. The systems to parse it we do so through machines that enact predictive models they enact all these different things so I try to implicate my own machine collaborators in that. Dialog of how we work with data how we. Work with AI how we worked with neural networks. As a way to understand you know the the substrate of what these things actually are.
Speaker 2 [00:19:27] Rembrandt didn't have to worry about paint brush going out of style or you need to iterate in some way that changed its nature yeah yeah you I imagine. Do the complete opposite of that have to constantly think of this good method or achieve can you talk about that.
Sougwen Chung [00:19:44] Yeah I think I'm I'm really. In each generation of drawing operations unit in each generation have Doug it's really just me answering and asking answering a question within this collaborative configuration. What does it mean to translate two decades of drawing data into a machine representation what does it means to interact with my own. Brain waves what does it mean to paint with a collective you know all these as long as I'm really pursuing that these open ended questions in an authentic way. I don't I don't worry so much about whether it's good enough I just as long it's interesting to me I think that's been the real thing that drives me and I think. A key thing when. Pursuing any sort of creative endeavor it's never about really being good enough it's just about whether it feels like an authentic. Question that you want answered.
Speaker 2 [00:20:52] Relate what you're doing as a painter in the twenty first century.
Sougwen Chung [00:21:01] Painters have always used different optical painters have always use different technologies technologies of the day to create the images images that resonate with them that speak to their historical moment. In my mind I'm not doing anything different the paint brush and painting techniques techniques and optics ways of using glass to construct perspective. Those are technologies they're just not digital technologies and each painter. Utilizes that those technologies in their own way to capture the subject matter of the day and so for me there's no real difference in that it's just a evolution or maybe an inheritance of that. That legacy I guess.
Speaker 2 [00:21:51] One of the sort of profound moments in history. The idea that one of your dogs made a mistake. Didn't do something.
Sougwen Chung [00:22:03] They do all the time.
Speaker 2 [00:22:05] What can you talk about that idea that does it does it. Does making a mistake mean it's being creative or thinking on its own what does that mean to make a mistake.
Sougwen Chung [00:22:17] That's actually this idea of a mistake and this idea that imperfection in the collaboration is something that really still drives a lot of my creative interest. I think there's something very enriching and humanizing about a machine that makes a mistake an error state. I think something about that that as an engineer and programmer myself is actually more true to what the system is which is fallible. Filled with errors and not filled with errors but you know it's a fallible system as all systems are and I think what we resonate with when we see a machine. Error state is there's a truth in that there's reality to that that that reflects more of what life is and more about what these systems actually are I think we are sometimes. There's a narrative that I like to push up against which is this idea that the machine system is this discrete singular perfect entity and I think that's not. Not only is that untrue it's it's a bit of a dangerous proposition and I try to remind myself and remind the audience through the work that these are. Fallible systems just like we are and there's a real shared beauty in in being able to recognize that and also combine that in a unique way.
Speaker 2 [00:23:57] It's an interesting proposition when you're creating an artwork. How do you want a viewer to feel when they when you tell them well this part was a mistake.
Sougwen Chung [00:24:05] Yeah I mean the I think that's what I like about entering into a flow state with these configurations these performances and these collaborations is there's no mistakes when you're in that state and that's really vital to me. You know mistakes are one's biases there there one's own opinions there there are your own perspective and your situated experience so there's no mistakes in that I think it's misleading to think about them as mistakes.
Speaker 2 [00:24:44] They are ultimately in a somewhat reactionary process to what you're doing right they're not just going to start moving.
Sougwen Chung [00:24:52] Gosh I hope not.
Speaker 2 [00:24:56] So what do you make of the idea of let's say a robot doing 100 percent of.
Sougwen Chung [00:25:05] I think for me that type of machine extension misses the point of working with with robotic units right.
Speaker 2 [00:25:18] You just state the idea so the robot did 100 percent.
Sougwen Chung [00:25:23] I think if the robot did 100 percent of the painting it relinquishes my involvement in the work and I think in that way my own painting ability and my the pleasure I've taken it with with atrophy and that's not what I'm interested in. Why would we want machines to have all the fun right and I think there's that idea that a machine could even replace. Human output and human work and human meaning that doesn't seem true to me actually I think it's always about that shared space the machine isn't necessarily a discrete entity it's all ways that interrelatedness with the human with the designer is always there. So with the work using this idea and these technologies as a collaborator I try to remind myself and remind. My audience that the human element is always present and it's not about machines replacing humans but finding new ways to co-evolve together.
Speaker 2 [00:26:34] Do you feel a certain way you know we've spoken to other people painting with robots. You know semantics aside they are probably a little less human centric and more robot centric than what you're doing. You are very much in a collaboration. Do you feel a certain way not naming anybody do you feel that a way about what they're doing.
Sougwen Chung [00:26:55] You know I think I always get excited about obviously robotic units and robots and anyone exploring what they want to with with machines. I think as a baseline as a designer and engineer I think the more people in the space exploring what I want to the better. For me I think that extension. Doesn't really capture what's really exciting about working with technologies today and for me that's the feedback loop. That's the way to challenge both actors in that space both human and machine drawing is challenged when there is a collaborative engagement versus a machine that draws and executes existing static scripts is not for me. The real the meat of the the technological or philosophical inquiry.
Speaker 2 [00:28:00] You put your work in full display.
Sougwen Chung [00:28:05] Yeah there's a lot of vulnerability in that I think.
Speaker 2 [00:28:09] Is that part of the idea why do you perform as opposed to doing it.
Sougwen Chung [00:28:14] You know I think there's something about. I'm trying to find a way to say it to reference the previous question. But I think there's some. There's some projects that in which the machine draws independently of the engineer the designer and that and that. And that's fine I think for my work I'm really interested in being able to show that negotiation that gestural embodied interaction. I think there's a lot of as a performer. It really pushes me to to really think about how to paint with a non sentient collaborator and. As an engineer and as a developer it also pushes me to think about what kind of sensors what kind. Input I want to give to my robotic collaborator to create the most. Interesting feedback group you know and I like that that changes based on my environment based on. My audience which is one reason I'm bringing in biofeedback. It brings this element of the unexpected that is in my control but also not in my. Control that becomes something really invigorating for me.
Speaker 3 [00:29:49] So the sense that the performance part of it is a kind of.
Sougwen Chung [00:30:03] Sure I find the idea of demystifying A.I. It really interesting as a performer I try to I think when I'm working with the robotic units in the space for performance. You see the. The extent to which and the depth to which the. Robotic units and me are connected. It's not something happening in a vacuum it's not. This grand idea of machine singularity it's one robotic unit that's adapting to me and I'm adapting to this. Or sometimes one sometimes twenty but you know it's. It's a very I think a very humble configuration but I like that it shows. Something that I think we feel all the time is that we're constantly navigating these technologies these A.I. Systems and I think the presence of both in the space of a performance is. It's just really important to what I'm interested in which is not that. Not that the machine is something separate but that we're trying to. Create new definitions of human and machine in this process if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 [00:31:25] Do you. You know something we all share. When you complete something it's almost a bit of a almost a sadness. That there's no longer any potential it's all now realized. Yeah.
Sougwen Chung [00:31:41] I've never felt that sense of maybe despair about completing. Probably that's why I'm on my fifth generation of these robotic units. As a performer you know the performance can always change and evolve I'm not making. Discrete objects to to be experienced in that way I guess I'm. Not finishing the. The investigation is just all part of this ongoing. Thank you. Curiosity so I don't I don't really feel that actually every performance every generation is on its way to becoming something else. And that really excites me.
Speaker 2 [00:32:22] Is there separating at some point. Is there a separation of the performance. Would you feel comfortable just making paintings and putting them in the gallery.
Sougwen Chung [00:32:38] Yeah I I think I. I think about the paintings as artifacts of expressions of the moments of the painting. Expressions of the the moment of the interaction if you would. So I like that they exist as artistic artifacts but also research artifacts. You can think about what what this biofeedback translation looks like versus this recurrent neural network AI machine learning. Artifact versus just simple mimicry with computer vision versus what the city of New York looks like in a painting like. There are different ways to register that on an emotional intuitive level but they also work as expressions of the technologies that I'm using and you can I like their coexistence is both a lot actually.
Speaker 2 [00:33:31] I don't know if I've ever heard it sort of look like that but the painting is something of just. Proof proof that.
Speaker 4 [00:33:43] Okay.
Sougwen Chung [00:33:45] Tessa's heard this too many times she's like I got this.
Speaker 4 [00:33:49] Okay.
Speaker 3 [00:33:55] Okay. Well.
Speaker 4 [00:34:01] Yeah. Yeah.
Sougwen Chung [00:34:05] Smokey Rudy studio.
Speaker 4 [00:34:07] That's.
Sougwen Chung [00:34:08] I'm really glad actually that we're filming on Sunday because it's it's nicer to take our time with the interview because after a performance I'm a bit.
Speaker 2 [00:34:19] More energized.
Speaker 3 [00:34:24] Still running.
Speaker 4 [00:34:31] Yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:34:33] All right so we roll in again. Could you do. Oh you know. So just to get get back to that thought so so I love the idea of the painting as the artifact. Proof that. What's what seems to be the real art you're creating which is the moment. Yeah.
Sougwen Chung [00:34:55] Second imprint.
Speaker 2 [00:34:57] Can you talk about that. Impressing. Upon the viewer performance. This. This technology collaboration technology. Is the art as opposed to the paintings.
Sougwen Chung [00:35:13] Yeah I would say that I never realized because you only know your own practice I think about my own practice. I've been working within it for so long. For me it's really the question. It's always the question and the question of how this collaboration can evolve how I can evolve through learning about these new systems and performing in a different way and learning about my feedback learning about. Optical flow learning about multi robotic systems like that's all that's that's I feel like the at the real heart of my practice and. Impresses upon a canvas through paint and sometimes sculpture and sometimes different mediums but I really. It's about this active investigation and inquiry that is really the heart of everything which keeps me really interested. I don't know if I would be. I'm I don't think about painting in that traditional sense I think about it as mark making and I think the evolution of the work. What I like about that is that from what I was doing in twenty fourteen to what I'm doing in 2020 to what. I'm going in twenty twenty four the journey will be visible and. Not really constructed it just it evolves as it will and I think I like the organicness to that that allows me to not be confined by painting as an object but painting as a type of investigation.
Speaker 2 [00:36:56] Touches on something else that we talk about in the show which is technology leading art and throughout history someone invented the camera yeah artists took that. You know photographers and filmmakers yeah they where do you see yourself on that kind of timeline both in your work and maybe the other iterations that future artists will make based on.
Sougwen Chung [00:37:18] That's a that's an interesting question actually I like being able to engage with the technologies of the day because I think beyond the microcosm of the art practice technology. Changes the world it shapes society shapes how we interact how we. How we communicate how we see ourselves and often that happens really subliminally. Like we don't think about a camera anymore there's probably thirty five cameras in here right now easily right I mean not just because this is being filmed right but like at any given moment any room we enter into the technology becomes invisible. But it has changed everything in how we interact and. And I want to see that reflected in the work that I do on a really. Ground level on the level of interaction I want to see how that changes the image I want. To see how. That changes the performance I don't want to create work that's editorializing it by just speculating on what it could be in my work I hope what could be is you know I'm working with the systems I'm. Working with these embodied gestures. And I think that grounds it in the moment and. I'm not sure where that will go in the future but I do think. What I'm excited about forthcoming generations maybe engaging in this type of process as well is that it increases your technical and socio technical knowledge of these systems when you actually work with it at this. You're really hands on level and it demystifies AI it. Shines some light into the black box maybe of our own data and how it's being produced and how its being utilized so I think there's something really powerful and being able to invoke that but also take what you learn in that to change the systems that you develop and really. Make bespoke. Your engagement with these with these these new technologies if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 [00:39:37] Yeah I have a couple of thoughts. What is AI to the layman what are we even talking.
Sougwen Chung [00:39:48] Sure. AI is a really interesting term that has been popularized over the past few years describe. Different types of interconnected systems sensory sensor system sensor data machine learning algorithms. And network technologies in general I think AI is very. Provocative way of thinking about it. But and I like that it's speculates on this idea of a different intelligence and alternative intelligence but I actually don't really love it as a term because. I'm not sure I think this idea. Of artificial intelligence implies that there is a natural intelligence and I don't agree with that. Duvality actually I don't. There's no such thing as natural intelligence and I think it's just different ways of navigating and deriving meaning from the world. I think AI is often really misused I think there should be another term for it probably.
Speaker 2 [00:41:03] That's kind of what I'm talking about because I think it's become so pop culture to say it's lost it's kind become diffused. But I think the way people take it is a machine that has become more human. You seem to be quite aware of that that you're actively trying to stem that from happening.
Sougwen Chung [00:41:25] Yeah I think the. I think the idea of AI ends up. It's like interconnected intelligence there must be another way of there must. Be another way other than artificial to think about that but also. I think terms like AI really ask us ask us as. Experiencers of and developers and as people in society what is artificial in this construction and what is intelligent in this. Construction I think to think of these systems as intelligent also maybe subscribes a type of. Sophistication that these systems might not yet have. So there's a lot of different ways to think about. A I think thinking about it more as it's discrete components ends up asking more interesting questions.
Speaker 2 [00:42:34] Do you feel like this is the. So do you feel. I'm terrified personally of someone being able to push a button. And the computer takes all the footage and edits it together. That's already something.
Sougwen Chung [00:42:48] Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:42:50] Do you feel like it behooves us to kind of. Temper what we're doing this track we're on to say it's enough or we shouldn't or where you land on that.
Sougwen Chung [00:43:02] I think there are really interesting ways of using data and predictive modeling to. Construct meaning out of. Different types of data like ecological data for instance like what. Can we as human beings not. Parts that we can use technology machines and algorithmic. Ways of constructing meaning to. To think through you know I think those are really interesting applications of technology. One example would be using computer vision to detect. The cancerous cells in micro imaging data that's a really. It saves a lot of human labor and there's a lot. Of interesting applications that. Automating the most interesting parts. Of being human the the parts that give us the most joy. I'm I'm not sure if. If that's really how we want to be applying these these systems you know like. I'm actually sure that that's not what I'm interested in doing personally I think. Yeah I don't think we should automate away our our human pleasure. Our creative pleasure with these technological systems and and I think. To think of that path as inexorable as as like we're heading there no matter what. Is is also a bit misleading so I think we have a lot more agency over that than we we think we do.
Speaker 3 [00:44:42] Just as kind of a brief explanation as possible about the program.
Sougwen Chung [00:44:51] Do you want me to contextualize it with anyone else's work or.
Speaker 3 [00:44:56] What we're going to be we're gonna be seeing images of you working with your system. Collaborators. What makes those collaborators special there's something about there's. Something in them that comes from you so that's what we want.
Sougwen Chung [00:45:15] I think the best way to approach this because I I there are differences between. Okay. So in my artistic collaborations I use my own drawing data my own gestural data and my own biofeedback. As as a medium for artistic exploration. I'm interested in doing so because I find that's how I learn more about. My my own drawing and I think it's closer to me. It's closer. To what I think. Drawing and performance and painting actually is I think in the field there's a lot there's. A misconception about. The about what painting and drawing is because the data that it's being trained on is flat. Like flat data pixelated data. And for me there's a disconnect because. That's not what painting or drawing is it's not the final image it's the act it's. The process of that investigation so. I'm I think it's important to really think about personal data and. My own artistic biases in these machine learning systems. Instead of using maybe public data. Data about. Human memories to reduce individual subjects to single data points is not a narrative that I'm interested in.
Speaker 2 [00:46:57] I think what we're getting at is maybe like if we were watching you paint and you were narrating for us what it is.
Speaker 3 [00:47:03] I mean you talked about by a few back to talk about 20 years. I'm just like this like 20 years of your work. Yeah yeah. Because I have a follow up question to that. Sure. I need to have the very basic.
Sougwen Chung [00:47:15] Sure sure I'm a leading question a concise leading question might be a nice way to catalyze that for me. I.
Speaker 3 [00:47:24] Yeah yeah. Is that. Well. Here's the. Here's my question. This is what I'm going to follow up. Okay sure. All of us are creative and probably people who are necessarily so creative would love to be able to clone ourselves. I would love. To be able. To have another Louie who's working on other stuff while I'm working on the editing. Yeah yeah yeah. Different problem. Okay. You sort of have done that. It's not that they're better but they have a better memory. Yeah yeah. Because they have all that information. 20 years of information front to front. They're reading your body patterns. You yourself may not be aware of. Yeah yeah yeah. So I'm fascinated by that. But I need to understand that that's what's going on when I'm looking at.
Sougwen Chung [00:48:07] Right right. Understood. So that's not a question. I can try to think about I'm not. That's I really have a lot of advermation for what you guys do because I'm actually really I don't know if I can editorialize or narrate my own work. I think you're much better at it than I am but I'll try. So I develop different generations of robotic units based on my own personal data drawing data biofeedback data and in each performance in each research configuration there is a feedback loop on canvas. The robotic unit sees through positional data and. Different types of visual data how I'm drawing on a canvas the position of my mark. The speed of my Mark and it interprets that input data based on two decades of my drawings that I've fed into the recurrent neural network that recurrence is what makes each performance really special because I don't have a lot of control over. How the robotic unit is going to respond. It is making its own interpretation of what I would do based on my input data and based on you know like I said the two generations of my drawing. And what's interesting about that is the spontaneity and the fact that it is connected to my own decision making on canvas and my decision making over the course of my life in one. Single canvas and one single performance moment I think there's a fluidity in that drawing duet that is so in the moment. And tied to my own evolving understanding of. Drawing and performance that that I think is really special for me. Based on how I grew up. Based on how I grew up technology is a very emotional thing right capital T lowercase T technology is of really defining aspect of our lives and the lives of forthcoming generations so I think. They see the artifacts the paintings and can see a genuine. Co evolution co expression a genuine navigation with something that we've been sort of taught to believe is really scary. That those new configurations can maybe create something expressive and evocative and deeply personal. I think that's that's how I feel about the project so I hope that's communicated through. The artifacts and I think it is because it's it's how it was made you know. So I don't think the. Technologies that I'm experimenting with in the in the project. Really detracts from the emotional component to it I think it only makes it more grounded and more real because it's it's how we live our lives now.
Speaker 2 [00:52:02] And then yeah just you know you're uniquely position as well because you have a Chinese background Canadian background here in London. We'll talk about arts education in the show. Do you have a thought about how art and stem are taught you know in America versus other countries.
Sougwen Chung [00:52:25] For better for worse I feel like the Internet was my teacher and a lot of these ways I I've been in a lot. Of different educational contacts but the learning that I that my brain is wired to do is all self taught really there's so many resources there's. So much generosity online so many tutorials so many so many really vibrant communities around. Around learning online that I'm really excited for that to really be utilized. I don't think that learning should be restricted to one Academy or one institution I think that's a big mistake and in that way I don't think that. Learning should be relegated to one discipline and I've never thought that way and I think the Internet. Really allows us to really celebrate that and find like minded people who think in that anti disciplinary way to.
Speaker 2 [00:53:30] So that's sort of conceptually if a kid is in school.
Sougwen Chung [00:53:33] Yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:53:35] These things are. Yeah.
Sougwen Chung [00:53:40] That they are or that they're not.
Speaker 2 [00:53:41] I'm assuming you agree with the idea but I don't.
Sougwen Chung [00:53:47] I think I've always thought that art and science they need each other they're different ways of looking at the same thing. And what I'm not going to I'm going to botch this with glissant quote right now but. They're both different. Forms of the same type of language a language of understanding and investigating. Something about our world something about our experience of the world so I think they have to be really interconnected if if we teach science without the humanities then there's no real context for asking what we should develop and why. And art in its own silo doesn't. Benefit from the forces and tools and technologies that are shaping our world. So for me they have to come together in interesting and pluralistic configurations.
full interview_sougwen chung_3.mp4
Speaker 1 [00:00:00] Well why don't you just tell me sort of where we are right now and what this space is.
Sougwen Chung [00:00:07] So we are at my studio in London. I am new in town and I recently relocated the practice and I'm building a studio in here east, which has been really interesting. I feel like the community's really welcome this confluence of AI and performance art. I've had a lot of really interesting conversations with choreographers and developers and just really enjoying the fresh air and energy of England right now.
Speaker 1 [00:00:42] So I'd love if you could just sort of walk me through in the present tense if we were watching what just happened, what it is that we're watching happen.
Sougwen Chung [00:00:53] Sure. So my practice is a combination of art and research, and technological development, robotics and AI. And what I really love to do is share that on the space of a realm I know really well, which is the space of the canvas. In these performances, I am performing with today, Doug five, a drawing operations unit generation five. It's a multi-robotic system tied to my own biofeedback. This is part of a multigenerational exploration on connection with machines and trying to figure out a different configuration with technology. In the practice and in the performance, I paint alongside two robotic units. We build up the canvas together with a series of lines, gestures, sensors, and essentially, improvised movement. What I really love about this performance is because the robotic units are linked to my own gestural and biofeedback, nothing's automated. It actually challenges this idea that robotic units are only meant to automate human behavior. I really like this notion of more improvisational, more expressive feedback loop between. Artists and machines in the space of a performance. So what I like about it is because the gestures are so tied to each other, I feel like I bring in not only my interpretation of the machine, the robotic presence, but also the presence of the people in the room, really creating this state of attention that. I think has been really challenging for me as an artist, but also hopefully interesting for the viewer as well.
Speaker 1 [00:02:53] In those moments, you know, that's a kind of high-level idea of what's happening. I love if you could kind of place yourself to just moments ago, in that moment. You're giving a sort of caress to these, to the ducks, the robots. You feel a very strong connection, it's sort of clear. Can you, without getting too sort of everything you're trying to do with it, take me to that moment. What are you feeling? What's happening there?
Sougwen Chung [00:03:25] I think part of the gestures with the robotic units, with the dugs, is I'm trying to hone in in the performance this sense of fluidity, this real configuration of care with the robotic units with my collaborators. And it's a really instinctive response to being in that co-creative moment. As I'm trying to establish. A visual balance with the performance and the drawing, I quite instinctively try to create a gestural flow as well, one that's gentle, and it's a really strange sensation that takes over me in the performance, actually, and I think what it's taught me is a new and a different way of engaging with the robotic units to these machines that is more about that care. I take care of, I maintain, I program and I build these systems, but because they're driven by my own data and my own, in this case, biofeedback, there's something about being able to translate that calm. That's centering through gesture in subtle ways, in expressive ways in the space of the performance. And it's really, it's been a very challenging but really fascinating approach to the project that is part of its evolution.
Speaker 1 [00:05:13] It's almost a motherly quality. Do you sense that?
Sougwen Chung [00:05:18] I sense less of the maternal... What's the word? I'm really open to different types of interpretations. I think maybe the maternal reading, which I've heard many times actually, comes from our associations with that kind of gestural care. As human beings, I think we associate that with maybe being a toddler or an infant, sort of being cared for by a... Someone with a different level of sophistication, intellectual. Motorized sophistication and development, but I do think there's something nurturing about how I feel about working with this new configuration with the robotic units that I'm still really intrigued by personally. I found that that's a really natural extension of how I feel in the performance. And if I'm honest with you, it helps calm me down as I'm working with these different systems. And it's a very unusual but emotional way of navigating and co-navigating this co-creative process that I think resonates with a lot of people in that way. And I think that's exciting to me because I think in Our engagements with these systems and these robotics, these AI systems, I think it always teaches us something in return. It teaches us to maybe be more commanding or domineering and I think we order around a lot of our voice assistants and it becomes a pattern that we replicate over and over. This pattern of... Thinking about assistance as beckoning or doing our bidding, you know? And I don't really love that way of thinking about working with technology because I think that changes how we expect these systems to perform for us. And I like that this challenges that mode of interaction. You know, there's a There's the interactive system that you develop, and then there's the interactive system that you are part of. And I like that this system encourages me to think about ways of care and ways of being gentle with the things I build and the artistic processes that I embroil myself in.
Speaker 1 [00:08:20] Just a couple more thoughts, you'd mentioned how you don't love the idea of selling these pieces, of giving them away. I think if you had a place big enough you would just collect them all forever. Is there a kind of emotional attachment to these artifacts because it was made together with the Dugs? Or explain that feeling of not wanting to give it.
Sougwen Chung [00:08:48] I see these pieces as, it's almost like my own scrapbook of this journey, you know, my own archive of growth and development, really, and errors and imperfections and insights, and I see it as a lifelong project, so that project is part of these paintings that we make. Really essential components to that visual language and that visual story that unfolds. So I actually never think about them as, I don't think about as paintings as much as artifacts of this journey and exploration, so I still find it very, I'm new to this idea that I have to maybe part with them, but I'm hoping to, you know, I became more comfortable with it. Because there's something about, I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but... I think there's something about the art market that just struck me as so soulless and capitalist. I've always felt that way, but I'm starting to see it a little bit differently, like people, especially people who've been interested in the work have been interested for a really long time, and if they want to steward one artifact and care for it, then I'm I'm running out of room. So we're developing relationships with people who want to support the work and who are really interested in what we're trying to build and that seems really meaningful and I feel really fortunate and lucky to have people really emotionally invested in the work beyond like the concerns of the art market which I'm not as interested in.
Speaker 1 [00:10:47] I just really had one other thought here, your post performance, are you exhausted? What are you feeling right now?
Sougwen Chung [00:10:55] I always feel pretty exhilarated after a performance. It's a bit like coming back to the world, if I'm honest, because when you ask me about what happens in a performance, I think the point of it is that I'm accessing a non-conscious part of my self, the flow state, the... Escapism maybe, and that's what I love about performance. It's a way to really engage in another way of sensing. So when I come back to it, it's, yeah, it different. It's exhilarating.
Speaker 1 [00:11:37] And you're sort of ready to get back in there, you really need a minute to recharge.
Sougwen Chung [00:11:41] I tend to need a minute to recharge. I think maybe people who resonate and participate and build an art practice feel this way, but I think the artistic mindset, the art practice, involves a certain sensitivity to material, to medium, to energies, to all these things. So I think I definitely am guilty of that as well. So. When I'm in the space of a performance, it's the sensitivity to this relation to the robotic units and the people around me, which is not so verbal. It's like hyper non-verbal. And to be in a space where I'm talking is always a bit strange, but I like both. I think both, I find grounding in different ways. And I feel really humbled and honored to be able to talk about the work. Because I think some people... Don't get that opportunity, and I love it, yeah, so it's always good.
