[ISEA2017] Artist Statement: Jiayi Young — Message in the Sky: the Changing Landscape of Human Aspiration

Artist Statement

Message in the Sky is an on-line crowd-sourced public participatory project that pools together the hopes and dreams of our time. The goal of the project is to map the landscape of collective human aspiration from people in different geographic locations living with different circumstances. The scale and time span of the project significantly expands research in emergent fields of design thatintegrates big data to engage social change. In the presence of increasing global challenges in conflict resolution, this project represents

  • Jiayi Young is an Assistant Professor of Design at the University of California, Davis, USA. Her inquiries lie within the emergent and experimental field of digital media with an emphasis on the cross-disciplinary areas of design that integrates the arts, the sciences with cutting edge technology. Her current research and creative work are focused on constructing data-driven sensor-enabled interfaces, installations, real-time projection graphics, participatory performances, and immersive environments in cultural and public places with a goal of creating generative energy to engage the public in social dialogue. Using multidisciplinary approaches, her work examines contemporary society including the culture of consumption, the programming and exploitation of the feminine, cultural assimilation, and personal identity. Leveraging social media, crowd-sourced media, and user-created content, she sets up scenarios and creates conditions to make visible empathetic relationship between people in the presence of contemporary culture. Her work invites the public to participate in order to come in close contact with an experience that engages the rethinking of the human condition. Jiayi Young actively exhibits and lectures nationally and internationally. At the University of California, Davis, she also co-directs Leonardo LASER speaker series.  jiayiyoung.info