Just

This is the spot we started to talk to each other.

It was during the Dumbo Arts Festival 2007, it was in Sep, it was still very hot that year in Sep. Aichen brought I-Hua and Hsiang Ju with her, Hsiang Ju had to leave early for her school work.

I remember when Aichen introduced us, I-Hua didn't smile or say anything, as well as during the whole walk in the festival. Why we started to each other was because Aichen was still checking out the exhibit when we all finished for a while, we were both waitting for Aichen to came out. That is the moment that you kind HAVE to talk. So we talked.

I can't remember how we started the topic, but I told her I was looking for a church, and she said why don't you come to my church with me this Sunday. I was thinking in my mind "this not-smiling-gilr goes to church ???" This is the only conversation I can remember we had that day. Maybe this was the only conversation we had that day.

I remember that following Sunday, I went to her church. On the subway, there was a girl sat down next to me, and it was I-Hua. What a coincidence.

We had this picture tooken after two years we met.

"Peek, Poke, Talk" shows in Dumbo Art Festival 2009

Dumbo Art Festival is an important exhibit for me personaly. It was the first exhibit I went when I came to NY, and I met one of my bset friends I-Hua there. So being able to show project there this year, means a lot to me.

Athough this project has been show many times, but they were all at in doors environment. Me and Meng we were happy about having the chance to install it at out door, to play around in different environment. Moreover, we get set up in a park, next to the realy benches, which makes this project more site specific.

one day project: 禮很輕情意很重 part2 (it's the thought that counts）

This time I deliver my "time" as a gift to a friend.

She is a friend that I'm not really familiar "yet", she asked me one day, how can I be able to full of love. So I decided to tell her the answer I know on her birthday.

I wrote a Bible script "We love because he first loved us. " (我們愛、因為神先愛我們）inside of the box. And made the box and wriped it in the subway. I carried the box with me for the whole day. Evan when I tranport my bench project from China town to Brooklyn with a friend, I still carried it. Even when I went to a friend's opening, I carried it.

Becaure we are not very close friends, so during the time I carried the box, I feel I force myself to put this friend onto my heart. I have to remind myself, do not forget the box. Even though it is annoying sometimes that I have to always spare a hand to carry it. But this period of time I was thinking about this friend a lot, and this is the gift I gave to her, my time.

And of course the bible script that wrote in the box. It is the answer of her question "how to be able to full of love." I hope because of weight of box and my time, will make this very short bible script more unforgetable for this friend.

one day project: 禮很輕情意很重 (it's the thought that counts）

I got this ticket from a 60's arcade museum(電動玩具店）. After you play the shooting game, this ticket will come out from the machine shows your shooting record. I really like this ticket. Not just because it's very old school style, also because there is some physical things you get to keep after playing the game.

So I thought about keep some of these tickets I can give to my friends as a gift. But I keep forgetting to carry them with me when I meet my friends, because the ticket has no weights. In order to not to forget, I put the ticket in a book.

Then I thought, how should I give this ticket to my friend, maybe she will put it in her book as well as a bookmarker, or maybe she will just put it in her parket then forget about it. Because the ticket has no weights. How can I make sure she gets the point that what matter is not this piece of paper, what matter is the moment I thought about her when the ticket came out from the machine.

I decided to make this very light piece of paper become very difficult to ignore. I put it into a big white box, and wrap it with blue ribbon. I had some hard time to make the blue ribbon stay on the box. Also when I carried the big box, I have to spare a hand to carry it, which makes my journey to meet my friend a little bit harder.

But I was very happy. When I pick the box at the store, when I wrap the box with the ribbon. Even when I carried it with me. I'm exciting to see my friend's expressions.

The gift is also become more unforgetable because when she receives it, she has to think how to bring it home, where to put the box etc. She is forced to spend some time on it.

Then we both spent some time on it. Now this ticket is more than an object, it is an object that carries the times from two people. This ticket has weights now.

就像這句"禮輕情意重"成語的來源一樣、前面應該還有一句"千里送鵝毛, 禮輕情意重"
有個國家的大使千里迢迢的帶了隻珍貴的鳥要送給皇帝、結果沒想到鳥半路竟然飛走了、大使只抓到了個羽毛、也只好硬這頭皮繼續帶著這個羽毛翻山越嶺、終於見到了皇帝、皇帝看在大使"
千里送鵝毛, 禮輕情意重"的份上、就饒了他。

所以本來沒有重量的羽毛、因為加上大使的辛苦旅程而變得很有份量。本來沒有重量的 ticket, 加上我的時間和收禮物人的時間、它就不在只是一張薄薄的紙了。

A new project: Your word, Your world.

祢的話
我將你的話語，深藏在我心，免得我得罪你，免得我遠離。
哦主啊！與我親近，我愛你聲音，作我腳前的燈，作我路上的光。

天地將要過去，你的話卻長存，天地將毀壞，你的話卻長新。

我將你的話語，深藏在我心，免得我得罪你，免得我遠離。
哦主啊！與我親近，我愛你聲音，作我腳前的燈，作我路上的光。

Your Word
I have hidden your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you, I might not far away,
Oh Lord, come near to me, I love Your voice,
Be the lamp to my feet and the light for my path.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but your word endures for ever,
Heaven and earth will be perished, but your word is everlasting.

I have hidden your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you, I might not far away,
Oh Lord, come near to me, I love Your voice,
Be the lamp to my feet and the light for my path.


上帝的話是我最大的幫助與安慰
從一個陌生的城市到另一個陌生的城市
從一個高峰到一個低潮
從一個低潮到另一個高峰
在我快樂的時候
在我孤單的時候

既然我的信仰對我有這麼大的影響
我希望這個東西也能表現出在我的作品上
我之前做的東西
總是希望讓參與的人能夠看的高興 玩得開心 覺得溫暖
也是因為我的信仰
讓我覺得這個世界是溫馨的
現在
我想回到源頭
回到我創作靈感的源頭
回到這個影響我人格思考想法行為最深遠的東西
就是上帝的話

簡單的說
我想回應我的信仰
而且我相信
既然這個世界是祂創造的
一定可以用祂的話來詮釋

我的想法是每天拍一張照片
用聖經裡的一句經句來呼應這張照片
到我28歲生日那天
也就是2009, Sep, 13th.
第99天

這是初步的想法

And here are the rules/constrains:
1. The photos have to be fresh. Which means I have to take at least one picture everyday.

2. The contents can only be used once.

to see pictures

Dream comes true!

Paint my room is one of the things I always wanna do since I was a kid.
Finally, I make it happened after I finish my master degree, before I turn to 28 years old.
I'm very happy!

2009 ITP Thesis Presentation Video Stream:

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/thesis2009/video-stream/

Thesis: Finish the website!

ineedyoutoneedme.com

Industrial Design: Light Switch

For Industrial Design class, we need to make a light switch.

My idea is to make a coat rack that when you put your clothes on, will turn on the light. When you take the clothes off, will turn off the light. The clothes that hangs on there becomes the cover for the light bulb. So when you come home, you can just put the coat on the rack and turn on the light. When you leave the home, just take off the coat from the rack to turn off the light.

To do that, I put a relay switch in between the light bulb circuit. When hang on the clothes, turns on the relay switch, complete the circuit, turns on the light.

The form is really simple just like a tree stick with three branches. The stick can stand everywhere because of the design of the foot and branches.

Thesis: sketches of ideas

Thesis: Hug Me Alarm

Stop the alarm by hugging it.

Thesis: The alarm needs hug (puting everything together)

Putting everything together.

I thought the hardest part is to make the construction of the wood frame, but it turns out to put the clothes and the small buttons for setting up time took me most of the time. I can spent 10 hours just to figure out how to on the green cover nicely. It's really a pain and requirs way more thinkings and buildings than I thought.

Thesis: The alarm needs hug (electronic part)

This is the alarm that is going to be put into the big wood body.

I changed it's interface, so what it would work become:
- small hug: turn on the snooze / the alarm stops but will goes on again in 9 mins.
- big hug: turn off the alarm / the alarm won't go on again.
- big hug: turn on the alarm

So to set up the alarm, you give it a big hug. To turn it off, you give it another big hug. To turn on the snooze function, give it a small hug is fine.

Thesis: The alarm needs hug

The progress of today was making a perfect hole in the front of the alarm for the LED to show time. I learned a new way of making it and how to sand it with perfect straight as well from Paul, the guy who works in the woodshop.

And to make the alarm hugable, I took Taylor's advice to use springs. It's better for the mechanism, how to turn on or off the switch, as well as make people the alarm is hugging back when they hug it.

Lots of thinking and making and learning!

Thesis: The alarm needs hug

The most time and energy consuming part is to curve the edges of these two big pieces of wood, due to the limited of our woodshop. Thank God I found another woodshop in out building, it for another department. Paul, the guy who works there lets me borrow his cool tools and woodshop, saves me lots of time, and gets pretty curves done as well as strong arms.

Thesis: The alarm needs hug

To stop the alarm, the owner has to hug it. In order to be able to hug the alarm, I making the alarm into a real person size. And I making the curves of the edges to make the alarm cuter or more needy, which is killing my arms!

Thesis: The speaker will loud it's voice to get the owner's attention

I reverse the interaction with the speakerbecause of this picture.

When I went to visit my friend Melisha, I sat with her little daughter Lyedia at back of the car. Everytime Lyedia cries, she only calms down when Melisha holds her little hands.

To apply to the speaker, it will loud it's voice to get the owner's attention. When the owner hears the loud voice and comes to pet it, will calm the needy speaker down.

Thesis: The speaker needs to be pet to work

So I made this pet desperate speaker last week.

The volume goes normal at first. Then the volume goes down, to bring the volume back to loud again, need to pet the speaker. And after a while, when no one pay attentions to it, the volume will go down again.

The feedback I got from my thesis class is, they are not satisfied with the result. They think the speaker doesn't have enough emotions. Which I think it's very true. It doen't seem too interesting just bring the volume back.

THERE IS SOMETHING MISSING! what is it??? what is it???

Thesis: Needy Objects

Concept:
I'm insterested in relationships and human behaviors, and that's what most of my works are about. I like to create something that bring people together happily. Everttime when people see my projects, their first reactions are all like "this is sweet!" Why they think bring people together is a sweet thing? My observations is, because everyone needs the feeling of being needed. This is an impoerant and very basic need. But nowadays, our society only excouranges us to seek for the individual success, we are so focus on it that we forgot to satisfy our very basic needs.

Idea:
In order to arise the awareness of the impoerance of the need of being needed and needing, I want to create some "needy objects" from the daily objects. These objects are needy because they need the owner's attentions. They need the owner's participance to make them work.

Interactions:
Needy object 1: Speaker
This speaker doesn't like to be alone. To grab attentions, the speakers will become louder and louder when the owner is not around.
Needy object 2: Alarm
This alarm needs extra loves. To stop the alarm, the owner will have to get up the bed and hug it to make it go to the snooze function.
Needy object 2: Hand crank flashlight
This is a flashlight that afraid of darkness. If the light is off, the flashlight will start to recharging itself, until the light is on again.
Needy object 3: Smiling face pillow
This is a pillow that is satisfied by just being used. When the owner sleeps on it will turn it's face from sad to smiling.

Goal
We thought we're fine by ourselves. We're old enough to deal with loneliness. We're too busy to feel lonely. But we all know we're not as strong as we thought. So the goal of making these needy objects is to arise the awareness of the very basic and important need of being needed and needing. And it is not a shame to admit we need someone.

To show the experience of using these needy objects, I'll make a film out of the scenario. To show the concept and how these objects should work, and how the owner should interact with them.

2008 ITP Winter Show: The Keep In Touch

There are 8 projects came from the class of Softness of Things. Because they're seperat objects, so I set up a display that look like a clothing store. How to put everything togather is harder than make the project itself!

To view website for it: thekeepintouch.com