Yoon Chung Han
[ United States ]
The Future is Red is a data art installation that provides an interactive audiovisual experience to reveal the reality of climate change to audiences. Audiences can participate in this interactive art that presents two regions’ wildfire data in visual and audio forms. As a California-based artist, I have been observing and directly experiencing the wildfires and related issues. I was also born and raised in South Korea and wanted to compare the severe wildfire data of South Korea and the ones of California and observe the similarity and differences between the two regions through the data. The audience members can learn about the wildfire and related damages in detail by observing 3D printed sculptures made of recycled filaments. Red-colored prints represent the wildfires, and black-colored prints attached at the bottom represent the air quality of two regions.
California is currently marking a new record in the history of wildfire with the most critical impact on nature and the environment. Extreme drought conditions, high winds, and dry air have impacted the animals, plants, mountainous topography, residential area, and even human population growth. The reduced moisture content of the severe drought area has circled back and impacted the wildfires. Many researchers and scientists have been investigating these issues and trying to find solutions. These issues have been our inspirations, and I wanted to create a data visualization to depict the causes and impact of the drought and correlated data to promote awareness of drought, wildfire, and air quality issues. My data-driven works don’t require prompt actions for the audience but are more about observations and encouraging them to face the current situations. I believe new ways of visualizing data and storytelling with new media technology will give an impact on the public for their better understanding of climate change.
I believe that this data-driven artwork The Future is Red is very closely related to the DAC exhibition “The Earth, Our Home: Art, Technology, and Critical Action” as it investigates, questions, and proposes critical thinking and actions about the environmental issues we have been experiencing. This artwork in the exhibition will add an important message about preserving our environment through observing the wildfires and related issues and propose small actions for the audience to make meaningful contributions to our nature and environment.
Primary Project Website: http://yoonchunghan.com/portfolio/the_future_is_red.html
- Medium: Interactive Art Installation, 3D Printed Sculptures
- Year Produced: 2021
- Size: Variable dimension (interactive art installation), 15cm x 20cm x 20cm (each 3D printed sculpture)
Yoon Chung Han
San Jose State University, Department of Design
Yoon Chung Han is an interaction designer, multimedia artist, and researcher. Her researches include data visualization, biometric data visualization and sonification, a new interface for musical expression, and multimodal sensory user experience design. Her recent research focus was on multimodal interactions using body data, in particular on creating a personalized experience in media arts using biometric data visualization and sonification. Her works have been presented in many international exhibitions, conferences, and academic journals such as ACM SIGGRAPH, Japan media arts festival, ZKM, NIME, ISEA, IEEE VIS, ACM CHI, and Leonardo Art Journal. She holds a Ph.D. at the Media Arts and Technology, UC Santa Barbara, and currently is an Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at the Department of Design in the San Jose State University.
Artist’s Website: http://yoonchunghan.com/portfolio/index.html