Graduate Thesis
New York & Shanghai
Capstone Project | Spring/Summer 2023
For my Graduate thesis, I'm combining my interests in experience design, embodiment, and personal narratives to explore the physiological impact of our memories, investigating emotional and sensory responses through the topics of psychosomatics and haptic sensory replication. Visit my project site for Haptic Memory.
Spring 2023
Remote
Share Lab Studio
This 7-week class focused on speculative design, world-building, and community. Working in smaller collectives, each team produced unique parts of the creative experience that came together as a unified whole and represented the overarching collective vision of the class, which was then pitched to the leadership of our program.
We await the next steps but have been given a green light to prototype these ideas on our campuses in Brooklyn & Shanghai - more to come!
Live!
This course focuses on designing, developing, and delivering multimedia live performances via a virtual platform, emphasizing emerging technologies that allow for the unfolding of real-time interactions, dynamic visuals, and compelling narratives. We will apply the technologies we have learned to design performative systems and discuss methods to make our own performances come to life, culminating in a live-streamed event featuring students' solo and/or group performances.
J-Term
January '23 | Berlin
Civic Ecologies
Under the demands of global urbanization trends, cities increasingly dominate how critical components of global ecological systems flow and operate. Using site visits within the city of Berlin, this class focused on a comparative study of global cities. We researched and created projects in response to the possibilities and limits of thriving environments for humans and others in globalized urban centers through the lens of rituals.
My project, The Ecological Tarot of Berlin, examined the ritual of Tarot readings, leveraging the deck and their suits to connect the ecological systems and species impacted by the Anthropocene of Berlin. This practice highlights the lessons learned from our fellow Berliners, whom we see daily but may not notice for their feats of strength, survival, and community in their mere existence.
At the end of our Berlin session, we were given the opportunity to exhibit our projects in a group show at Studio Weise7 organized by Danja Vasiliev and Sarah Grant. For my interactive installation, I held live Tarot readings using the deck I created with a corresponding guidebook explaining the suits and meanings of the cards.
Photo: Brian Ho | Pictured: Ecological Tarot Berlin - Tarot Deck by Nicole Padilla
Photo: Brian Ho | Pictured: Ecological Tarot Berlin - Tarot Reading; Jamie Allen & Nicole Padilla
Fall 2022
Remote
Connections Lab
Through designing and developing creative, connected web applications and producing online experiences that bring people together in playful yet meaningful ways, gaining valuable insight into the inner workings and implications of our connected world. Tools/Languages include HTML, CSS, Javascript, Github, Glitch, and DB.
Critical Experiences
Various applied research exercises, readings, and ethnographic activities encourage thinking and prototyping across media and materials. Combining “critical making” and “user experience” to direct personalized practice-based research.
Art Research Project: Memory v. History
Concept: What systems in place immortalize experiences into history, and whose lived experiences were missed in the codification?
WIP Research/sketches/prototyping documentation.*
Connections Lab Final - "History of Here"
Connections Lab Final - "History of Here"
Critical Experiences Prototype Sketches
Critical Experiences Janky Prototypes
Critical Experiences Final Project Overview - "Make History Guided Journal"
Create-A-Thon
Fall 2022 Programming
One In/One Out
Working in randomly assigned pairs, students were assigned the theme of one in/one out with auto-generated prompts. Each group had 48 hours to co-create a project for presentation. Working with my partner Yiyang, we were assigned "Love/Butterfly" and created an application that encouraged the injection of more love in the world over hate, with inspiration from the famous children's book
The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
We were proud to be awarded the "Most Likely to Save the World" award at the end of Create-A-Thon for our efforts. (Virtual Award shown)
Summer 2022
New York
Concepts, Culture, and Critique
An introduction to the concepts, questions, and terminology encompassing interactive media arts related to creative expression and critical engagement.
Design for Communication
Overview of design principles, tools, and techniques leveraging communication applications for interactive and narrative-driven new media art. Tools include Blender, Audacity, and AfterEffects.
Creative Coding
A hands-on introduction to programming and software engineering for creative applications via the coding library p5.js. Fundamental coding concepts, such as logic sequencing, data structures, data flow, and event-driven interactions, are the focus within the context of screen-based projects.
Interface Lab
A production course based on physical computing and physical interaction design with an emphasis on embodied interactions, how humans express themselves physically, and how our computers convert, interpret and process those physical expressions. Tools include microcontrollers (Arduino), tangible interfaces, sensors, and computer vision.
Interface Lab/Creative Coding Combined Project:
Crack the Code
Concept: Using the Arduino, pressing the buttons in a certain order on the physical interface unlocked the messages in the digital interface. Replicating a password protected/combination lock experience. Video documentation.*
