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Draft:Weidi Zhang

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Weidi Zhang is a new media artist and designer based in Los Angeles and Phoenix.[1] Her interdisciplinary research explores A Speculative Assemblage at the intersection of immersive media design, experimental data visualization, and interactive AI art. She is an Assistant Professor of Immersive Experience Design at the Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center at Arizona State University.[2]

Early life and education

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Weidi Zhang was born and raised in Suzhou, China, and has been educated in the United States since her undergraduate studies. She began her academic career as a fine-art photographer, earning a BFA in Photomedia from the University of Washington, Seattle. Following this, she moved to Los Angeles, where she expanded her creative focus to include new media and immersive environments while pursuing an MFA in Art + Technology at the California Institute of the Arts. She later earned a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was mentored by Prof. George Legrady.[3]

Weidi has held teaching positions at institutions such as UC Santa Barbara and The Ohio State University[1]. Currently, she is a tenure-track Assistant Professor[2] of Immersive Experience Design at the Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center at Arizona State University. She is also a collaborative artist with Harvard University's FAS CAMLab,[4] working on the immersive experience Shadow Cave, and is in an artist residency with the Society for Arts and Technology Satosphere in Montreal[5] (Canada).

Major artworks

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Cangjie's Poetry, created by Weidi Zhang in 2019 in collaboration with Computer Scientist Donghao Ren, explores human-machine interaction through an intelligent system inspired by the legendary Chinese historian Cangjie, who is credited with inventing Chinese characters. The neural network, trained on over 9,000 characters, interprets images in real-time to generate new symbols and descriptive poetry. In the installation, this dynamic output is visualized as evolving, abstract landscapes. The AI system, Cangjie, creates a new language to engage with viewers, presenting an immersive data visualization in a multimodal installation. The work examines the creation of language between humans and machines, addressing the topic in a sensitive, poetic, and fragile manner. Cangjie's Poetry is considered an innovative contribution to the co-creation process between human and machine, merging data visualization with AI in a unique artistic expression.[6][7][8]

Astro.[9][10]is one of Weidi Zhang's audio-visual fulldome performances, created for the Metaxis festival at Planetarium 1 in St. Petersburg in 2021,[11] and has since been performed worldwide. Inspired by Dr. Stuhlinger's letter on the value of space exploration, Astro examines the question of "why explore space" from an artistic and imaginative perspective. The work portrays Earth, the only known life-supporting astronomical body, as seen through the eyes of an intelligent being in outer space. As the being zooms in and out, Astro reveals a multi-scale journey, uncovering ecological changes, algorithmic visuals, climate impacts, and connections between ancient pseudoscience and AI generation. The piece reflects on the relationship between the known and the unknown in the context of space exploration[9]

ReCollection (2022–2024).[12][13]is an interactive AI artwork by Weidi Zhang, in collaboration with Computer Scientist Rodger Luo, that explores the fragility of memory, inspired by her grandmother's dementia and the rise of artificial memory creation. The piece features a customized AI system that uses speech recognition, text auto-completion, and text-to-image conversion to transform fragmented personal memories into experimental visual stories. As participants whisper their own fragmented memories, the AI recreates these as sequences of images, reflecting on the tension between human memory regression and artificial memory production[13]

Awards and nominations

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  • Winner, A' Design Award, 2024[14]
  • Nominated, National Design Awards, Emerging Designer, 2023
  • Winner, Red Dot Award, 2022[15]
  • Honorary Mention, Prix Ars Electronica, Austria, 2022[7]
  • Winner, Best In Show Award, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery 2022[16]
  • Winner, Prix Trames Sonore Award Société des arts technologiques SAT FEST Le festival du cinéma immersif, US, 2022[17]
  • Winner, Best In Show Award, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, US, 2021[18]
  • Nominated, Best of Earth Award World-Wide Fulldome Film Competition Held by Leading Fulldome Festivals, 2021
  • Shortlisted, Lumen Prize The Award For Arts and Technology 2021
  • Juried Selection. Japan Media Art Festival, 2020[19]
  • Honorable Mentioned, Lumen Prize The Award For Arts and Technology, 2020

References

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  1. ^ a b "About". Weidi Zhang. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  2. ^ a b "Weidi Zhang | ASU Search". search.asu.edu. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  3. ^ "Human-Machine Reality in the Immersive Art of Weidi Zhang". Derivative. 2023-09-18. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  4. ^ "About – Harvard FAS CAMLab". Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  5. ^ "SAT | Société des Arts Technologiques". sat.qc.ca. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  6. ^ Zhang, Weidi; Ren, Donghao; Legrady, George (2021-08-02). "Cangjie's Poetry: An Interactive Art Experience of a Semantic Human-Machine Reality". Proc. ACM Comput. Graph. Interact. Tech. 4 (2): 19:1–19:9. doi:10.1145/3465619.
  7. ^ a b "Prix Ars Electronica 2022". calls.ars.electronica.art. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  8. ^ "Red Dot Design Award: Cangjie's Poetry". www.red-dot.org. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  9. ^ a b "Astro". Weidi :: Media Arts. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  10. ^ "Third Wave of Artists for MUTEK MX Edition 19". MUTEK MX. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  11. ^ "Anastasia Skabelkina | curation | metaxis". Araternitas. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  12. ^ Neural (2024-07-31). "ReCollection, recreating memories | Neural". Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  13. ^ a b Zhang, Weidi; Cheng, Lijiaozi; Luo, Jieliang (2024-07-19). "ReCollection: Creating synthetic memories with AI in an interactive art installation". Proc. ACM Comput. Graph. Interact. Tech. 7 (4): 51:1–51:10. doi:10.1145/3664207.
  14. ^ Competition, A' Design Award and (2021-11-22). "Weidi Zhang and Jieliang Luo - A' Design Award Winner". A' Design Award and Competition. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  15. ^ "Red Dot Design Award: Cangjie's Poetry". www.red-dot.org. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  16. ^ Conferences, SIGGRAPH (2023-01-05). "Cameraless Photography With 'RAY'". ACM SIGGRAPH Blog. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  17. ^ "SAT Fest | Société des arts technologiques [SAT]". sat.qc.ca. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  18. ^ Conferences, SIGGRAPH (2021-09-30). "'Cangjie's Poetry': Beyond a Mere Visual Celebration". ACM SIGGRAPH Blog. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  19. ^ "Cangjie". JAPAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL (in Japanese). Retrieved 2024-10-06.
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