Selected Works
by Sougwen Chung
BIOGRAPHY
Sougwen Chung is an internationally renowned artist and researcher exploring the boundaries of collaboration between human and machine.
Chung's work investigates the interactions between mark-made-by-hand and the mark- made-by-machine as an approach to understanding the dynamics of humans and systems.
A former research fellow at MIT, Chung is a pioneer of human and machine collaboration. There, she programmed and built robots named D.O.U.G. (Drawing Operations Unit Generation_X).
These machines mimic the artist’s hand-drawn gestures and synchronously draw along with her. The custom robots make marks in a feedback loop with the artist, generating sketches based on neural nets trained on Sougwen’s drawings gestures and biometrics.
Chung's work treats ‘AI’ as a space of, and for, doubt and uncertainty rather than narrowly defined ends, creating works that address separation, merging, and how we inhabit the relations between human, machine and non-human others.
PROJECT
Wave Studies
"Every act of mark-making constructs a form to inhabit, a space of rememberance, a document of time / place / state. Gestures suspended, layered, extruding from a single plane. A simultenaity of here and nowhere."
PROJECT
Studies for a Flora Rearing Agricultural Network (F.R.A.N)
These works explore co-naturality, the poetics of "reciprocity between the technological and natural." Organic forms resembling flowers painted with visualizations of Chung's brainwave data. The artists biometrics generating blueprints for a multi-robotic agricultural network.
PROJECT
Hylomorphism II Series
MIXED MEDIA
Untitled
Hylomorphism Studies
100cm x 64cm
2021
MIXED MEDIA
Untitled
Hylomorphism Studies
120cm x 90cm
2021
PROJECT
Gestures of Becoming-With
feat. Drawing Operations (robotic) Unit, Generation 4, Isloation Drawings created during quarantine lockdown
" At Day 60 of quarantine I felt an acute desire to escape in gesture. Disassociation from the body while feeling space flatten & time extend... First in a series of 7 works-in-progress .Human & machine co-creation during the first quarantine isolation period in Brooklyn, New York"
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 1
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 2
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 3
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 4
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 5
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 6
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 7
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 8
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
PROJECT
Bihua
feat. Drawing Operations (robotic) Unit, Generation 4, Isloation Drawings created during quarantine lockdown
At Day 60 of quarantine I felt an acute desire to escape in gesture.
Disassociation from the body while feeling space flatten & time extend... First in a series of 7 works-in-progress .Human & machine co-creation during the first quarantine isolation period in Brooklyn, New York
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 1
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
WORK ON CANVAS
Artefact Nº 2
2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4
PROJECT
Drawing Operations Unit:
Generation 2: Memory
An ongoing series exploring machine learning and the artist's hand
Gestures from previous drawings are collected and saved, existing as a memory bank for D.O.U.G._2. Analysis of visual style of historic artists to translate into gesture, as well as colour palette as a collective memory bank from which robotic arm will be able to select.
SELECTED WORKS
WORK ON PAPER
Memory 1
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 2
24 x 19 in
2017
WORK ON PAPER
Artefact 1
Artefacts Series
19” x 24”
2017
PROJECT
distance (in place)
Drawings created during quarantine lockdown
In collaboration with D.O.U.G._5
Chung’s practice—having moved far beyond simplifying binaries of real and artificial, human and machine—urges the poetic promise of mechanical and artificial systems to imagine forms of closeness in an increasingly estranged world. A result of the human sensorium through and through, her works double down on the entanglement of all bodies (biological, mechanical, and otherwise), never really disembodied but always becoming. - Claire Voon
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus I
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus VIII
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus II
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus III
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus V
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus VI
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus IV
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
WORK ON PAPER
Corpus VII
2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.
PROJECT
Gestures of Becoming-With
feat. Drawing Operations (robotic) Unit, Generation 4, Isloation Drawings created during quarantine lockdown
" At Day 60 of quarantine I felt an acute desire to escape in gesture. Disassociation from the body while feeling space flatten & time extend... First in a series of 7 works-in-progress .Human & machine co-creation during the first quarantine isolation period in Brooklyn, New York "
WORK ON PAPER
Isolation Study 1
Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020
WORK ON PAPER
Isolation Study 2
Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020
WORK ON PAPER
Isolation Study 3
Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020
WORK ON PAPER
Isolation Study 4
Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020
WORK ON PAPER
Isolation Study 5
Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020
WORK ON PAPER
Isolation Study 6
Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020
WORK ON PAPER
Isolation Study 7
Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020
PROJECT
Indeterminacy Scores
feat. Drawing Operations (robotic) Unit, Generation 4
Paintings as sound compositions
Referencing John Cage's Fontina Mix, 1958, a provocation for "musical scores of indeterminacy", these experiments were created in collaboration with D.O.U.G._4, with contact mics recording real-time sound feedback on canvas.
WORK ON PAPER
Indeterminacy Score Op.4
2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies Of Becoming-With
WORK ON PAPER
Indeterminacy Scores Op.5
2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies Of Becoming-With
WORK ON PAPER
Indeterminacy Score Op.1
2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies of Becoming-With
WORK ON PAPER
Indeterminacy Score Op.2
2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies of Becoming-With
WORK ON PAPER
Indeterminacy Score Op.3
2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies of Becoming-With
PROJECT
BiHua 比划
Exploring ideas in Cosmotechnics through gesture; the Dao of traditional chinese painting techniques re-envisioned in VR
Figural fluid studies. Part of an ongoing project interpreting the 八卦 bāguà trigrams figures in the IChing. “Our senses are currently whip-driven by a feverish new pace of technological change. The activities that mark us as human, though, don’t begin, exist in, or end by such a calculus. They pulse, fade out, and pulse again in human tissue, human nerves, and in the elemental humus of memory, dreams, and art, where there are no bygone eras. They are in us, they can speak to us, they can teach us if we desire it.”
MIXED MEDIA
☰ The Creative (Force)
2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划
MIXED MEDIA
☲ The Clinging (Radiance)
2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划
MIXED MEDIA
☶ Keeping Still (Bound)
2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划
MIXED MEDIA
☴ The Gentle (Ground)
2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划
PROJECT
Hylomorphism I Series
MIXED MEDIA
Untitled
Hylomorphism Studies
90in x 60in
2018
MIXED MEDIA
Untitled
Hylomorphism Studies
90in x 60in
2018
MIXED MEDIA
Application for Release
From the Dream
Hylomorphism Studies
90in x 60in
2018
PROJECT
Omnia per Omnia
feat. Drawing Operations (robotic) Unit, Generation 3, Live Autonomous System. The project reimagines the tradition of landscape painting as a collaboration between an artist, a robotic swarm, and the dynamic flow of a city.
The work explores the poetics of various modes of sensing: human and machine, organic and synthetic, and improvisational and computational. Through a collaborative drawing performance between Sougwen and a swarm of custom-designed drawing robots, the project explores the composite agency of an human and machine as a speculation on new pluralities.
WORK ON CANVAS
Density Study
Omnia per Omnia
(40.761124, -73.999089)
48in x 48in
2018
WORK ON CANVAS
Dwell Study
Omnia per Omnia
(40.695045, -73.972466)
48in x 48in
2018
WORK ON CANVAS
Velocity Study
Omnia per Omnia
(40.722215, -73.992944)
48in x 48in
2018
WORK ON CANVAS
Direction Study
Omnia per Omnia
(40.712848, -73.989411)
48in x 48in
2018
PROJECT
Drawing Operations
Unit: Generation 1
feat. Drawing Operations (robotic) Unit, Generation 1,
Mimicry Drawings created during live performances
The robot mimics the artist's drawing gesture and vice versa in real time, resulting in a synchronous, interpretive performance. This is the first stage of an ongoing study examining human and robotic interaction as an artistic collaboration.
WORK ON PAPER
Mimicry Seq. 02
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015
WORK ON PAPER
Mimicry Seq. 01
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015
WORK ON PAPER
Mimicry Seq. 04
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015
WORK ON PAPER
Mimicry Seq. 03
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015
PROJECT
Speculative Robotics
DIGITAL
Untitled 01
2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures
DIGITAL
Untitled 02
2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures
DIGITAL
Untitled 04
2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures
DIGITAL
Untitled 04
2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures
DIGITAL
Untitled 05
2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures
PROJECT
Étude Op. 2
HD FILM
Cardia
2012
HD FILM
Cardia
2014
PAINTING
The Limitless, The Absolute
50 x 42 cm
2018
VR SIMULATION
Memory Sequence
2018
VR SIMULATION
Untitled
2018
PROJECT
Étude Op. 1, No. 1-4
WORK ON PAPER
Untitled (No. 1)
Étude Op.1
2012
WORK ON PAPER
Untitled (No. 2)
Étude Op.1
2012
WORK ON PAPER
Untitled (No. 3)
Étude Op.1
2012
WORK ON PAPER
Untitled (No. 4)
Étude Op.1
2012
愫君
愫君
愫君
