Selected Works
by Sougwen Chung

BIOGRAPHY

SELECTED WORKS

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."

sougwen-catalog_2022_wavesStudies_01

MIXED MEDIA

Untitled 1

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
Assembly Line Series
sougwen-catalog_2022_wavesStudies_03

MIXED MEDIA

Untitled 2

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
Assembly Line Series
sougwen-catalog_2022_wavesStudies_04

MIXED MEDIA

Untitled 3

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
Assembly Line Series
sougwen-catalog_2022_wavesStudies_02

MIXED MEDIA

Untitled 4

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
Assembly Line Series

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.

ecologiesSound_2020-022

DIGITAL

A Sepal, A Petal, A Thorn

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
F.R.A.N. Series
ecologiesSound_2020-02eeg

DIGITAL

Mutations of Presence

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
F.R.A.N. Series
sougwen-2020_languageOfPathogens

DIGITAL

Language of Pathogens

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
F.R.A.N. Series
sougwen-2020_noticingAttunes

DIGITAL

Noticing Attunes us to Worlds Otherwise

2021, Biofeedback Paintings
F.R.A.N. Series

PROJECT

Hylomorphism II Series

Hylomorphism_II_100x65

MIXED MEDIA

Untitled

Hylomorphism Studies
100cm x 64cm
2021

hylomorphism_II_120x90

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"

sougwen-2021_doug4_no1

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 1

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen-2021_doug4_no2

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 2

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen-2021_doug4_no3

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 3

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen-2021_doug4_no4

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 4

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen-2021_doug4_no5

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 5

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen-2021_doug4_no6

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 6

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen_catalog_2021-etude7

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 7

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen_catalog_2021-etude8

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

sougwen_catalog_2021-bihua1

WORK ON CANVAS

Artefact Nº 1

2021, Paint on Canvas, 44 x 34 in
Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 4

sougwen_catalog_2021-bihua2

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

Sougwen Chung, Drawing Operations, 2016

WORK ON PAPER

Memory 1

Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 2
24 x 19 in
2017

sougwen-2019-_catalog_artefact1

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

01

WORK ON PAPER

Corpus I

2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.

08

WORK ON PAPER

Corpus VIII

2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.

02

WORK ON PAPER

Corpus II

2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.

03

WORK ON PAPER

Corpus III

2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.

05

WORK ON PAPER

Corpus V

2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.

06

WORK ON PAPER

Corpus VI

2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.

04

WORK ON PAPER

Corpus IV

2020, Graphite on Paper, 24 x 19 in
Collaboration with D.O.U.G._5.

07

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 "

sougwen-2020_artefacts_study2_0005

WORK ON PAPER

Isolation Study 1

Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020

sougwen-2020_artefacts_study4_0005

WORK ON PAPER

Isolation Study 2

Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020

sougwen-2020_artefacts_study1_0005

WORK ON PAPER

Isolation Study 3

Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020

sougwen-2020_artefacts_study5_00051

WORK ON PAPER

Isolation Study 4

Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020

sougwen-2020_artefacts_study6_0005-copy

WORK ON PAPER

Isolation Study 5

Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020

sougwen-2020_artefacts_study8_0005

WORK ON PAPER

Isolation Study 6

Gestures of Becoming-With
24" x 19in"
2020

sougwen-2020_artefacts_study3_0005

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.

ecologiesSound_2020-02_0005

WORK ON PAPER

Indeterminacy Score Op.4

2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies Of Becoming-With

ecologiesSound_2020-04

WORK ON PAPER

Indeterminacy Scores Op.5

2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies Of Becoming-With

sougwen-2020_artefacts_étudeOp2_No1-thsq

WORK ON PAPER

Indeterminacy Score Op.1

2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies of Becoming-With

sougwen-2020_artefacts_étudeOp2_No2-thsq

WORK ON PAPER

Indeterminacy Score Op.2

2020, Mixed Media, 19in x 24in
Ecologies of Becoming-With

sougwen-2020_artefacts_étudeOp2_No3-thsq

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.”

bihua_2020-TheCreativeForce

MIXED MEDIA

☰ The Creative (Force)

2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划

bihua_2020-TheClingingRadiance

MIXED MEDIA

☲ The Clinging (Radiance)

2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划

bihua_2020-KeepingStillbound

MIXED MEDIA

☶ Keeping Still (Bound)

2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划

bihua_2020-TheGentleGround

MIXED MEDIA

☴ The Gentle (Ground)

2020, Mixed Media on Aluminum Panel, 4ft Diameter
比划

PROJECT

Hylomorphism I Series

sougwen_catalog_2018-75x50_hylomorphism7

MIXED MEDIA

Untitled

Hylomorphism Studies
90in x 60in
2018

sougwen_catalog_2018-75x50_hylomorphism

MIXED MEDIA

Untitled

Hylomorphism Studies
90in x 60in
2018

sougwen_catalog_2018-75x50_hylomorphism5_03-10

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.

sougwen_catalog_2015_drawingOperations21

WORK ON PAPER

Mimicry Seq. 02

Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015

sougwen_catalog_2015_drawingOperations1

WORK ON PAPER

Mimicry Seq. 01

Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015

sougwen_catalog_2015_drawingOperations4

WORK ON PAPER

Mimicry Seq. 04

Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015

sougwen_catalog_2015_drawingOperations3

WORK ON PAPER

Mimicry Seq. 03

Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1
50 x 42 cm
2015

PROJECT

Speculative Robotics

Processed with VSCO with hb2 preset

DIGITAL

Untitled 01

2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures

sougwen-experiments15

DIGITAL

Untitled 02

2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures

sougwen-experiments14

DIGITAL

Untitled 04

2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures

Processed with VSCO with hb1 preset

DIGITAL

Untitled 04

2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures

sougwen-experiments12

DIGITAL

Untitled 05

2018, VR Simulation
Preparatory Gestures

PROJECT

Étude Op. 2

sougwen_catalog_2012-16x9_Cardia.2019-02-25 21_35_01

HD FILM

Cardia

2012

sougwen_catalog_2012-16x9_Cardia.2019-02-25 21_25_48

HD FILM

Cardia

2014

Sougwen_Chung_The_Limitless_The_Absolute_Painting_2017

PAINTING

The Limitless, The Absolute

50 x 42 cm
2018

falcon_02-14_5

VR SIMULATION

Memory Sequence

2018

falcon_02-14_3

VR SIMULATION

Untitled

2018

PROJECT

Étude Op. 1, No. 1-4

etude_06_1000

WORK ON PAPER

Untitled (No. 1)

Étude Op.1
2012

etude_05_1000

WORK ON PAPER

Untitled (No. 2)

Étude Op.1
2012

etude_02_1000

WORK ON PAPER

Untitled (No. 3)

Étude Op.1
2012

etude_01_1000

WORK ON PAPER

Untitled (No. 4)

Étude Op.1
2012

愫君

愫君

愫君

Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese - Canadian artist & (re)searcher based in London / New York / Hong Kong.

— Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist & (re)searcher based in London / New York / Hong Kong.

— Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist & (re)searcher based in London / New York / Hong Kong.

— Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist & (re)searcher based in London / New York / Hong Kong.

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