2022.11 - 2022.12 (1st Prototype)
2023.7 – 2023.10 (Published)
Unity, Android Studio, 8th wall
Solo dev (On 1st Prototype)
Director, Developer, Contents Designer
(On 2nd development process)
As someone with a background in sound design, particularly in the realm of film, I firmly believe that audio serves as a unique medium with the capability to transport listeners to various locations and offer them a more profound insight into the world around them. Ambiance, in particular, possesses distinct qualities compared to poly sounds and other sound effects.
Moreover, Ambiance reflects the spatiotemporal dimension, giving not only auditory sensations but also triggering visual and cognitive stimuli. When we encounter a specific spatiotemporal ambiance, our minds readily conjure images and mental representations of the space. Additionally, it can evoke memories associated with similar experiences in related environments.
<Ambi Band> initiates a journey of reminiscence for users through four categories: Where, What, Who, How (WWWH). Users answer these questions to choose sounds. Users then combine selected sounds to create their own ambiance. The user's answers to WWWH, represented by sounds, are transformed into sentences and then visual elements of space.
Additionally, Through the "Connect" menu, this collection of individual sounds, spaces, and sentences is anonymously shared with other users. This interconnection between individuals transcends the app's functionality, offering a deeper meaning by sharing and understanding each other through sound. Ambi Band introduces a new way to share emotions and sensations, suggesting that non-face-to-face art can reach profound levels by sharing primal senses.
2021.12 – 2022.02
Unity (ML-Agents)
Game Designer, Developer
"Myeong Ran" is a slightly less trained artificial intelligence that resemble us. In <6 Sentences>, the player witnesses "Myeong Ran" navigating through six sentences, chosen by the player to guide its physical movements and ultimately reach the door.
The concept of "behaving like a human" holds a profound interest for me. This exploration delves into the significance of instilling human-like behavior in artificial entities and raises fundamental questions about what it truly means to emulate humanity. It prompts reflection on the process of becoming human.
My curiosity about the keyword 'like a human' was sparked during my early research on artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning. This curiosity led me to share personal stories through AI, examining the environment I've learned from and contemplating the actions AI might take when simulating the environment in which I've lived.
I delved into impactful phrases encountered throughout life. The process prompted contemplation on the profound impact of the words we hear, shaping our growth, maintaining familial peace, and fulfilling fundamental human desires for stability.
Within the game, players are presented with six categories of words: words to avoid, chasing words, Words to resist, words to push away, hovering words, and cherished words. Players interact by dragging and dropping or writing corresponding words in each category. Once categorized, these words transform into obstacles for "Myeong Ran", each exhibiting movements representative of its specific category.
2023.04 –
Unity, Android Studio
Contents Designer, Founder
<AroundT>, a company I founded in 2023, consists of two main tracks. The first facet entails the conception and fabrication of an art toy named Mood Lamb, designed to playfully transform negative emotions. The second aspect centers around the release of an emotion recording and observation application titled <My Mood Planet>, inspired by Rumi' poem <The Guest House>.
Our emotional journey, particularly the exploration of 'negative emotions,' serves as the starting point for this project. While these emotions are an integral part of who we are, they are often denied or concealed, whether by personal choice or external pressures.
I strived to give these emotions a name and visualize them, providing an opportunity for individuals to explore their diverse feelings. Through the incorporation of mood lambs, I aim to present a unique worldview that respects and supports various emotions experienced by different individuals.
In the <My Mood Planet> app, users can express their daily mood by selecting characters that represent different emotions. They can also write about their feelings, and these writings appear in a bubble that can be burst by user's breathing action. Each character uniquely influences the virtual planets: Sadness raises sea levels, Anxiety causes tremors, Anger erupts volcanoes, Disgust summons hail, Listlessness dries out the land, and Shame overgrows the forests.
Users have the option to invite characters symbolizing specific emotions to their planets and engage in conversations with them. This interaction deepens the user's connection with the emotional avatars, making the experience more personal and immersive within the cosmic-themed setting.
The cosmic setting of <My Mood Planet> allows each day to contribute to the creation of a unique planet, serving as a space encapsulating the user's daily mood. Characters representing specific emotions act as visitors, influencing the user's planet and leaving a lasting impact before disappearing. Every Sunday, each planet reverts to its initial state.
2023.09 – 2023.10
Unity, Resolume, 8th wall
(PC-Projection mapping control with spout)
Game Designer, Scenario writer, Developer
<Wish You Were Here> leverages the mechanics of an escape room game to illuminate the absurdity of choices we make in life and the consequences that follow those choices. Through the gameplay, it aims to shed light on the inherent absurdity of life. By doing so, the game encourages us to actively select alternative ways of living that coexist with the choices we've made, transitioning from being mere recipients of circumstances to active agents in our own lives.
The narrative begins with an individual stumbling upon an old house on a real estate website. This discovery becomes a catalyst for the person to reflect on their past and revisit the choices made within it.
Two players engage in the experience, each embodying a different aspect of the character's life— one playing the current self through a PC interface and the other delving into the past through projection mapping. As each player progresses, accumulating their own set of data, diverse outcomes emerge, showcasing the impact of their choices.
This interactive narrative invites players to explore the consequences of decisions, emphasizing the absurdity inherent in life's choices. The goal is to empower individuals to actively shape their lives by considering alternative paths that harmonize with the choices they've made. The project encourages a shift from passively navigating circumstances to becoming proactive agents in the unfolding narrative of their lives.
* 2D graphics such as pictures in the game were created using AI.
2022.04(1st Prototype)
2022.7 - 2022.10(Published)
Unity, Motion capture
Project researcher, game designer, app developer,
promotional video producer and sound designer
The evolving trends in the art world emphasize synergies through the amalgamation of diverse genres. Despite being an esteemed institution excelling in six genres—music, theater, film, dance, fine arts, and traditional arts—Korea National University of Arts (K-Arts) faces challenges due to its dispersed campus locations and the circumstance that prevents in-person interaction due to Covid-19. This dispersion makes it difficult to foster interaction and collaboration among students from different majors, particularly for newcomers who are unfamiliar with the campus layout and tend to stick to their major classrooms. The development of the "Artronaut" app aims to transform campus exploration into an enjoyable experience akin to playing a game.
The app, aptly named <Artronaut>, merges "Art" and "Astronaut," symbolizing an exploration of art as an "art astronaut." It enables users to navigate the campus as if playing a game within a science fiction universe. The app visualizes the three separate campuses as galaxies, each representing one of the university's distinct locations. This augmented reality game captures the essence of the six majors and introduces five AR contents strategically placed across the campus, including the school plaza, creative building, and Daehak-ro campus. These experiences range from AR drawing, a narrative-based choice game, rhythm-making to watching a performance in which the dancers' movements are motion-captured in geometric shapes. Users completing all 11 experiences are rewarded with a commemorative NFT.
With GPS-based navigation, users can actively search for spots marked with AR symbols to access and play content at specific locations. Additionally, there is a remote mode that allows people to engage in the game outside of the campus environment as well.
2022.6 - 2022.8
Unity, Motion Capture, Photogrammetry
Contents Designer, Developer, Sound Designer, Video Editor
*Talchum is a dance characterized by intricate rhythms and movements. Observers in this virtual realm transform from mere onlookers to active participants in a ritual of learning and experience. They find themselves immersed in spaces recreated from 3D photogrammetry models, transforming these settings into arenas where the unique movements of Talchum are both taught and showcased.
How does the body remember and interact with its storied past in our fast-paced world? <Talsoom> explores this question by blending the physical and virtual, the ancient and modern, and the roles of performer and spectator.
Audiences embark on a journey through everyday environments—subways, rooms, elevators, and playgrounds—guided by traditional Korean masks. This journey in <Talsoom> aims to revive the essence of Talchum, a treasured cultural heritage, in the contexts of contemporary life. It offers an exploration into how historical practices can be interwoven with contemporary experiences.
*Talchum: A traditional Korean mask dance known for its expressive movements and theatrical narratives.
2022.04
Unity, Bitsy game maker, Blender
Solo Developer
<ArtWalk>, a Unity Engine-based AR game, merges <Bitsy> 2D scenes with augmented reality (AR), allowing users to explore pixelated scenes alongside real-world spaces, discovering hidden artworks. The distinctive feature of ArtWalk is its capacity to transition between 2D and AR scenes, enabling users to unlock animations of artworks by scanning them in the real world.
Recognizing the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the limited opportunities for in-person interactions with ArtWalk, my goal was to provide individuals with a chance to independently visit and explore artworks at their convenience, eliminating the necessity for physical gatherings. To achieve this, I curated artworks from various artists, such as illustrators and 3D modelers, for inclusion in the application. Additionally, I used Unity and Blender to transplant animations tailored to each artwork. The application facilitated users in exploring, collecting, and later enjoying artworks in different spaces, offering a easily accessible experience for art appreciation during COVID-19 pandemic.
Date
2021.04 - 2021.08
Tools/Engine
Unity
Roles
Solo dev
<Time to Go> is a personal game inspired by the fleeting nature of memories and relationships. I created it after rediscovering my old home on a foreign real estate website, which became a catalyst for creating <Time to go>. The discover made me contemplate on my extensive travels in my past, a time when constantly moving for work made maintaining and cherishing connections challenging for me.
This game is both a diary and a letter, inviting players to engage with my personal past and reflect on the people and places that have shaped my journey. As a personal narrative game, it allows players to explore and play with memory, offering a unique space to revisit and celebrate the ephemeral moments of life.
In <Time to Go>, players spend a day preparing to leave a place that's been significant to the protagonist. players are tasked to pack belongings, each item a fragment of the past, and write a letter to the people who've been important during the stay. The act of leaving culminates with placing the key at the front door and waiting for a bus at the station. As the bus departs, players watch as the landscape outside dissolves into the horizon.
<In the Train> is a narrative horror game I created using the Bitsy game maker. The essence of this project was to overcome the limitations inherent in the Bitsy game engine, turning these constraints into catalysts for creativity. Through various Bitsy games, including this one, I conducted numerous experiments, exploring the creative potential of the Bitsy game engine.
The storyline of <In the Train> follows the protagonist, named '이다 (Ida),' who lost her companion on a train heading somewhere. As '이다 (Ida) explores the darkened train, encountering peculiar events, the game unfolds into a unexpected narrative.
<Artijecta> is a Unity engine-based mobile AR application. The app allows exclusive content access through Seoul's public Wi-Fi system when connected to specific networks. Additionally, I incorporated GPS functionality to trigger AR content based on specific geographic coordinates (latitude, longitude). This project was a collaboration with the development company Plinqer and commissioned by Korean artist YeNa Park.
I handled the entire development process, from app development to the release of on both Android and iOS platforms.
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With the increasing availability of public Wi-Fi facilities and more users generating higher traffic, the pace of this expansion accelerates. While the freely accessible internet connection benefits the online ecosystem, what exactly does this fertile environment nurture? Based on the narratives of public Wi-Fi and online shopping malls, I aim to explore the emergence of a new life form born from the data of artificial objects, called Artijecta (Artificial+Object+Data).