thisislai.xyz Open in urlscan Pro
34.225.31.148  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

HOME

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





INFO

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Uncurated ABC︎︎︎XYZ  ︎


🟢🎾🫑              🥑🥎🍐🥦                   🦚🌴🥝🍀🥒                  
🌳🦖🌵🍃                  🍏🌱🌿🦜                   🥬🎋🫒                    
  ☘️💚
🟢🎾🫑              🥑🥎🍐🥦                   🦚🌴🥝🍀🥒                  
🌳🦖🌵🍃                  🍏🌱🌿🦜                   🥬🎋🫒                    
  ☘️💚



Mark

Prev / Next (1 of 1)






ATLAS


printed matter
perfect binding
2019︎
This publication dedicates to a journal of uncertainty after relocating to
Providence. I encouraged myself during this project to walk out of my comfort
zone, both mentally and geographically, by visiting unfamiliar places and
encountering new people. During my explorations through this journey, I started
looking at this city from a whole new perspective, revealing the unseen glitches
of this city—accessibility and inaccessibility.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






KNOT SIMULATION


3d scan
printed matter
staple binding
2019︎

This fold-in accordion book is an inquiry into value and ownership. In the
modern age, the traditional making process has rapidly shifted due to digital
tools; their use is unavoidable. Due to mechanization and the industrial
consumption of materials like aluminum, the fiber rope has entirely lost its
value. Therefore, a critical step in my investigation was the juxtaposition of
physical and digital simulation of the knot. This is the result of digital tools
becoming a significant part of society. Thus, the juxtaposition between physical
simulation and digital simulation is critical. During this process, I lost
ownership over this knot. I could merely control the tool, and the result beaome
unpredictable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------







DIGITAL OASIS


webiste
live streaming
interactive
2020︎

Please interact with the above website (You can drag the items with the mouse).
Actual experience may vary depends on the livestream from Monterey Bay Aquarium.

I love watching cute animal livestreams, they serve the purpose of an oasis in a
desert—a peaceful moment during the pandemic. But that is a very bizarre use of
the webcam, which is merely just a surveillance tool. Why do we believe that in
fact webcam must always be running as long as it has an indicator that tells you
it is ‘live’? I saw the reanimation and reimagining of the webcam as a design
opportunity. I hacked and misused the webcam function—when you go to this otter
website at night, the webcam is off—the otter sleeps. Therefore, it has no value
to visit such a website at night. In a way, the webcam has to follow the rules
of the biological ecosystem. It turns out a webcam cannot deliver the 24/7
aspect of the internet as it claims to.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






THE STRANGE ALLURE OF MIRRORS


printed matter
saddle stitch binding
2018︎

This publication serves as an exhibition catalog—an exhibition that happened at
CCA Hubbell Street Gallery in 2019. By using reflective material, I translated
the mirror into a book format. This catalog contains artists' projects, essays,
and photography.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK


printed matter
smyth-sewn binding
2019︎

This encyclopedia is for the Olympic National Park in Washington State. The park
features a spectacular coastline, scenic lakes, majestic mountains and glaciers,
and magnificent temperate rainforest. It is also a World Heritage Site. By
analyzing and deconstructing the park from geologic history to human history,
coastline to temperate rainforest, climate to the restoration project, the book
presents this fantastic place and how human activities impact the park.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






RECLAIM


printed matter
smyth-sewn binding
2018︎

This is a thesis book and an exhibition catalog combined with four individual
exhibition catalogs for the four exhibitions that I curated during my last year
at CCA. Reclaim is a thesis about rethinking our relationship with the space
around us, reclaiming unused space, and turning it into an exhibition site. The
thesis challenges white cube gallery space; the book challenges the conventional
way of making an exhibition catalog.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






HORSE RACE


motion graphic
3-panel video installation
2020︎

This 3-panel video installation is part of a horse racing rebranding project.
More details are available on request.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






42 POSTERS


printed matter
loose binding with pattern-matched rubber band
2018︎

This conditional design book follows design restrictions. It responds to the
“How Posters Work” exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York. The book
contains 42 posters that 42 graphic designers around the world make. Loose
binding allows you to take out each page individually and turn it into a
double-sided poster.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






CREATING THE FIELD


printed matter
coptic stitch binding
2018︎

This publication is my personal typographical interpretation of five essays that
inspired me to pursue graphic design.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






WEB TO PRINT


motion graphic
3-panel video installation
2019︎

This 3-panel video installation was created for an exhibiton—Web to Print, which
happened at CCA Hubble Steet Gallery in 2019.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






DESIGN INDEX


website
printed matter
2017︎

As I build my technical practice, it is also essential to form a basis in the
intellectual aspects of Graphic Design. By creating a cohesive and systematic
project that includes three volumes of the book, a poster, and a website, this
project explores a new possible form to organize and navigate the collected art
and design references.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






DEBRANDING AND POST-IDENTITY DESIGN


website
exhibition design
2016︎

An interview is available with Walker Art Center.
You can access to the exhibition website.

This exhibition is for the topic studio questions the current state of branding
and identity design as developments in technology drive rapid changes in visual
communication. The exhibition analyzes how information platforms are enabling
complex shifts in governance as state and non-state powers embrace surveillance,
digital propaganda, and globally distributed networks of data, in their own
brand strategies. We investigated the impact of this evolving landscape and
challenge social norms of identity design on a personal, commercial, and
political level.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





HYPER DREAM


website
interactive
2021︎

Please interact with the above website (Keep scrolling). ︎

Toilet paper is usually considered a mere utilitarian object—ubiquitous, used,
discarded. However, with the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020,
toilet paper underwent an immediate change in classification, becoming a premium
product sold out in stores nationwide. The website is a meditation, a process,
and a website inspired by this shift in collective perception. The immediacy of
the transformation offered a moment of slowness, of reflection. The last piece
of toilet paper on the roll had always been negligible but was elevated
overnight into preciousness. I began saving these final pieces, as one does with
precious objects, and in doing so, started seeing these pieces as forms of
serendipitous folds—as media in and of itself. If you consider toilet paper as
media, you can readily see how it shares a form with other, more conventionally
understood media such as cassette or VHS tapes, which also feature a long strip
wrapped around a cylinder.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






THE INDEX OF MY DESK


printed matter
coptic stitch binding
2017︎

This layered booklet is part a series of project—a new classification system
that organizes all the items around you. It is inspired by the Library of
Congress Classification System. By combining patterns are created with Adobe
Photoshop 1.0 on Apple Mac OS 7, each item can be categorized by one set of
posters. By considering the physical space versus the book space, all the
posters are made into a classification catalog.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






FLOODED SHELL GAS STATION


3d render
animation
2018︎

Stills from the animation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prev / Next (1 of 1)






PAPER IS STRONGER THAN CONCRETE


printed matter
Japanese book clip
2017︎

This book is about a luxury residential high-rise which is sinking and tilting
in San Francisco. By playing with physicalities of light, tinted vinyl and color
ink, this book responds to the post-truth politics culture. Even a Japanese book
clip is stronger than a building. This book was featured at San Francisco Art
Book Fair in 2018.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






48 OVALS


printed matter
staple binding
2020︎

In Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, an ape discovers the use of
bones as both a tool and a weapon. A bone is thrown into the air, and as the
bone spins the form dissolves into an orbiting weaponized satellite. The “match
cut” draws a visual and conceptual connection between the two objects as
examples of primitive and advanced tools. I went to the RISD Library and found
forms that could be sequenced into a book. I photocopied 48 pages from a variety
of different books and magazines that contain at least one oval shape. Each
image is connected by a match cut to the following image—the oval shape, same as
the prompt title. The forms change and evolve as the book progresses.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------







A MANIFESTO OF SLOW LIVING


printed matter
prong fastener
2017︎

This book manifests the slow living lifestyle in this fast-paced world. It
contains 200 pages, and each page has one vocabulary or one letter. Readers have
to flip and read the whole book to understand the manifesto, which is a metaphor
for slowness. The tactile material and the weight remind us of the feel of
flipping a book. The book was part of the group exhibition at PRIMER: A
Speculative Futures Conference in San Francisco in 2017.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------










THE RELATIVITY OF VALUE


RISD thesis website
2021︎

Please interact with the above website (You can rearrange items by dragging them
with the mouse).

This is my thesis website showcases my body of work at RISD. My practice is an
inquiry into the fluctuation of value. To deconstruct the simplistic consumer
tropes of mundane/luxury, simple/complex, or hidden/obvious, I experiment with
speculative forms of hybridization using interactive media platforms to create
an alternate temporality. Microscopic moments open the door to design
opportunities. Through field observations, image sequences, data, and archives
of artifacts, I roll out the simple signifiers of symbolic value to pause
attention while also exposing the paradox of our consumptive behaviors. More
details please visite website.



Mark



    LEFT︎︎︎Uncurated contents, regularly updated.    │    RIGHT︎︎︎Portfolio,
commercial PDF available on request.    │    ︎   abc@thisislai.xyz   ︎    │  
  Site updated on 02/02/2022     │    © 2022 lai    │
    LEFT︎︎︎Uncurated contents, regularly updated.    │    RIGHT︎︎︎Portfolio,
commercial PDF available on request.    │    ︎   abc@thisislai.xyz   ︎    │  
  Site updated on 02/02/2022     │    © 2022 lai    │