ASTRO

In Astro, our earth, the only astronomical object known to harbor life, is unfolded through the lens of an intelligent being in outer space. As it rotates lens to zoom in and out, the journey of observation brings the multi-scale discoveries of ecological changes and machinic visions with an artistic imagination: from a vast forest where the flames roar into the wild creatures to the melting iceberg revealing hidden information, from the diagrams of ancient pseudoscience (astrology) to the latent walk of AI’s generation, from the data-driven landscape to the algorithmic generative visuals, from climate change to the creature’s migration. This audio-visual work poses a question: why explore space in the context of known and unknown as well as folding and unfolding.

This work joined the official selection of multiple international festivals, and received the “best sound experience award” by the jury of the 2022 edition of the SAT Fest festival, at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) in Montréal.

Weidi Zhang
Weidi Zhang is an LA-based new media artist/researcher/designer. Her current research and media art practices investigate A Speculative Assemblage – interactive image-data-based visualization of a human-machine reality in the context of experimental data visualization, speculative design, responsive Intelligence system, and immersive media. Her works are featured at international venues, such as the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery Best In Show, ISEA, Times Art Museum (CN), Japan Media Arts Festival, Lumen Prize (UK), SIGGRAPH ASIA, CVPR, IEEE VISAP, Planetarium 1 (RUS), Zeiss-Planetarium (GE), Society For Arts and Technology (CAN), and others. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Media Arts and Technology Program and a graduate researcher in Experimental Visualization Lab. She lectures at UC Santa Barbara and The Ohio State University.