The DXARTS SoftLab is a studio and an online platform whose mission is to examine the role of workmanship in artistic research, to redefine the use of crafting in the post-digital era, and to explore the body as an interface of control and resistance. It is part of the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Afroditi Psarra
is a multidisciplinary artist and an Associate Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts. She is interested in the use of the body as an interface of control, and the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects. She uses cyber crafts and other gendered practices as speculative strings, and open-source technologies as educational models of diffusing knowledge. Her work has been presented at international media arts festivals such as Ars Electronica, ISEA, Transmediale and CTM, Eyeo, Amber, Piksel and WRO Biennale between others, and published at conferences like Siggraph, ISWC (International Symposium of Wearable Computers) and EVA (Electronic Visualization and the Arts).
She founded the DXARTS SoftLab in 2016 as a platform to publish her artistic research, as well as the research of students who collaborate with her at the University of Washington through classes, independent studies, DRGs (directed research groups), MA and PhD thesis advising, paper publications, festivals etc.
creates social engagement models to facilitate playful conversations that unpack normalized systemic power imbalance. She draws influence from media studies, design justice and community organizing. Her project Vagina Chorus, a bio-responsive, socially-engaged multimedia performance provoking conversations around gender justice and healthcare accessibilities, is a recipient of the 2020 MAP Fund and premiered at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, US.
Rao has lived and worked in China, Japan and the US, and received training in journalism, media arts and filmmaking. Rao is currently a PhD Student at DXARTS in University of Washington. She has participated in fellowships and residencies at MIT Feminist Future(s) Hackathon, Theater MITU, More Art, Artspace New Haven, Flaherty Film Seminar, NYFA, Signal Culture, and Halcyon Arts Lab. In her spare time, Rao is your favorite project manager. She also writes for Chinese readers about gender justice; translates manifestos, film scripts and poetry.
is a multimedia artist and musician, originally from Puebla, Mexico, currently based in Seattle, USA, where she is pursuing a PhD in Digital Arts and Experimental Media at DXARTS, University of Washington.
Through convergences of time-based media, music, sculpture and generative storytelling Luna explores personal and collective identities shaped by political and intimate spaces. With a passion for machines, generative narratives and the complexities of memory, Luna has developed audiovisual performances, installations and interactive works where different materials and technologies coexist. Luna was a selected artist for SHAPE 2016 (Sound, Heterogeneous Art and Performance in Europe) and has performed at different international music festivals, such as MUTEK Montréal, 2016, Unsound Krakow 2016, and CYNETART Festival, 2016. In 2017 she was invited to develop an immersive audiovisual performance at EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center)on a 360-degree screen in New York and in August 2019 she presented a site-specific VR immersive performance at The Cube Fest’s cyclorama at the Moss Art’s center, Virginia Tech. Luna Castillo developed a kinetic installation in Japan, KAIR 2018, and in May and August 2019, she developed two interactive audiovisual installations for the Hello World Festival 2019 (Women and Digital Creativity) and for the BBVA foundation’s immersion laboratory at the Center of Digital Culture in Mexico City.
is a sound artist and electronic media artist. He has a degree in music from the University of Valparaíso, Chile and a Master in Electronic Arts from the National University of Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is currently pursuing his doctorate at DXARTS, University of Washington, Seattle, United States (Digital Arts and Experimental media). His artistic practice is based on research mainly related to sound, the body, the public space, and technology, which are experienced in experimental processes related to robotics and electronic objects/devices, and tech-performance.
is a Peruvian architect and transdisciplinary sound artist who creates machines that explore and illuminate the social and political nature of sound in public space. In 2018, he graduated from the MIT program in Art, Culture and Technology. Informed by his background in architecture and a lifelong fascination with machines, Kisic Aguirre designs and builds sound instruments that explore the connection between public space, power, technology, and sound. His critical and aesthetic practice is open-source, collaborative, and deeply engaged with the public. He has been a teacher for various courses in art and architecture at PUCP (Lima - Perú) and RISD (Providence - RI). He is currently a Ph.D. student in Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington Seattle.
His work has been presented at the MIT Museum, Venice Biennial, Dutch Design Week, Ars Electronica Festival, Design Indaba conference in Cape Town, the Good Design gallery in Tokyo, at Tsonami Arte Sonoro in Valparaíso, Chile, in Berlin, Australia, and at various other experiences and interventions in public space.
Sadaf Sadri
is studying PhotoMedia at the university of Washington. They have a background in film and photography and a curiosity for exploring digital arts. Their field of interest includes queer phenomenology, surveillance systems, race, identity and the role of politics in these matters. Currently they are exploring e-textiles and mechatronic design with a hope to better understand the relationship between technology and body and also, use these media to expand on their subjects of interest.
Gabrielle Benabdallah
is a researcher and PhD student in HCDE (Human-Centered Design and Engineering) at the University of Washington, in Seattle. She’s interested in how technology informs subjective processes and in creating artifacts that leverage computation to explore poetic and extramundane experiences. Her research focuses on how to integrate humanistic approaches into HCI and how that might enable different ethical relationships with technology, and therefore new modes of being in the world. She holds an MA from the University of Washington in French and Textual and Digital Studies. In her work on the poetics of biosensing, she develops semantic representations of biosignals, bridging the traditionhttps://washington.zoom.us/my/danielarosner of hermeneutics with physiological sensing. How do we “read” a poem when we know it is triggered by someone’s heartbeat? How does that technological relationship change our reading of both the poem and the heartbeat? How can we bring together previous technologies used to represent the body, such as writing, with new ones, like biosensors? Through such explorations, Gabrielle’s work aims at instigating new ways to teach and “make" philosophy and literature -not as logocentric disciplines, but as heuristics for our current techno-social reality.
Brett Halperin
is pursuing a PhD in Human Centered Design & Engineering with a graduate certificate in Cinema & Media Studies. His research investigates computational cinema and media design for social change with an emphasis on housing justice. As a mode of community organizing, he is particularly interested in designing cinematic experiences that draw upon computer-generated imagery, digital narrative, and interactive forms of spectatorship to expand grassroots production practices.
Halperin’s research has been supported by multiple awards and published in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Design Research. His work has been awarded Best Paper at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). He is a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. As part of an Urban@UW Spark Research Grant, he is working with the SoftLab and community partners on electronic streetwear for urban justice.
Halperin holds an MS from the University of Washington and a BA from Brown University, where he also studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. He has served on the new media organizing committee of the Ivy Film Festival, as well as worked as a Visiting Academic at USC Institute for Creative Technologies and as a Senior User Experience Designer at digital consultancies in New York City.
is a PhD student in Human Centered Design and Engineering advised by Dr. Nadya Peek. She studies how humans incorporate automation into their lives and work and develops new environments for controlling machines across domains such as digital fabrication, laboratory science, and cooking. Hannah is particularly interested in how people create bespoke hardware and software tools, and her current work focuses on supporting custom tool production.
Adamska Elizaveta Rakhilkina
is a Russian award-winning filmmaker with their films screened at the Academy Award and Bafta qualifying festivals such as Newfest in NY, Reeling in Chicago etc. They have also worked commercially with brands such as Regal Cinemas, Coca Cola, Victoria’s Secret, and have created sound for projects that went to MOMA in NYC, Brooklyn Art Museum. Adamska got their BFA in Tisch NYU and MFA at photo+media program in UW. Their work is centered on the intersections between fascism, queerness, hauntology and late-stage capitalism.
is an undergrad student studying computer science at the University of Washington. She began her experience with art as a painter, mainly focusing on portraiture, and is now interested in the intersection between art and technology. She is shifting her focus on a more abstract form of portraiture through creating artwork that others can see themselves in. Her work, which is mainly visual, aimes to ask questions about the implications of technology on society and self and speculates about alternative futures surrounding technology. Although new to the industry of digital art and experimental media, she is passionate about promoting discussion through art and tech.
is a multidisciplinary interactive artist. Her artwork combines Korean traditional crafts and new media forming a hybrid genre focused on immersive experiences.
She is currently researching fashion-tech design and human-computer interactions to create the interactive installations that immerse the audience in mind and body. Wearable technology is a way to convert to a new ideology, also it opens new channels for connecting with affection to a flipped history, it offers new ways for victims to have their voices heard, and provides new ways of reproducing the images of oppressed identities. Wearable technologies help to weave the world’s narratives - and when I wear them, the sensor detects and reacts on my behalf to those that I want to confront, so I can calm my nerves and have a moment to make myself hidden.
Chanee Choi is originally from South Korea and now lives, works, and studies in Seattle, Washington. She earned her BFA in Craft Design from Dongduk Women’s University in 2013 and MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. Choi is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in Art and Technology at DXARTS at the University of Washington.
Ploypilin (Ploy) Pruekcharoen
is a dedicated artist who is passionate about the integration of art, technology, and social justice. She received a bachelor’s degree in HCDE (Human-Centered Design & Engineering) with a minor in Informatics from the University of Washington. She likes to create meaningful experiences through design and art. Growing up in a remote area in Thailand, she is also interested in environmental values and cultural diversity. Her personal background majorly drives her to work on creative projects and research related to humans and technology.
is a senior at University of Washington studying HCDE with a minor in DXARTS. She is interested in the way sentient beings interact with design, color, space, and art. She works primarily in the realm of textile, specifically e-textiles; she has also created experimental work in video and traditional print making practices. By incorporating digital art and technology into her work using unconventional methods, Her art focuses primarily on her experience as a queer, bi-racial woman living in a constantly changing world. She works to create dialogue and tension and bring awareness to communities that are not typically well represented in the mainstream art world.
Rylie Sweem
is an undergraduate at UW, studying Human Centered Design & Engineering with a minor in Digital & Experimental Arts. In DXARTS she has worked primarily with installation art and mechatronics and is now beginning to explore e-textiles. Her latest piece explores the effects humans have on nature and climate change, a topic that she is passionate about and uses as inspiration to create. Rylie has a background in fine arts but, since joining the DXARTS community, enjoys experimenting with more computing-based art. She is passionate about ethics in the tech industry and is currently pursuing a career as a user experience designer.
Cindy Xu
is a designer and artist, double majoring in Japanese and Interdisciplinary Visual Arts with a minor in DXART. She is currently working on wearables and multi-media digital arts. Born and grown up in China and studying Japanese in the United States, Cindy is familiar with traditional Chinese culture and studied Japanese Culture. With a background in three unique cultures, her work focuses on the traditional cultures and collision between different cultures. The beauty of a culture does not show what people say about it, but in what people do not say. Believing in the beauty of human cultures and nature, her work is aiming to fill the gap and become the bridge.
work is about relationships with nature, environment and technology. He is driven by the desire to design speculative devices for different environments and enjoy the unknown results and interaction to environments. Seeing him self as a mediator between environment and his work he puts him self in a bystander position to observe interaction between his work and environment. By utilizing scientific methodology he visualize the results in objects, prints and video formats that are represented as artifacts of his works interaction events.
In 2015 Rihards Vitols graduated with a masters degree in New Media Art from Liepaja University (LV), part of his studies he spent in Bauhaus-University Wiemar (DE). Between 2015–2017 he was studying in the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) where he graduated with a masters degree. Currently he is a PhD student at DXARTS in University of Washington. His work have been showed in several exhibitions: 2018–1019 Latvian National Museum of Art “UN/Green”, The Exhibition Hall Arsenals of the Latvian National Museum of Art “The Future State”; Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre “100 in Latvian Art”; 2019 Austria MAK-Museum of Applied Arts Vienna; Belgium 2015 Maison du Design “Transformative Ecologies”; France 2018 MINATEC “Experimenta”; Italy 2014 co-author for Latvian showroom in “Venice Architecture Biennial”; Netherlands 2017 “Dutch Design Week”.
is a multimedia artist who is living in Seattle. Currently, Shao is pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Art and Technology major at DXARTS, University of Washington. In 2013, she received an MFA degree in Performance Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2010, she received her BFA in New Media Arts from China Academy of Art. Shao is interested in experimenting with the paradox of intimacy and loneliness in the digital world, especially from the communicational aspect. Shao has been making participatory performances, which integrated with wearable technology, for the past few years. She constructs performances by asking audience to hear, touch, and immerse themselves in the work. Her work insinuates a weak-willed mental state of perpetuating the relationships with the world and others.
is a Master of Design candidate at the UW School of Art, Art History and Design. With a background in English Literature, ceramics, performance, dance and web design, she is interested in embodied, tangible, non-screen-based interaction design. Her current thesis research is on creating speculative tools to tangibly understand climate change for the everyday cyclists. She seeks to use e-textiles in her thesis research as well as exploring e-textiles as a medium at the intersections of form, movement, and technology.
Stevie Koepp
works to connect the digital, biological, and architectural possibilities of common landscapes. She is a concurrent MARCH/MLA degree student in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington with a focus on materials and fabrication. Her thesis engages soil and narrative to invite imagination around a poorly understood part of the urban environment. Can technology respond to the ecological rift between soil and city? An interest in living systems, sensors, and speculative design led her to involvement in DXarts. She enjoys experimenting with new mediums as an interdisciplinary artist and designer, drawing from experience in stone, wood, metal, and horticulture.
Jackie Donovan
is a designer//researcher//artist//plant mom//pen pal depending on the context. She is a simple humanoid that is also happens to be current Master of Landscape Architecture candidate at the School of Built Environments. Her research explores ecological legacy and phenomenology of site through e-textiles. She aims to curate meaningful moments of environmental impact and understand the ways our bodies impact space/place. She is always looking for ways to engage in feminist practice, speculative design, and soft art.
Alex Barr
is a questioning architect, designer, musician, and multimedia artist. As a graduate of the Masters of Architecture, his research explores speculative fiction as a device for re-imagining the role of the architect. Utilizing a mixture of critical theory, digital media, film, sound, installations, and e-textiles; Alex’s visceral approach to design explores the limits of our identities in relationship to spatial politics and technology.
is a senior at the University of Washington studying Interdisciplinary Visual Arts with a minor in DXARTS. Her primary interests are in queer art, and experimental interactive sculpture (art machines). Sexuality, and physical audience contact with her work are consistent themes. She recently had work appear in Machines of Becoming at The Grocery, in Seattle, Cyborgrlls 2019, in Mexico City, Mexico, and will soon be presenting work at ISEA 2019 in Gwangju, South Korea. She is transgender and proud.
Taylor Brienne Hammes
is a designer and multi-media artist who is currently falling back in love with their sewing machine from age ten. Conceived in the sun, grown in the snow, and now resides in the rain where they came to finish their BA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Art History. They are interested in translations of histories, technology, fashion and our biological components. Curious about the ways which fibers and technology can embed themselves within another to elevate their own body’s experience.
Maxx Yamasaki
is a mechatronics artist and tinkerer. They work to make wearable pieces and machines have unique and unexpected interfaces. Maxx’s work tends to focus on personal and intimate experiences and uses for technology and art. Maxx has worked in insect inspired robotics, assistive technologies for Boeing, and cheese mongering.
Brian Kinnee
is a PhD student in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington, Seattle and a member of the Editorial Team for the Association for Computing Machinery’s Interactions magazine. As a member of both the DXARTS Softlab and the Tactile & Tactile (TAT) Design Lab in HCDE, Kinnee’s work focuses on bodywide and wearable computing. Much of his current work aims to better understand the phenomena of personal space as our bodies and lifestyles undergo various digital transformations.
is a graduate from the MS in Human Centered Design & Engineering program at UW. She came to HCDE from an extensive arts/entertainment background as a costume-craft and wearable prop fabricator. Her wearable pieces have been seen on professional theatre, opera, and ballet stages across the US, as well as in films, conferences, fashion shows, art exhibits, corporate presentations, educational settings, retail displays, and online media. She’s fascinated by maker culture, modern riffs on traditional craft, and the intersections of art, technology, and the human body.
is a designer from St. Louis, Missouri who is focusing on Urban Planning at the University of Washington - Seattle. Inspired by the connection humans form with inanimate objects, he looks to capture the different feelings derived by the human to object relationship. With an interest centered around electric vehicles, William strives to rethink the way we use control systems to form deeper rooted experiences. In order to facilitate organic interactions, William dives into the emotional cues derived from the way objects look and behave.
Brenna Gera
is a freshman currently working on her DXARTS minor and pursuing Architectural Design as a major. She graduated Pierce Community College in 2017 with an Associate's of Arts. Her projects take a scientific approach to artistic and musical designs. She is currently exploring the idea of combining the body with musical instruments through her music glove project that examine the concept of a person using their hands as an instrument, rather than playing an instrument. This allows for an natural playing experience inspired by tapping your fingers along with a song. One of her other projects will examine the intersection of paint, abstract design and mechatronics to represent human nature and imperfections.