Media Artists & Scientists 
Nightmarket 2007 workshop invites 20 researchers from MIT and Europe. The workshop is organized by Jackie Lee from MIT Media Lab(Context-Aware Computing Group). He invites Prof. Chris Csikszentmihalyi(Director of Computing Culture Group) as Keynote Speaker, James Teng(Ambient Intelligence Group), Francis Lam(Sociable Media Group), Chaochi Chang(Speech Interface Group), Edward Shen(Software Agent Group), Wu-Hsi Li(Music, Mind, Machine Group), Anna Huang(Music, Mind, and Machines Group), Michael Lin(Smart City Group), Jon Wetzel(Context-Aware Computing), Connor Dickie(Context-Aware Computing), Noah Vawter(Computing Culture Group), and Annina Rust(Computing Culture Group). Marisa Jahn from Visual Arts Program at MIT. And Daniel Chao from Dept. Architecture. And Chihyu Chao(Spoken Language Systems Group) and Tom Yeh(Vision Interfaces Group) from MIT CSAIL. Mina Wu from Design Academy Eindhoven, NL., Alice Wang from Royal College of Art, UK, and Jurgen Scheible from University of Arts and Design Helsinki, Finland.
The 20 invited Media Artists/Scientists were trained in Architecture, urban design, visual arts, industrial design, music, film, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, communication technology, multi-modal sensing, and interaction design. They will share their learning experience and perspectives with the participants. During the four days workshop, they will take the lead to observe, create, and innovate in the city of Taipei.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Chris Csikszentmihalyi
Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Muriel R. Cooper Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
csik@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~csik
Chris Csikszentmihalyi directs the Media Lab's Computing Culture group, which works to create unique media technologies for cultural applications. He has worked in the intersection of new technologies, media, and the arts for 13 years, lecturing, showing new media work, and presenting installations in both Europe and North America. He is a 2005 Rockefeller New Media Fellow, and recently finished a solo exhibition at the Location One Gallery in New York's Soho. Csikszentmihaly has taught at the University of California at San Diego, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and at Turku University. He toured museums and nightclubs with his mechanical hip hop device, DJ I, Robot, which was nominated for the Best Artistic Software award at Berlin's Transmediale, while a previous piece, Natural Language Processor, was commissioned by the KIASMA Museum in Helsinki, Finland. The catalog for his installations Skin and Control is published by Charta and distributed by DAP, and he served on the National Academy of Science's IT and Creativity panel. Csikszentmihalyi received an MFA from the University of California at San Diego, and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
MIT Media Laboratory
Nightmarket 2007 workshop organizer
Jackie Lee, Ph.D Candidate
Context-Aware Computing Group, MIT Media Laboratory
jackylee@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~jackylee
Jackie Lee, a second year Ph.D student, is exploring how we can design machines to be civilized and considerate to people. His work includes industrial design on everyday objects, human factor studies for daily behaviors, and artificial intelligence for exploring human needs. He built many physical design media before he came to MIT. He received MS degree from MIT Media Lab and M.Arch degree from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.
Jackie’s works have been recognized as smart daily technology for human life. His Smart Sink project received the 3rd place award in SIGGRAPH 2004 Student Research Competition. He was invited to Cleanup Corp. to build a Concept Kitchen in Jan 2005. His research projects have been invited to many exhibitions. Lover’s Cups project (with Hyemin Chung) was interviewed by Discovery Channel and National Geographic in spring 2006. He was invited to the largest emerging technology exhibition- NextFest 2006, NYC in fall 2006. HiTV project (with Chaochi Chang) was invited to Next 2006, Copenhagen in winter 2006.
Jackie is also interested in re-discover technologies from cultural perspectives. He organized Nightmarket 2006 workshop using traditional culture phenomenon- Taiwanese Nightmarket- to seek technologies rooted from sociocultural experience.
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James Teng
Ambient Intelligence Group, MIT Media Laboratory
jteng@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~jteng
Chao-ming James Teng is currently 2nd year masters student in Ambient Intelligence Group at the Media Lab at MIT. His current project is through public interactive artifacts and installations, to foster social interaction within physical communities and deeper understanding of the complexity of urban fabrics. He has been involved in several tangible interaction design projects, the Media Lab-General Motor concept car design initiative, smart material for architectural projects, among the others.
He has deep interests in using digital technologies for artistic expression and manifestation. His art work has been shown in SIGGRAPH Art Gallery 2006, and was invited by Tsinghua University to exhibit in the 2nd International Art and Science Exhibition 2006 in Beijing.
He got his bachelor and masters degree from the College of EECS, National Taiwan University, with an emphasis on mobile networking protocols, applications, and interface design for mobile devices. He has published several academic papers in international conferences such as VTC 2001 and Pervasive 2004, and International Journal on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing.
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Francis Lam, db-db king
Sociable Media Group, MIT Media Laboratory
dbdbking@gmail.com
http://db-db.com/portfolio/
Francis is a pixel-art and web artist interested in the aesthetics and social patterns of online spaces. Prior to coming to the MIT Media Lab he got a BS in computer science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a BA in design from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Alongside of his study, he has developed interests in various art and design domains. In 2000, he created an online design playground (http://db-db.com) as an outlet for his creative talent, and a platform to connect like-minded individuals. His work has been featured in various publications and exhibited worldwide including, Hong Kong, Japan, Austria and USA.
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Chaochi Chang
Speech Interface Group, MIT Media Laboratory
ccchang@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~ccchang
Chaochi Chang is a 2nd year masters student in Speech Interface Group at the MIT Media Lab. His current project focuses on helping machines understand users' spatial/temporal/social contexts by utilizing various sensing and modeling technologies, while his also involved in several Media Lab projects in ambient intelligences, tangible interfaces, and mobile communications.
Chaochi has strong interests in creating/developing communication mechanisms and interfaces between human/human, human/machine, and machine/machine, especially human computer interaction methods for temporal/permanent physical impaired users.
Chaochi got his Computer Science bachelor degree from the CSIE Department, National Taiwan University, and Computer Science master degree from State University of New York at Stony Brook, with research experience in several Computer Science research fields, including speech interfaces, computer securities, wireless and mobile networking, and operating systems.
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Edward Shen
Software Agent Group, MIT Media Laboratory
edward@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~edward
Edward shen is a 2nd year master student in the Software Agents group, MIT Media Laboratory. His main focus is applying Artificial Intelligence to improve ways of storytelling, particulaly documentary video editing for his master thesis. His work related to artificial intelligence and commonsense computing includes a scenario-oriented recommendation system ("What am I gonna wear?"), the GlobalMind project, and an art work, "Your Memory, Connected", which was selected into SIGGRAPH 2006 Art Gallery. A representative piece of his experience in filmmaking, on the other hand, may be the documentary film which he finished in January, 2007, "Life. Research."
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Wu-Hsi Li
Music, Mind, Machine Group, MIT Media Laboratory
wuhsi@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~wuhsi
Wu-Hsi Li joined professor Barry Vercoe’s Music, Mind, Machine group at the MIT Media Lab since fall 2006. His research project aims to take hints from the developmental process of children's music ability and build a music machine which learns to listen, perform, and create music in an interactive and developmental fashion. Another of his projects seeks to explore hidden social relationship of people from tagging information they give on the photos.
He received M.S. and B.S. in Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, doing research on interactive music-performing interface and neural network simulation of auditory perception in professor Shyh-Kang Jeng’s Computer Music Lab. His project “The Conductor” realized real-time conducting of both synthesized music and recorded music on CD. Before he joined the MIT Media Lab, he was a research assistant in professor Lin-Shan Lee’s Speech Processing Lab in NTU.
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Anna Huang
Music, Mind, and Machines Group, MIT Media Laboratory
huangcza@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~huangcza
Anna Huang is a first-year graduate student in Professor Barry Vercoe’s Music, Mind and Machine group at the MIT Media Lab. She is interested in cross-cultural music transformation and computer-assisted composition. She received her B.M. in Music Composition and B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. Her choral piece “Breathe” won first prize in the San Francisco Choral Artists’ Young Composers Competition and was premiered at three concerts in the Bay Area. On exploring 16th-century Renaissance music, she created Palestrina Pal: A Grammar Checker for Music Compositions, under the supervision of Professor Elaine Chew. The research was published at the International Conference on Understanding and Creating Music in Italy. Back in Hong Kong, she studied the guZheng while she was at the Pui Ching Middle School. This later inspired her to explore culture through music.
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Michael
Chia-Liang Lin
Smart City Group, MIT Media Laboratory
MIT School of Architecture + Planning
mcllin@mit.edu
Michael is a master candidate at MIT Architecture 2007 and master of media art and science candidate at the Smart City Group, Media Lab 2009. He had two-year experience for doing food business in one of the most famous night-marketplace in Tang-shiu. He loves to think about design in various ways and resolves their ambiguity logically. He will bring his both Architecture perspectives and nightmarket experience to enrich this workshop
Most of the studies Michael has done are focus on the urban design methods and architectural related issues. When dealing with different architecture or urban issues, he is looking for the possibilities instead of solution; his main goal is to produce a transformation or an instantaneous metamorphosis through these possibilities, further more, finding a way to break the hierarchical structure between Architecture and Urbanism.
Michael is currently working on the urban fabric issues. To be more specific, he focuses on the “Mobile Fabrics” within the larger urban context. Unlike most of the architectural and urban design that dealt with specific geographical sites; His site is located at any segment of continuous time, the “Duration.” Certain duration during the day will be selected according to the specific phenomenon and the duration for incorporating elements which discovered in different places. This is his playground. His overall idea is to canvass a series of movements and duration about the current pertinent issues affecting urban design.
Cities are growing at lightening speed; Time is compressed, cities expand in just a few seconds, unexpected energies interlace into the future reality, a restless reality. When that reality becomes his playground, He wishes to express the desires and expectations over different time periods. He wishes to mapping out the order which is without an order. He wishes to break the boundary which still exists.
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Jon Wetzel
Context-Aware Computing Group, MIT Media Laboratory
jwwetzel@mit.edu
Jon Wetzel is a master of engineering student in computer science and engineering, but has been in the Context Aware Computing ever since he started undergraduate research in 2004. His work has mainly focused on human computer interaction, applied through computer vision. Projects he has worked on include the Smart Sink, Context Aware Kitchen, Attention Meter, and the Attentional Vending Machine. His research now turns towards how people learn to use new interfaces. His Master's project, Face Interface, will help users rapidly adapt to newly available facial interaction technologies.
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Connor Dickie
Context-Aware Computing Group, MIT Media Laboratory
connord@media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~connord
Connor Dickie is a visiting researcher in the Context-Aware Computing Group at MIT Media Lab. He is interested in making prototypes and interactive installations using Max/Msp. His latest works include a communal vending machine (with Pepsi), emotionally-reactive television (with Jackie Lee), and long voting. Before coming to MIT, he studied in Computer Science & Film Studies at Queen's University, Canada.
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Annina Rust
Computing Culture Group, MIT Media Laboratory
annina@trash.net
http://www.trash.net/~aruest/
Annina R?st is currently a research assistant and graduate student at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is interested in developing technologies for addressing political and cultural concerns that trigger the senses. The sense that she most hopes to trigger is the sense of humor.
She holds a diploma in New Media / Visual Communication from the School of Art and Design Z?rich, an Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from UC San Diego. She received the 2002 Transmediale Software Award as part of the group LAN for their project Tracenoizer – Disinformation on Demand, the 2003 Viper Award (category Transposition) for her project “Track-The-Trackers as well as a Nomination from the 2003 ZKM International Media Art Award for SuperVillainizer – Conspiracy Client.
She has participated in exhibitions at Ars Electronica Linz, the New Museum of Modern Art New York City, and the ICC in Tokyo. In 2006, she received a six month work grant from Edith Russ Site for Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany to develop her project Rock ‘N’ Scroll.
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Noah Vawter, Ph.D Candidate
Computing Culture Group, MIT Media Laboratory
nvawter@media.mit.edu
http://web.media.mit.edu/~nvawter/portfolio/
Engineer and musician Noah Vawter has combined his mathematics and computer skills to create the audio-synthesis technique “combyops.” In this and other projects, Vawter advances music technology through the creation of new instruments with unique sounds and features. Sometimes this work calls for a reexamination of traditional musical instruments, and other times it involves hacking into mass-produced electronics. A first-year master’s student, he received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
MIT Department of Architecture
Daniel Chao
Bachelor of Architecture, Tunghai University
MIT Department of Architecture
yihsiang@mit.edu / sikato@gmail.com
Daniel Chao had his bachelor of architecture degree from Tunghai University in 2002 and now is a M.Arch student at MIT. He participated in the Nightmarket 2006 workshop as an instructor and had various design workshop experiences in Taipei, Taichung, Kyoto, and Tokyo.
He recently cares about the contemporary ideas of micro urbanism in Asia. Besides the larger scale concerns to the human environment, he is interested in architectural design from micro scale, alternative interface between architectural elements and urban public space, and art intervention as cultural patchwork. His work included the renovation design project for the headquarter office of architecture department of MIT in 2005, Howler + Yoon Architecture’s proposal for PS1 competition in 2005, and the new urbanism research report for Guangmin city in Shenzhen in 2006.
MIT Visual Arts Program
Marisa Jahn
Visual Arts Program, MIT
hello@marisajahn.com
http://www.marisajahn.com
Marisa Jahn is an an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator whose work explores, constructs, and intervenes natural and social systems. Ranging in practice from deeply personal to highly participatory, her work often relies on the collaborative authorship and distributive intelligence of surrounding people and situations. Jahn writes, “I am interested in the way that collective authorship shifts the production and interpretation of art towards an appreciation of process, context, and re-invention.”
Jahn has presented and exhibited work internationally, most recently at Bay Area Now 4 (Yerba Buena Center’s San Francisco Bay Area Triennial), the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT (the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, New Langton Arts (San Francisco), Southern Exposure (San Francisco), Mama (Zagreb, Croatia), University of California Berkeley, the Museum of Science (Boston), ISEA (San Jose, CA), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), and forthcoming exhibitions at the MIT Museum (Cambridge, MA), the Aldrich Museum (Connecticut), and Eyebeam (New York).
Jahn has served as an Advisor and Board member of various art and public art organizations including Secession Gallery Without Walls, the San Francisco Art Institute, Breakarts, and Pond, which she co-founded in 2001 in collaboration with Steve Shada. In 2000, she co-founded Pond, a 501(3)c non-profit artist-curatorial collaborative based in San Francisco dedicated to showcasing experimental art. Through gallery exhibitions, special events, lecture series, and various public art projects, Pond has fostered an environment that presents critical artwork in an accessible environment. Recent projects include: Project Invisible 5, an experimental audio tour of California’s I-5 Highway in collaboration with Amy Balkin, Tim Halbur, and Kim Stringfellow; OneTrees, an ongoing collaboration with Natalie Jeremijenko that involves the planting of pairs of genetically-identical trees throughout the Bay Area’s radically diverse microclimates; Unfurled: A Public Exhibition of Flags, an experimental public exhibition of flags that presents critical responses and alternatives to the political and cultural hegemony that the United States’ flag currently symbolizes; and ShopDropping, an exhibition of reverse shoplifting (art inserted into public places of commerce). Jahn’s work as a curator and artist has received international recognition in media including Art in America, Frieze, Punk Planet, NY Arts Magazine, Clamor, San Francisco Chronicle, the Fader, Artweek, Cluster (Italy), Metropolis, the Discovery Channel, NPR, CBC, and more.
As an arts educator focusing on experimental processes, Jahn has worked with predominantly disadvantaged youth in various San Francisco Bay Area organizations, receiving national recognition including two of five awards for Curricular Excellence by the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 2003. Jahn is currently attending a Masters Program in Visual Studies at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Robert & Colleen Haas Scholarship (2000). She lives and works in Cambridge/Boston, San Francisco, and New York.
MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
Chih-Yu Chao, Ph.D Candidate in natural language technologies
Spoken Language Systems Group
MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
chihyu@mit.edu
http://www.mit.edu/~chihyu
Chih-yu Chao is a second year PhD student working on language learning dialogue systems at MIT CSAIL. Her research interests include natural language processing, human-computer interaction, second language acquisition, and the combination of these areas. Prior to attending MIT, Chih-yu received her MS and MA degrees from Carnegie Mellon University (Computer Science, Computer-Assisted Language Learning), and her MS and BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from National Taiwan University.
Chih-yu has always been enthusiastic about music. She studied with liuqin maestro Tsui-ping Cheng since childhood, while being exposed to various genres of music (R&B, progressive metal, jazz, Brazilian music: Bossa Nova, Choro, MPB, etc.) For the past few years, Chih-yu has been engaged in web commercial/animation scoring, arranging, and composing, as well as performing as a jazz vocalist with Ricardo Canzio, Mas Matsuda, and Yoshinori Kaneki. Currently, Chih-yu is a member of the MIT Jazz Combo, and you may find her voice at the recitals and in the production projects of students from Berklee College of Music.
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Tom Yeh, Ph.D Candidate in multimodal information retrieval
MIT CSAIL Vision Interfaces Group
MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
tomyeh@mit.edu
http://people.csail.mit.edu/tomyeh/
Joe: What's your last name?
Tom: Yeh.
Joe: I said, what's your last name.
Tom: Yeh.
Oh yeah, my name is Tom Yeh.
My interests in computers stemmed from my childhood addiction in computer games and my constant disatisfaction about them. As an 8 year-old, I believd that I could've done a better job designing the game if I were the programmer.
Fourteen years later, I received my B.Sc. in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University. Even though I acquired a considerable amount of knowledge and skill about computers, none of my games became smash hits. Not losing faith, I decided to continue my education. I strategically omitted my true ambition and wrote something else I don't remember any more in my essay and got into MIT. That was five years ago.
Not long after I entered MIT, I decided to do research in Computer Vision (because I think it is cool) under Dr. Trevor Darrell (because I think he is cool). Now, I am beginning my 5th year. Perhaps it is time to face the reality and be a grown up. Perhaps it is time to think about my future. Perhaps it is time to get serious about doing my research and start working on my thesis.
Royal College of Art, UK
Alice Wang
M.A in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art
alice@alice-wang.com
http://www.alice-wang.com
Alice Wang is a first year student studying MA Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, UK. She graduated in 2006 with a first class honours degree from Central St. Martins College of Art and Design BA Product Design. Along with her background in graphic design and a strong interest in psychology and biology, she designs objects not as a solution to problems but to illustrate certain human behaviours and future social trends and issues. She's interested in questioning why people behave in particular ways and how these behaviours can evolve overtime or in various situations. She is currently working on several projects and publications and designing for her own series of commercial products.
Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands
Mina Wu
Master of Industrial, Interior and Identity Design in Design Academy Eindhoven, the Netherlands
minawu@gmx.net
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/minawu
Mina Wu was born in Taipei, Taiwan. She studied Jewelry design in Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (NL) and now she is graduating from IM masters in Design Academy Eindhoven (NL). She came to Holland to study and work since 2000 as jewelry, product and textile designer. Since 2004, her works are collected by Droog Design
Due to the multi-culture background, her works are blended with Asian-style handicraft and Dutch conceptual thinking. In between domestic and nomadic, between decorative and practical, between art and design… Her works are traveling with exhibitions inside Holland and internationally: Droog Design exhibitions, Salone del Mobile in Milan and Ambiente in Frankfurt; Talente in Munich; tour exhibition “Language”, “g.e.b.o.r.d.u.u.r.” in Tilburg; “The Red Dress” project; “Love Stamp” for Tokyo Design Week; “Chi ha Paura…?” exhibition ,ect. Worked as print designer for Oilily in 2006. Recent presses are Amsterdam Index 2007 and Items 01, 2007; Domus+78 Chinese Architects and Designers, 2007.
Media Lab, University of Arts and Design Helsinki, Finland
Jurgen Scheible
Ph.D Candidate in Mobile Technology
University of Arts and Design Helsinki, Finland
jscheib@uiah.fi
http://www.mobilenin.com/
Jurgen Scheible is originally from Germany but lives, studies and works in Finland. He is a researcher, engineer, programmer, project manager, music and video artist. He has extensive knowledge on mobile technology and learning. Currently he runs the "Mobile Hub" which is a prototype development unit at the Media Lab of the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland. There he focuses on Mobile applications and Cross Media applications including Mobile gaming, Mobile Media, Mobile Messaging, Ad-hoc networks, Location based services, Mobile learning and iTV.
Jurgen Scheible worked 8 years with Nokia in R&D in Finland, holding various positions such as programmer, project manager, product manager and competence transfer manager. He is currently also a doctoral student at the Media Lab of the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland with the research topic: Mobile technology enhanced learning with animation and multi-user games, focusing on collaborative and situated learning, facilitated by mobile devices and Ad-hoc networks.
Jurgen Scheible has been teaching also "creative mobile media" workshops in academic but also professional settings e.g. at Cambridge University, Moving Image Studio department.
With his music and video art project "Lenin's Godson" (www.leninsgodson.com), he brings art and engineering together. Besides composing and performing pop-, rock music, he develops software tools and systems for group audience participation to interact with media and games on large screens to enrich his live performance events.
Nightmarket
Workshop
2007