Hye Yeon Nam

Hye Yeon Nam is a digital media artist working on interactive installations and performance video. She holds a Ph.D. in digital media from Georgia Institute of Technology, an M.F.A. in digital media from Rhode Island School of Design, and a B.F.A. in Information Design from Ewha Womans University. She foregrounds the complexity of social relationships by making the familiar strange, and interpreting everyday behaviors in performative ways. Hye Yeon’s art has been showcased in The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C, Times Square, the art gallery Eyebeam and The Tank, the Conflux, the D.U.M.B.O. Art Festival in New York, FILE, SIGGRAPH, CHI, ISEA, E3 Expo, the Lab in San Francisco, and several festivals in China, Istanbul, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Australia, Denmark, and Switzerland. Her work has been broadcast on the Discovery Channel (Canada) and LIVE TV show Good Day Sacramento, published in Leonardo Journal and featured in Wired, We Make Money Not Art, Makezine, Business Insider, Slashdot, Engadget among other publications. She is currently an assistant professor of digital art at Louisiana State University.

Invisible
Installation

Invisible uses a computational system to evoke understanding and a discussion of current racial stereotype issues. It explores the political implications of how freely racial discrimination is expressed on online platforms, where these discriminations can easily be hidden. At the same time, it is not limited to representing discrimination, but also revealing a lack of conversation. Invisible prints sentences that include any derogatory racial term representing discrimination of African Americans, Asians, Hispanics and Caucasians on papers in every 10 seconds. After the sentences are printed, the robotic arm cuts and throws the papers away on the ground. Amongst the piles of hurtful messages, one can find examples that seek to educate the readers to the injured feelings and sensitivities of the races. The most important purpose of Invisible is to raise discussions, and not for audiences to remain in frustration.