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Lady Bugs

(Kang, 2023 - )

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Lady Bugs, Lady Bugs, fly away home

Your houses are on fire, Your children all gone,

All except one, and her name is Ira (ईरा, the earth).

She crept into the electric modem.

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The project Lady Bugs combines interactive media arts, design fiction, and academic writing to explore how factors often considered negative - such as errors, transgressions, or uncertainty - can foster creative, playful, and inspiring ways of learning and making in computing and broader STEM fields.

Interactive Interface (2023 - ):
This project features an interactive audiovisual interface titled Lady Bugs, set up on a dining table with a large vertical monitor, customized audio-visual synthesizers, and three unique user interfaces: a cranking handle, a piano, and a microphone. Each interface produces distinct synth sounds while also interfering with and modulating the sound qualities of the others through pitch modulation, harmonics, and effects. This computer-supported cooperative system allows users to explore indeterminate yet unique sounds collaboratively.

Design Fiction – Solanas Empire (2024 - )
This project also includes a design fiction titled Solanas Empire, with the following synopsis: In the late 21st century, the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics shattered traditional power structures. At the forefront of the feminist revolution, the underground activism group Lady Bugs seized military and economic control to forge a new order. Their ideology was rooted in Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto, not merely as a declaration but as the foundation of a society that recognized AI and robots as equals to humans, dismantling the anthropocentric nation-state system. The revolution first ignited in East Asia, with what was once South Korea becoming the experimental ground for the Lady Bugs movement. Seoul, now the heart of the Solanas Empire, had transformed into an experimental civilization where genetically modified humans, AI, and robots coexisted. Women and AI formed the ruling class, while men were reduced to genetic resources for reproduction and survival. However, even this seemingly perfect world harbored cracks.




 

Read More

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Publication (ACM CSCW'23): https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3584931.3607491



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Solanas' SCUM Manifesto (한글판): https://leokang.com/scum/



 

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Interface: Collaborative Audio-visual Interface

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Design Fiction: Solanas Empire (ongoing - )

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Continue reading Solanas's work: https://www.khoury.northeastern.edu/home/shivers/rants/scum.html


Thanks for your interest on my work!