Main Research Topics:
(a) art practice for computing and engineering
(b) creative reusing of e-waste for interactive media art
(c) supporting nonlinear learners (improvisational, multi-sensory) in STEM
(d) new interfaces for musical expression
Publication venues: Human-Computer-Interaction (ACM CHI, CSCW, TEI, DIS, NIME)
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=C0mDDZUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
Ongoing:
1. LEONDIDIS: Music, Love, and the Art of AI Collaboration
LEONDIDIS is an art-based autoethnographic study of human–AI creative collaboration that examines how emerging AI technologies may reconfigure existing collaborative forms of art worlds into more agent-configured creative networks. Based on a long-term ethnographic engagement (since 2022), the project documents a mixed-reality collaboration in which the author forms an indie rock band titled LEONDIDIS together with two partly computational and imaginary virtual beings—Di Di #1 and Di Di #2—as co-creative partners.
Project website: https://leokang.com/leondidis/
2. LADY BUGS + Solanas Empire: Weaving Futures Through Interactive Art, Design Fiction, and Civic Imagination
The project Lady Bugs, together with its subproject Solanas Empire, integrates interactive media arts, design fiction, and scholarly writing to investigate how conditions typically framed as negative—such as error, transgression, and uncertainty—can instead function as generative forces. Rather than treating these elements as failures to be corrected, the project reframes them as catalysts for creative, playful, and transformative modes of learning and making within computing and broader STEM cultures.
About Lady Bugs: https://leokang.com/ladybug/
About Solanas Empire: https://leokang.com/solanasempire/
Selected Publications:
Kang, Laewoo, Steven Jackson, and Trevor Pinch. 'The Electronicists: Techno-aesthetic Encounters for Nonlinear and Art-based Inquiry in HCI', Proceedings of CHI '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2022
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517506
Online Exhibition: https://leokang.com/electronicists/
Kang, Laewoo, and Steven Jackson. “Tech-Art-Theory: Improvisational Methods for HCI Learning and Teaching”, Proceedings of the ACM 2021 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM, 2021
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3449156
Online Exhibition: https://leokang.com/tat/
Kang, Laewoo Leo, Steven J. Jackson, and Phoebe Sengers. "Intermodulation: Improvisation and Collaborative Art Practice for Human-Computer-Interaction." Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2018.
* Best of CHI - Honourable Mention Award
doi:https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173734
Online Exhibition https://leokang.com/intermodulation/
Kang, Laewoo Leo, and Steven Jackson. "Collaborative art practice as HCI research." interactions 25.2 (2018): 78-81.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3177816
Kang, Laewoo Leo. "Lady Bugs: Collaborative Interface for Exploring Creative Error and Uncertainty." Companion Publication of the 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. ACM 2023.
doi: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3584931.3607491
Online Exhibition: https://leokang.com/ladybug/
Jackson, Steven J., and Laewoo Kang. "Breakdown, obsolescence and reuse: HCI and the art of repair." Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2014.
* Best of CHI - Honourable Mention Award
doi : https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557332
Kang, Laewoo. “I Want To: Multi-media Installation for Exploring Our Desire”, Proceedings of International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI). ACM, 2018
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173225.3173315
More:
Kang, Laewoo. "Intermodulator: Interactive Audio-Visual System for Collaborative Improvisation.", Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference, Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2018
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3177760
Kang, Laewoo. "Breaking AndyWall: Transgressive and Playful Exploration on the Dynamic Role of Users in Art and Design." Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference, Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2016.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2891100
Houston, Lara, Steven J. Jackson, Daniela K. Rosner, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Meg Young, and Laewoo Kang. "Values in repair." Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2016
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858470
Kang, Laewoo. "Echo(): Listening to the Reflection of Obsolete Technology." Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS). ACM, 2017.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3064857.3079180
Kang, Laewoo, Taezoo Park, and Steven Jackson. "Scale: human interactions with broken and discarded technologies." CHI'14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2014.
doi : https://doi.org/10.1145/2559206.2574831
Kang, Laewoo, Tianyuan Gu, and Geri Gay. "Harmonic paper: interactive music interface for drawing." CHI'13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2013.
doi : https://doi.org/10.1145/2468356.2468492
Cheng, Justin, Laewoo Kang, and Dan Cosley. "Storeys: designing collaborative storytelling interfaces." CHI'13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2013.
doi : https://doi.org/10.1145/2468356.2479603
Cho, Taemin, Jon Forsyth, Laewoo Kang, and Juan P. Bello. "Time-varying Delay Effects Based On Recurrence Plots", Digital Audio Effects(DAFx), 2011
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Kang, Laewoo, and Hsin-Yi Chien. "He(和): Calligraphy as a Musical Interface.", Proceedings of the 2010 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2010), Sydney, Australia
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