JING BAO

I am an interactive and digital artist in my mid 20’s, and I graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 2009. I currently study at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. At the Beijing Film Academy my major was Game Design. During my third year in college, I was selected by my school to be an intern at a well-known Japanese game company, Success Corporation. While I was at Success, I worked with a team to make an X-box game called “Boxing King”. After I graduated, I became an employee as a game art designer at one of Success’s branch companies in China. I worked on the design and development of many video games such as Akai Lto and Touch Detective, etc. This experience helped me discover a strong interest in installation art and virtual reality technology and lead me to work at a well known VR tech company VRP 3D China. Simultaneously a friend and I began our own game company, which was based on mobile platform and children’s electronic books development. I am now studying in the U.S.A. to expand my knowledge of new technologies and to broaden my perspective on the possibilities of being a digital artist.

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Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.

Outliers

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How are we protecting our living planet? Global warming is happening now. This is an interactive installation that allows a user can change the length of a video with his/her body’s distance to the screen.

I am very interested in social issues and social psychology. This project is inspired by a documentary film from Tai Wan called < ±2c >(+or-2 degree Celsius ). This film is about Tai Wan, which is has a serious problem with global warming in terms of its location. I took a documentary video also. It’s about ice melting. I chose ice as my medium to give an intuitive feeling of the temperature. For the location, I used Time Square because it has a lot of people and very big and bright advertisements. These things represent the change of the earth after the industrial revolution. Additionally, all of the lights from the electronic billboards reflected brilliantly on the ice. Then, I recorded the whole progress of the ice melting in Time Square. This video source is a part of my interactive installation.

In the gallery, the user will first see a still image of an ice mountain projected on a wall which is composed of many different plastic shopping bags. As the viewer gets close to the wall, the video’s frames will change.

In terms of technology, I used a Kinect sensor to track the distance between the fabric and the users.

Thought the interactive quality of my installation, participants will be allowed to feel connected to the issue of global warming.  

(This is just a demo of my project, I am still working on this.)

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Be watched, Beexposed

Check the work from here:

http://jingbao.tumblr.com/tagged/Interactive%20Work#22348096416

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"Be watched, Be exposed" is an interactive installation, which is based on

my own experience. I am extremely sensitive to noise; I get very upset when I

hear loud noises while I am in sitting in a quiet place. Especially, if someone is

talking or chatting very loudly in a museum or gallery, or any public place,

which is meant to be quiet.

In my project, the users are able to use the volume of their voices to turn

seven bulbs on or off. I asked seven people whose personalities are similar to

mine, and who have had the same experiences, if I could record one of their

eyes for 30minutes as they stared directly into the camera. In my installation, I

project the footage that I had recorded of the seven eyes onto the seven bulbs,

which are hanging horizontally from the ceiling. The reason I used bulbs as

part of my installation is because they represent the spotlight. It is as if the

paparazzi is following you when you are talking loudly. Inside of the room, the

environment is a little bit dark. As mentioned before, there are seven bulbs

hanging horizontal from the ceiling. The users can use the volume of their

voices to trigger or turn each bulb' on or off. If the volume is very loud, all

seven bulbs will turn on, and the users will see seven different eyes watching

them. If the volume is low, the bulbs will turn off one by one until there is no

sound, and the bulbs have all been turned off.

The title, "Be watched, Be exposed," represents the moment when the user

goes into the room; they immediately have an uncanny feeling when they speak

too loud that all of the eyes, which looks very 'freaky' in the dark, are watching

them.

I used Max/Msp to program the code, which is used to trigger the projection

onto the bulbs. This allows the users to see the projections on the bulbs as they

are being turned on and off by the volume of the voices.

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Networked Childhood

Check the work from here:

http://jingbao.tumblr.com/tagged/Interactive%20Work#22326834150

http://jingbao.tumblr.com/tagged/Interactive%20Work#22345695665

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Jing's Portfolio

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Remix Culture

Check the work from here:

http://jingbao.tumblr.com/tagged/Interactive%20Work#22326521839

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This is a report video of "Screen Memory - Networked Childhood", which is the visitors being entertainment by my work in the galley.

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These are the images that I tested with this project.

Check the work from here:

http://jingbao.tumblr.com/tagged/Interactive%20Work#22326273067

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This project is an interactive piece called “Overcast.” The interface of this project

is a homemade box covered with blue sand. Behind this box was the projection from

the internet. Users can experience the magic when they realize that they have just

used their fingers to stir the sand, and are able to produce sounds. The concept of this

installation is that I made the “earth” with a jungle inside. The box is the earth; the top

of the glass represents the sky; the blue sand signifies the weather. The users can let

the sunshine into “the earth” by stirring the sand. The device is like the plants on the

earth; they will start “singing” when the light comes through. The title, “Overcast,”

came to me accidentally: I checked the weather when I was doing this project. It

showed that recently the weather was cloudy, rainy, overcast, etc. I felt that all these

weather terms could adequately describe my project. Overcast is my favorite weather.

It is perfect for this magical jungle.

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The project’s theme was inspired by Occupy Wall Street. I

chose another social issue, compulsory sterilization, which is happing in china. I used

myself as the figure of the background images to stand at my point of view of protest

against the policy that is affecting our generation. This is an interactive piece, based

on the screen. I used the mouse as a magnifying glass. When the users mouse over

anywhere of the screen, the images in that area will be enlarged.

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Once upon a time, there was a dancer...

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This project is about “Remix Culture” where I combined the cultural differences

between America and China. I used a lot of visual and audio elements in this work to

give voice and image to the differences in cultural integration. My main focus is to

explore the relationship between technological development and human psychological

changes in which I will investigate the cultural similarities and contrasts in the

mindset, and the commonality in the cultural differences. Visually, I integrated

elements of Chinese and American culture. Acoustically, I remixed the different

audios. For instance, I used a lot of signs of the digital era, such as telephone

answering machines, telegraphs, and a typewriter. In this piece, I was examining the

commonality of the two countries behind the cultural and technological developments;

and the differences depending on my personal feelings.

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Atom

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This project is called “Screen Memory – Networked Childhood.” This piece combines three parts: a video, an installation, and an interactive part. This installation was about the differences between time and space, and the concept of the social network. It displayed with a real monitor that was playing a video, and at the same time the homemade slide box was showing two-dimensional paintings. This idea came from my own childhood experience – blowing ink on papers. In addition, I asked my friends who are from different places to blow their own paintings with ink and send the paintings to me via the internet. Then, I printed them out and inserted them in different layers in the slide box. In this work, I was concerned more about the people in the psychological and physical interaction and participation. The viewers could choose from the different inks that I put in part of my installation to create their own pieces by blowing ink on paper. When they finished, they could insert their paintings into the slide box with other people’s work. After this project, I made a report video called “Fun Time”, which is the visitors being entertainment by my work in the galley.