Confessions of a researchaholic

2025-07-06

Staycation with museum visits

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 6:38 pm
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During this week’s company summer shutdown, I did not travel afar but went out during the usual workweek (Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday) to visit some local museums. The exhibitions are all excellent and I experienced public transport as much as possible.

Tuesday: Isaac Julien: I Dream a World + Matisse: Jazz Unbound at the de Young Museum, taking Caltrain, BART, and MUNI bus 44.

Thursday: Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art + Printing Color: Chiaroscuro to Screenprint at the Legion of Honor, taking Caltrain, light-rail, and MUNI bus 38R.

Sunday: Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War at the Asian Art Museum, taking BART and some driving.



2025-07-02

Immersive multi-screen installation

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 4:26 pm
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The unique sense of immersion that I experienced with the multi-screen video installations of de Young’s Isaac Julien: I Dream a World exhibition could be attributed to several factors:

  • The multiple video channels provide the opportunity and imperative for the viewers to choose which one to watch, analogous to viewpoint switch in the real world.
  • The spatial arrangement of the screens provides 3D cues even if not conforming to the depicted scene geometry.
  • The spatial sound channels also help to modulate the visual experience, by guiding the viewers’ attention to different parts of the installation.

2025-02-16

Sports-themed Sunday

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 5:42 pm
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While walking to visit this sports-themed exhibition at SFMOMA today before its closing, I noticed some black-chauffeured cars in the neighborhood and realized that the NBA All-Star weekend was happening around.

2024-12-15

Target-aware light projection

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 6:46 pm
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Went to watch Let’s Glow SF 2024 across several sites and found the effects to be most impressive when the content is customized with respect to the structure of the target display (e.g., virtual clock tower on the physical ferry building).

2024-12-14

Art papers

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 6:07 pm
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I took a look at the art papers in SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 primarily due to the unusual preface and, to a lesser extent, the much lower (and thus more precious) number (28 only!) and acceptance rate (15.9%) than the technical papers program.

Unlike the technical papers which have clearer review criteria (novelty, importance, utility, readability, reproducibility, ethics, etc.), I agree with the art papers chair that it is not clear what is an art paper, not least a good one. I found some of the papers interesting in the technical or philosophical perspectives, while some others left me scratching my head. But I guess this is what art is in general – more about expressing/sharing novel viewpoints/experiences than scientific discoveries or practical utilities.

2024-04-18

Francis Bacon art

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 9:27 pm
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After noticing Homage To Francis Bacon (Three Studies of Lucian Freud) by Takashi Murakami during his recent exhibition I spent most of the last weekend and weekday evenings fascinated by the artworks by Francis Bacon and his inspirations from and influences on other artists.




2024-04-05

DSGNR57

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 5:38 pm
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This “creative entity” has an impressive Behance portfolio and messaged me to connect.
We had an half-hour Zoom call on Friday afternoon, during which he remains anonymous and faceless.
From his voice I can figure out that he is a young European male whose is on an early stage of architecture design day job.

2024-03-17

Loving Vincent

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 4:32 pm
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I absolutely love the hand-painted oil effects of this film which I watched on hoopladigital.
The backgrounds are mostly flat and static and thus can be painted more sparsely while the foreground characters and objects are rotoscoped over (green-screen) captured live actions.
The actors were chosen to resemble the subjects in the original paintings which were used as style references for the painting process.



2024-03-03

Day jobs

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 6:35 pm
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I visited the opening exhibition of day jobs in Cantor today and found it fascinating.
The descriptions, as quote from the exhibition website, can be applied to other creative fields such as scientific research and product development as well:

This exhibition examines the overlooked impact of day jobs on the visual arts. Success for artists is often measured by their ability to quit a day job and focus full time on their practice. Yet, these jobs can often spur creative growth by providing artists with new materials and methods, hands-on knowledge of a specific industry that becomes an area of artistic investigation, or a predictable paycheck and structure that enable unpredictable ideas.

By examining the impact of day jobs on artists, the exhibition seeks to demystify artistic production and overturn the romanticized concept of the artist sequestered in their studio, waiting for inspiration to strike. Conceived as a corrective to traditional art historical narratives, Day Jobs encourages us to more openly acknowledge the precarious and generative ways that economic and creative pursuits are intertwined.



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