# Oscillating Cultures

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/experiments/oscillating-cultures
Type: experiment
Artist: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Year: 2023
Medium: Snap AR
Context: Snap AR × Royal College of Art

## Summary

Oscillating Cultures is a 2023 multi-device AR artwork made in a collaboration between Snap AR and the Royal College of Art by Jeanyoon Choi, Sabrina Tian and Nora; Jeanyoon Choi led the team and developed the AR interaction. Three phones interact so that tapping cultural choices on one generates face filters reflected on the others, first resembling advertisements and then increasingly stereotyped depictions. The work links button-driven interfaces, recommendation algorithms and AI training to the tendency of humans and AI to impose stereotypes on other cultures.

## 요약 (Korean)

『Oscillating Cultures』(2023)는 스냅 AR과 영국 왕립예술학교의 협업으로 만든 멀티 디바이스 AR 작품으로, 최정윤이 팀을 이끌며 문화적 고정관념과 AI의 분류 방식을 얼굴 필터로 비판합니다.

## Questions this answers

### What is Oscillating Cultures?

Oscillating Cultures (2023) is a multi-device AR artwork from a Snap AR and Royal College of Art collaboration. Three linked phones generate face filters from cultural choices to critique stereotyping by both humans and AI.

### What was Jeanyoon Choi's role in Oscillating Cultures?

Jeanyoon Choi led the team, with Sabrina Tian and Nora, and developed the AR interaction between February and September 2023.

Topics: augmented reality, face filters, cultural stereotypes, recommendation algorithms, multi-device artwork, ai bias

References: [Snap Inc.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_Inc.), [Royal College of Art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_College_of_Art), Sabrina Tian, [Distancing effect (Verfremdungseffekt)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distancing_effect)

## Description

RCA X Snapchat collaboration project reflecting on Cultural Comparisons.

“Oscillating Cultures” is a multi-device AR artwork that critiques our cultural consumption, perception, and AI's role in generating simulated images. Three phones interact, with one's interface influencing the others. Tapping actions generate face filters based on cultural choices, initially taking on the appearance as a commercial advertisement. As choices narrow, corresponding face filters are reflected on other phones, reflecting stereotyped or classified depictions. The intentional use of discomfort to parallel modern internet recommendation algorithms, presenting them in a whimsical and dadaistic manner.

The entire interaction highlights our tendency to classify cultures and the issues inherent in button-driven interfaces of contemporary internet culture. Linked to AI training, user interactions, stereotypes, and biases, “Oscillating Cultures” underscores how both humans and AI often fail to perceive individuals from different cultures as unique entities, opting instead to impose stereotypical imagery onto them.

Throughout the rhythmic oscillation of the collage, underrepresented cultures are blended and juxtaposed, offering a reflection on the blending of cultures and inducing the estrangement effect (vefremdungseffekt). The artwork ultimately prompts contemplation on the endless cycle of classification and sub-classification in machine learning, culminating in the realization that persistent categorization leads to a mere presence of signifiers, devoid of true depth or understanding.

Team

Jeanyoon Choi, Sabrina Tian, Nora

## Links

- [Watch video](https://www.youtube.com/embed/MbI2SSxFQWU)

## Images

- https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/oscillating-cultures/1.webp — Oscillating Cultures (2023), documentation image 1.
- https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/oscillating-cultures/2.webp — Oscillating Cultures (2023), documentation image 2.

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.