jeanyoon.ch@oi ~ % cd /oi

Welcome to jeanyoon.ch/oi

Jeanyoon Choi (b.1999) is a Computational Artist researching in interconnectivity and complexity through Multi-Device Web Artworks.

You can learn more about my:

↑ ↓ select · enter open · or click / tap
artworks projects experiments research about texts contact

jeanyoon.ch@oi /oi % cat tech-art-not-art-tech

Tech-Art, not Art-Tech

2025-01-25

My direction: tech-art, not art-tech. Helping humanity digest technology.

The distinction is provisional. By tech-art, I mean an artistic practice that investigates technology as a medium and reaches beyond an established art audience. It explores uses that are neither simply practical nor demonstrations of a feature. By art-tech, I mean the tendency to place technology on top of an otherwise conventional artwork without examining it deeply. Ultimately, these boundaries may blur.

Could media art develop something like the film industry? The camera enabled a new artistic language, which became an industry of its own. Computing, three-dimensional graphics, audiovisual systems, AI and extended reality may offer a comparable opening.

The current landscape often feels polarised to me: at one end, work that depends on government and art-world structures while becoming difficult to communicate; at the other, superficial spectacle made for social media. I want an independently sustainable practice with more narrative, research and reasoning than a decorative audiovisual attraction.

That does not mean simply following market demand. An artistic practice can create a demand by developing a language that did not previously exist.

Three commitments help define this direction. Speculation: investigate what technologies can make possible as interactive experiences. Medium: use them critically, rather than merely as implementation tools. Narrative: communicate an artistic position beyond an attractive audiovisual output.

The web matters because its language is accessible, flexible and deeply interactive. JavaScript connects directly to a wide technical ecosystem. Working with code can bring new technologies into an artwork without waiting for a third-party creative tool to package them. The medium also remains close to everyday uses, making it possible to bend familiar forms into unfamiliar experiences.

CES 2025 sharpened this thought for me. Many presentations still isolated a product or feature rather than constructing a substantial experience of the technology. I saw an opening for artists and designers to rethink those encounters, and for a research practice such as XD Lab to do more than decorate them. The same question extends to what might follow the Apple Store as a place for encountering technology.

An experience economy should communicate an experience, not just an individual product. Designing that encounter is an artistic task: helping humanity digest the technologies it is already living with.

↑ ↓ select · enter open · or click / tap
Read original notes back to ../texts ../ back to oi