hye yeon nam - future (un)known

the gallery will be open during regular business hours (Tu - Su, 12pm - 6pm). social distancing and masks are required for those who have yet to complete their covid-19 vaccinations.

Virtual first wednesday opening reception: august 4th at 6:30pm

Hye Yeon Nam is a digital media artist and HCI designer exploring how technology can improve our interactions with other agents - humans, robots, or nature. She foregrounds the complexity of social relationships by making the familiar strange and interpreting everyday behaviors in performative ways.

“Machines are everywhere. They are working for us, listening to us, and sometimes even spying on us. With the isolation of the pandemic as people try to reconnect, machines are becoming more deeply embedded in our everyday life than ever before. As algorithms, machine learning, and computer vision systems develop, machines are getting smart enough to see things, understand logic, and predict situations. With increasing automation, more and more people are concerned about machines taking their jobs. As people speculate on the future of technology, their visions tend to be grim and dystopian. Sinister depictions of androids and AI abound in popular culture. In Future (Un)Known, I ask questions about our fundamental relationship with machines. Are they tools, servants, collaborators, competitors, friends, or even enemies? Are they simply tools or do they have agency?” - Nam

Hye Yeon has participated in exhibitions, festivals, and showcases at ARS Electronica Center, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Asia Society Texas Center, Japanese American National Museum, Times Square, Eyebeam, Conflux festival, D.U.M.B.O. Festival, the Lab in San Francisco, Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletronica (FILE), SIGGRAPH, CHI (Computer-Human Interaction), Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI), International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Creativity & Cognition (C&C), and several festivals in China, Istanbul, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Australia, Denmark, and Switzerland. Her work has been broadcast on the Discovery Channel and LIVE TV show Good Day Sacramento, published in Leonardo Journal, and featured in Wired, We Make Money Not Art, Makezine, Business Insider, Slashdot, Engadget among other publications. She is currently an associate professor of digital art at Louisiana State University.

This exhibition is presented alongside the latest works from Anita Cooke, Audra Kohout, & Thomas Neff. All works from these artists are on view, free of charge, during normal gallery hours (12 - 6 p.m., Tue - Sun) from August 3-26, 2021. 

works on view in august 2021