Yinuo Chen Creative Portfolio 2023

Yinuo chen Portfolio 2023

yinuochenone@gmail.com + 1 (347) 328 7516 Showreel 2023 Instagram LinkedIn

Yinuo Chen [yee-know]

[she/her/hers] Creative Technologist, Multidisplinary Artist Yinuo Chen is a multidisciplinary creative technologist based in Brooklyn and Beijing.

She recently graduated from the Interactive Media Arts Program, NYU Tisch, with a Bachelor of fine Arts degree.

Yinuo is currently a full time AI prompt engineer at Bluefocus Digital’s AIGC center, focusing on VAE model customization and AI assisted video workflow development.

Her works have been showcased at the Enjoy Contemporary Gallery New Zealand, Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, The Blanc Gallery, iidrr Gallery, System Shanghai, NYU Tisch Gallery, and NYU Interactive Telecommunications program.

01

my body is not my home

02

man eater

03

Lenovo China Ai commercial

04

client commissions: selected works

05

Episodic Me(s)

06

East/south/west/north, what was the shape of his life?

3D Animated Short Film, 2022 - 2023

Live Audio Visual Performance /Data Glove, 2022

AI generated Ad Campaign, 2023

Audio Visual Live System Design / Live Performance/3D Animation, 2022 - 2023

3D sculpture series, 2021 - 2022

Origami Series, 2023

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9

15

18

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01 My Body Is Not My Home, vol.2 3D Animated Short Film Description: My Body Is Not My Home vol.2 is a redeveloped version of my undergraduate thesis. It is a 3D animated short film following the journey of an uncanny simulacrum who undergoes the process of becoming the ‘Other’ .

Directed and produced by Yinuo Chen

Heart 3D model Creation By Kristopher Shi

Motion Capture Dance Sequence by Mark Peshkov

Landscape Production by Keer Zhao

Original Soundtrack by Gabriel Chi, Cameron Tanaka, and Jamante

Date:

Duration:

Type

Instructor:

Tools:

2022.12 - 2023.12

02:45 min

Academic Work in New York University, redeveloped in 2023

Snow Fu Yunxue

Unreal Engine, Autodesk Maya, Premiere Pro

1

Director’s Statement: Immigrating from Beijing to Long Island, New York at the age of 13, I often found myself longing for a home that no longer exists.The feeling of displacement intensified when I realized that I had become a perpetual foreigner to both my western peers as well as my family back home.

At the start of the pandemic, this confusion of identity morphed into a even more perplexing state - it seemed that overnight, I’d unknowingly grew into an aesthetic genre, an object of desire paradoxically intertwined with notions of disease. This journey led me to critically examine the commercialization and dehumanization of the Asian female body, a theme prevalent in Western mainstream media. This portrayal often strips away the cultural, racial, and sociological contexts, reducing characters to mere aesthetic forms tailored to satisfy a Western appetite.

“cultural, ethnic and racial differences will be continually commodified and offered up as new dishes to enhance the white palate […] the Other will be eaten, consumed and forgotten.”(hooks 1992, p. 39).

Drawing inspirations from bell hooks’ Essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance”(1992), which delves into the commodification of the ‘Other’ by the white desiring subject, as well as Julia Kristeva’s concept

of

the

Abject

Horror,

I

created

this

3D

animated

short

film

as

an

instrument

of

defiance

-

against the violence of abjection that non-white female bodies are subjected to in both the digital and physical

landscape.The

protagonist,

a

simulacrum

mirrored

after

my

image,

becomes

a

digital

manifestation of the trauma of displacement. It dances joyfully through the process of becoming the ‘Other’, leading the audience on a harrowing journey of self-unbecoming and the entrapment within a politicized body that has no place to call home.

2

Ideation & Research: Intersectional Dehumanization: Through researching Julia Kristeva’s Essay on Abjection as well as psychological studies behind the cognitive process of obejection,

I

discovered that the way the human minds process figures of the uncanny - most known for their presence in video games -

are quite

similar to processes of objectification & sexualization. Both evolves from percieving someone as almost

human,which in turn leads to the

alienation of the percieved. I decided to use this film as a medium of exploration, to experiment with this interlinked dynamic behind the dehumanized digital and the dehumanized real.

ob je ct ify

’ y f ti c je b ‘A tion a z i l ina g r Ma n atio z i sh feti e siv l u Rep

un hu ma n

y nn a c un

Volume.1 Render Volume.1 Full Short Film

Concept exploration

Initial Sketches

3

Establishing Visual Style: Abject Horror | Hyperrealism | Hyper-sexual | disjointed | grotesque | Uncanny

The dichotomy between the creature’s hyper-realistic, hypersexualized appearance and it’s uncannical movements simotaneously evokes desire and disgust. The creature confronts its audience with an intrusion of the real, a disturbance to order and rules that threatens the boundary between the viewing subject and the viewed object. This almost sympathetic, almost human figure unsettles the viewers to a state of confusion and as well as intrigue.

4

Animation Process: In addition to traditional keyframe animation, motion capture technology and Unreal Engine’s high fidelity metahuman system were employed to enhance the uncanny atmosphere throughout the film. All footaged were rendered inside Unreal Engine’s Path tracer system.

Technical Highlights The creature’s face is a metahuman head converted from a 3D scan of my face. UE’s livelink system was utilized to record facial animations via cellphone.

Dance sequence animation choreographed by mark Peshkov and recorded at the motion capture lab at ITP, NYU.

customized

subsurface

scattering

materials

for

a

jelly

like,semi-translucent human skin.

Motion Capture

Keyframe animation

Test render in Unreal Engine

Custom skin material Blueprint

5

Storyboard & Final Renders:

6

Selected Stills:

7

Audience Feedback: In an effort to recieve a diverse range of feedbacks, I shared 14 clips of the film on instagram over the course of 4 months.

Shared Content Sept - Dec 2023

Notable Comments:

Reflection: Notable comments include negative sentiments expressed towards the appearance of the character, as well as comments on my appearance as an asian woman working in a technical software. Interestingly, the negative sentiments seems to be mostly produced by male identifying viewers, while sympathetic / positive comments are produced by female identifying viewers.

Project Outcome: Significant increase in exposure on social media since the release of the film’s promotional materials Scheduled to release promotional merchandise in collaboration with iidiir Gallery and Fluc , NYC, in December, 2023 Exhibited at the NYU Tisch wide Halloween event 2023 Selected by Chengdu Photo Festival's curator as part of the NYU Student Exhibition, which is scheduled

Overall, I am optimistic to see that this character is capable of evoking empathy despite its uncanny appearance.

to be open on December 31st for a duration of 3 months in the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum

This reinforces the idea that digital humans could, on certain levels, subvert the process of dehumanization

in China

through thoughtful and context-specific designs.

The Animated Short Film will be officially released on 12/24/2023.

8

02 Man/Eater Live Audio Visual Performance /Data Glove

Date:

2022.12

Type:

Academic Work in New York University

Instructor

David Rios

Duration:

04:00 min

Tools:

Arduino, Runway ML, Touchdesigner

Man/Eater is the name of this experimental live performance system, which intergrates deep sea creature and hyper feminine aesthetics with novel use of data visualization technology. The user takes on an alter-ego during the performance, wearing a custom made mirror mask and a wireless midi Arduino glove , controlling the soundscape and live visuals via motion. The glove and the mask becomes a physical extension of the performer’s body, enabling the performer to become the ultra-instrument.

9

Ideation & Mask design:

During the fabrication process, I focused on finding pieces that holds similarity in the form and color scheme of larvae of deep sea anglerfish. To avoid waste, I used recycled & upcycled materials for the entirety of the mask.

Technical Artifacts as externalized, detachable organs:

Drawing inspiration from Björk's blend of visual art in her live performances and the beautifully exposed internal organs of the deep-sea anglerfish larvae, I crafted an alter ego that materializes the intrinsic human desire to pose influence upon the physical reality.

Horn - Acrylic Nails From Community Junk shelf

While the mask conceals the user’s identity, the glove grants them total control - over their surrounding environment during the duration of the performance.

Dried Oxtail Bone Ornament

Acrylic Teeth from community junkshelf

Old Curtains as base of the mask

Old jewlery beads from a broken necklace

Used Halloween Mirror Mask

10

Data glove: Material Experiment & prototype

Initial approach:

Fabric based wired data glove using sewn in flex sensor & the Lilypad arduino main board.

Schematics Diagram

Arduino Nano 33 Io Flex sensors * Lithium batter

Revision after first prototype:

Mini Breadboard Wire & Sensor housin Plastic Halloween Finger Casing

During the prototyping phase, I found the fabric glove to be relatively fragile, and easy to break. I decided to

*Ultrasonic Distance Sensor was not used in the final application due to

switch to a hardshell approach which would share more similarity in form with the overall performance

time constraint.

persona that I hoped to embody, as well as provide a safer housing for the sensor pins. I used an old Halloween mechanical finger glove and a minibreadboard that is strapped on the user’s wrist. In addition, I decided to go wireless for increased mobility.

11

After switching to the hardshell aproach, I made several other adjustments to

Data glove: Final product

increase the wearer’s comfort while maintaining the sensitivity of the input sensor pins.

Initially, I deployed rubber bands to tighten the flex sensors on the inside of the hard-shelled mechanical finger casings.

After several mobility tests, I discovered that using rubber bands not only resulted in a general discomfort, the sensors' exposed surface was also prone to damage from constant friction with the finger enclosure casing.

As a solution, heat-shrinking tubes were applied to cover the sensors' body, enhancing finger mobility and minimizing the risk of sensor damage.

Lithium Battery

Three Flex Sensor Inputs

Inner flex sensor housed with heatshrink tubes

Outer hardshell case

Arduino connects to local wifi using UDP protocol

Final Product

12

Integrating Data glove: Visual & Audio system design Audio Component The wrist’s movement in the X, Y, and Z axis guides movement of the spacial audio parameter.

Finger bent angle outputting to the lens distortion effect

Each finger’s bent angle changes a distinct distortion reverb effect.

Income sensor data categorized by

Wrist movement from Left to Right

movement type/ direction

influencing the Expansive space reverb

main video switch

Visual Component Video animation derives from a custom AI sequence trained on publicly availbale faces of US politicians in Runway Ml. This video is then controlled by sensor and audio inputs.

The wrist’s movement in the X, Y, and Z axis guides the video speed and rotation.

Each finger’s bent angle changes the lens distortion level and color scheme of the video.

System Flowchart

Live Performance at ITP Winter showcase 2022

13

ITP Alter Egos Final Showcase 2022

Project Outcome: The live performance was selected to be shown at the ITP winter show 2022, as well as ITP ‘s Alter Ego Final showcase 2022. In the future, I hope to improve the automation aspect of the current system, and implement realtime generative soundscapes into the design.

14

03 Lenovo china christmast AI commercial AI generated Ad Campaign

Date:

2023.12

Type:

Professional Project

Role:

Visual direction, AI prompt Engineer

Tools:

Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, Pika, Runway Ml

Visual/Art direction and technical production for Lenovo China’s Christmas promotional ad campaign video at BlueFocus Digital’s AIGC center.

15

Preproduction: Initial Client Brief: Dynamic Movement Festive, Adorabl Wildly Imaginativ All Content Generated By AI

Lenovo Legion

Lenovo Thinkpad

Lenovo Legion PC

Motorola Flip phone

Initial Approach Felt & Wool Textured Christmas Ornaments in the shape of various Lenovo and Motorola Products Client Feedback: Dull Visual Should be more festive & Imaginative

Revision Based on Feedback:

Anthropomorphized all digital product Exaggerated Laptop animations in Runway ML & Pika

16

Production Documentation:

1.Storyboard

3.Transitional Shots generated in Stable Diffusion’s Deforum

2.Testing Felt texture Lora (Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models) in Stable Diffusion

4.Images generated in Dalle

5.Upscaled & Retextured in Stable Diffusion & Photoshop

17

04 Selected Client commissions

A. Live Visuals For Eartheater Audio Visual Live System Design / Live Performance Date:

2023.4

Type:

Artist Commission

Role:

Visual Designer

Duration:

65 min

Tools:

Unreal Engine, Touchdesigner, Midi Controller

Comissioned by renowned singer/song writer Eartheater to develop a live audio visual system for her show at NYU.

18

B. XPARK 3D Music Video Type: Duration:

Date:

Tools:

Art/ Animation Director, Group Project

02:37 min

2022.9 -2023.2

Unreal Engine, Maya, Premiere Pro

'XPARK' is a original 3D animated music video about the suffocation of desire. Directed and produced by Yinuo Chen. Original Score by Gabriel Chi and Cameron Tanaka.

19

C. Our Hands Unbroken (an ode to Internal Countermeasure Electronics) 2023.6 3D Audio Visual Installation Type:

Gallery commision, Animation Director/Producer

Duration:

02:37 min

Date:

2023.5

Tools:

Unreal Engine, Maya, Premiere Pro

TASKAM was invited by Enjoy Contemporary Gallery, New Zealand, to create an original 3D music video installation for their Mirai Nikki (Future Diary) exhibition. Original 3D visuals directed and produced by Yinuo Chen. Original Soundscape by Gabirel Chi and Cameron Tanaka.

20

D. When the sun goes down 3D Audio Visual Music Video

Date:

2023.6 - 2023.7

Type:

Artist Commission

Role:

Animation Director

Duration:

04:24 min

Tools:

Unreal Engine

Commissioned by emerging singer/songwriter 11 JIA YI to direct and produce an original live visual animation for his award-winning single "When the Sun Goes Down" Video showcased at 11 JIAYI and 99GOD ‘s China Tour “Into the Dark” in various renowned Chinese live music venues including Yue Livehouse Beijing & Systems Shanghai.

21

05 Episodic me(s) 3D sculpture series Date:

2021 - 2022

Type:

Individual Project

Tools:

Nomad, Maya

"episodic me(s)" is a speculative journey into the realm of childhood memories, to unearth souvenirs from once-forgotten spaces. Each piece in this 3D sculptural series emerges from the imperfect recollections of a piece of toy from my now inaccessible childhood home.This collection was a personal quest to reconstruct the precious artifacts lost in time.

13 22

06 East/south/west/north, What was the shape of his life?

Origami Collage

Date:

2023.11

Type:

Individual Project

Tools:

Photoshop, Family Photo Album

East South North West is A interactive Origami Game that allows its players to fold and unfold into a multidimensional view of my paternal grandfather’s life between the year of 1987 to 2008.

13 23

Project Description: In my elementary years, my paternal grandfather introduced me to the game of paper fortune telling, known in his terms as "EastSouth-West-North" (东南西北). Despite the differing nomenclature, it shared core similarities with its Western counterpart. Players are enabled to choose the shape of their fortune through the simple folds of this origami pattern.

In 2023, I undertook the task of digitizing our family's deteriorating photo albums, uncovering numerous unseen photographs of my

Digitized Photograph sample 1.

Inscription: “1987 Spring Festival in Ma Jian”

portrait of him using origami, blending his past and present into a

Ma Jian, a secluded village nestled in the Southern Mountains of China, and my grandfather’s birthplace. He

unified representation. This project aimed to extend his lifestory

was among the rare few who managed to leave the confines

beyond my fragmented childhood memories.

of the valley. In this photograph, he's dressed in 军便服

paternal grandfather. I was inspired to create a multi-dimensional

(Jun-Bian-Fu),

a

military

casual

uniform

known

for

its

simplicity and frugality, which gained prominence during the decade-long

Cultural Revolution. Here, he wields an axe,

chopping wood for the fire that will cook the family's New

Year's Eve dinner.

Brainstorm Sketches

Categorization & digitization process Scan the corroding photographs Translate inscriptions into English Research syntax style and locations mentioned in the written inscription

Chronologically

reorder

Digitized Photograph sample 2. the

photographs

into

a

Inscription: “Raid on the White Tiger Regiment”

reusable catalog.

"Raid on the White Tiger Regiment" (奇 袭 白 虎 团 ), a

Design Principles:

celebrated Chinese revolutionary opera and one of the eight esteemed

"model

The design should build anticipation as the user goes through the

Revolution.

In

steps to reveal a hidden message

alongside

fellow

plays"

the

sanctioned

photograph, actors,

during

my

embodying

the

Cultural

grandfather

stands

the

role

of

a

Digitized Photograph sample 3.

Inscription: “Dear Brother Jin Shan, I hope we dedicate our valuable Youth to the betterment of our motherland” - from Tu Mei Mei, 1959.

revolutionary soldier battling the malevolent forces of the The design should reveal a chronological narrative through the

West in the Korean War. My grandmother often recounted

paper folding process

how he was affectionately nicknamed "short monkey" by his peers in the traveling opera troupe, a testament to his

The design can be easily learned and replicated.

remarkable agility and the acrobatic prowess he displayed during performances.

The photograph is a portrait of my biological grandmother. The inscription on the back of the portrait is written at the beginning of the “Great Leap Forward”(1959 -

1961)She became one of the many people who passed away during this time due to poverty and lack of resources.

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Iteration 1.

The first iteration consists of a chronologically organized collection of my grandfather’s photographs featuring his handwritten inscriptions. As the player adjusts the pattern, the years gradually regress from 1987 to 1955.

Folding Process

25

Folding Process

Backside

Iteration 2.

The second iteration of the project spans photographs from 2006 to 2022. As participants engage in the folding process, the timeline advances toward the future.

Notably, I digitally merged my image onto an older photo with my grandfather using Photoshop. This was done to symbolically include him in my college graduation, an event that occurred a year after his passing. This intentional alteration serves to disrupt the chronological sequence and seeks to create an intersection of past and present beyond the regid rules of time.

Frontside

26