Time: 1:00 - 2:00pm Venue: ITL Top Floor Meeting Room
People can experience embarrassment whenever they meet undesired events while socialising.
Embarrassment has been explored in numerous studies in the field of psychology since, as an emotion, it plays a critical role in social interaction and communication. Also, embarrassment has been used to create various art and design projects that discuss social, moral and ethical issues in everyday life.
In this seminar, I will introduce psychological studies and art/design projects that demonstrate different methodologies to engage with embarrassment, and explore the diverse aspects of this emotion.
Soomi Park is a speculative designer and multimedia artist based in London, United Kingdom and Seoul, South Korea. Currently, she is studying her PhD in Media and Arts Technology (MAT) programme in School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at the Queen Mary, University of London.
She received her first MA in Digital Media Design from International Design school for Advanced Studies (IDAS) Hong-Ik University in Seoul, and completed her second MA in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London. Her work encompasses a wide range of mediums, including interactive installations, speculative objects, films, photography, and wearables. Through her works she is exploring the concept of new emotions emerging from our fast changing society.
Her work has been acclaimed by international pundits for its ingenuity. Her LED Eyelash won her Honorary Mention under the section of Interactive Art at PRIX Ars Electronica 2008.
The juries said, “Soomi Park’s LED Eyelash is in a category of its own-glittering, yet profound, clumsy yet extraordinarily beautiful and strange, and dealing with important issues of gender and identity with a disarming and charming sense of playfulness.”
Her work has been featured by numerous online and offline media outlets such as Vogue Paris, The Guardian/The Observer, Wired UK, MAKE Wearables Electronics, See Yourself Sensing, Functional Aesthetics, Gizmodo, The Creators Project and We-Make-Money-Not-Art. Her work has been exhibited at festivals and galleries in London (UK), Seoul, Incheon (South Korea), Dublin, Limerick (Ireland), Saint-Étienne (France), Aarhus (Denmark) and Linz (Austria). She taught at universities and workshops about design, art and technology in South Korea and Europe.