The Inaugural TNS Creativity & AI Symposium
In Collaboration With LG AI Research
Wednesday
9/14
During this one-day inaugural event, the TNS and LG community members will engage in critical discussion on the latest development in AI research and its applicability in contemporary creative and artistic practices. Part One is the in-person Keynote Panel Event which will be in-person and led by LG AI Research leadership and TNS faculties. Part Two are three online workshops that showcase the creative works using AI by the members of the TNS and LG communities.
Time
12:20 pm - 13:20 pm
Location
TNS Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall
66 West 12th Room 404
New York, NY 10011
Keynote Presentation
Dr. Seunghwan Kim is an AI researcher with more than 20 years of experience in both business and research in the field of computer vision. He was the director of the AI Tech Unit in LG Uplus before joining the Vision Intelligence Lab (VIL) in LG AI Research. VIL mainly researches visual AI, including image/video analytics, visual understanding, and 2D/3D generation. By applying the research to various business fields, it will contribute to making customers’ lives more enriched and convenient.
Panel Members
Andrew Shea is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design who has taught within the undergraduate and graduate programs of the School of Design Strategies. He is the founding director of MANY Design, a communication and service design studio that supports progressive social agendas, sustainable initiatives, and the environment. He also writes about the evolving field of design for social innovation. Andrew is co-editor of the new book Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World (Routledge, 2021) in addition to LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation (DAP, 2016). He authored Designing for Social Change: Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design (Princeton Architectural Press, 2012). His writing has also appeared in Core77, AIGA, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Design Observer. Andrew speaks about design at schools, conferences, and events like TEDx Transmedia and has served on juries organized by AIGA, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and Sappi Ideas that Matter. He holds a BA in Politics & Philosophy and a BA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MFA in Graphic Design from Maryland Institute College of Art.
Marie Geneviève Cyr is the Director of the BFA Fashion Design program and an Assistant Professor of Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design. She has an MA in Visual Culture/Fashion Theory from New York University, a BA in Design and Applied Arts from the Edinburgh College of Art and was nominated in 2009 for a Genie Award by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television for “Best Costume Design” for the feature film Who is KK Downey?. Her research lies on the discourse of material and visual culture; looking at advertisement, rethinking design methodologies and global identity. Her most recent research examines the politics of abstract desire, hyper-reality, hyper-consumption, asian popular culture, and the online social space - the internet. She is interested in new questions on how do Post-Internet artistic strategies influence fashion design practices. In addition to Parsons School of Design, Cyr has created and taught experimental design workshops for universities such as Donghua University (Shanghai), Royal College of Art (UK), Amsterdam Fashion Institute(AMFI, NL), China Academy of Art (Hangzhou), Chavón La Escuela de Diseño (DR), HEAD (Geneva), and various art organizations. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Red Gate Gallery (Beijing, China, 2014), and Palazzo Monti (Brescia, Italy, 2019).
Mark Bechtel is an Assistant Professor of Product Design, and a researcher and writer, teaching in the MFA Industrial Design and BFA Product Design programs at Parsons School of Design. His research draws upon the work of artists, programmers, and designers to inform computational design methods that are holistic. At a time when the widening scope of demands on design increasingly exceed conventional limits of practice to meet the challenges of climate change, data competency is essential to achieving more sustainable and life-centered solutions for product and industrial design. He has served as the Chair of the curriculum committee for The School of Constructed Environments for the last ten years, and his recent work includes an essay on the artwork of Jean-Luc Moulène published for a forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, a presentation for A Focus on Pedagogy at the Art, Media, Politics, and Society Conference (2022), London, and an art exhibition completed during his residency at LASANAA, Kathmandu, Nepal. He holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH, and MFA degree in Visual Arts from Columbia University, New York, NY.
Jake Kwon is an AI business development expert with over twenty years in Business Development, Service & Product Concept Planning, and Go-To-Market Strategy. He was the Digital Transformation Strategy Team Leader and New Business Development team leader under LG Electronics Chief Strategy Officer before joining LG AI Research. He is currently in charge of the AI Business Development team in the company.
Moderator
Jeongki Lim is Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons School of Design, The New School. His practice spans from launching new organizations in both private and public sectors to researching and teaching at the intersection of design and science. He holds a B.A. in Individualized Studies and an M.S. in Applied Urban Science and Informatics, both from New York University. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the Department of Art and Media at Aalto University under the supervision of Dr. Teemu Leinonen. His research focuses on computational creativity that can bring value to our understanding of human creativity and innovation.
Part One
Part Two
An introduction to Computer Vision AI for Creative Design
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EST
Taehoon Kim received a B.E. degree in Computer science and Engineering from Sogang University in 2018 and an M.S and Ph.D. degree in Computer science and engineering in 2021. Since 2021, he has been a Research Scientist in Vision Lab, LG AI Research, focusing on the development of Large Scale Vision Models. His research interests include Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Multimodal Representations, Neural Architecture Search, Information Retrieval, Neural, and Evolutionary Computation, and Pattern Recognition.
NanoLove: An exploration of Artificial Intelligence and Emotion
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EST
Dana Kosber is a Korean-Egyptian designer, artist, and digital creator based in New York. She considers herself a bridge between the physical and digital worlds with experience in traditional and tech-based fashion design. With her creations of 3D garments, she has created avatars, digital clothing, and NFT for both clients and her thesis. Particularly, she collaborated with Special Olympics to produce a custom digital clothing collection and has interned for brands such as Kim Shui, Undefined Jewelry, Monique Lhuillier, and Jonathan Cohen. Her work is embedded in how digital creation can embellish and propel the fashion industry.
Computational Methods for Product and Industrial Design
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm EST
Mark Bechtel is an Assistant Professor of Product Design and a researcher and writer, teaching in the MFA Industrial Design and BFA Product Design programs at Parsons School of Design. His research draws upon the work of artists, programmers, and designers to inform computational design methods that are holistic. At a time when the widening scope of demands on design increasingly exceed conventional limits of practice to meet the challenges of climate change, data competency is essential to achieving more sustainable and life-centered solutions for product and industrial design. He has served as the Chair of the curriculum committee for The School of Constructed Environments for the last ten years, and his recent work includes an essay on the artwork of Jean-Luc Moulène published for a forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, a presentation for A Focus on Pedagogy at the Art, Media, Politics, and Society Conference (2022), London, and an art exhibition completed during his residency at LASANAA, Kathmandu, Nepal. He holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH, and an MFA degree in Visual Arts from Columbia University, New York, NY.
All Part Two workshops will be moderated by Jeongki Lim.