Artist-Researcher · Interaction Designer · Educator
Shih-Wen
I create systems people learn through.
My practice turns research into interactive platforms, workshops, visualizations, and physical outputs. Working across cultural data, Human-AI interaction, and material practice, I design tools that help people question sources, understand structure, and make with agency.
Systems as artworksResearch to system designProductive FrictionCode & Craft StudioFalling Walls 2026 · Art & Science Top 30Expanded 2026 · accepted art paperVibeweaving · traceable generative systemTravel Tiles · museum to clayTX-Z · sound to scorePalace Loom · archive to textile conceptLACMA Art + Technology LabVerizon · product systemsGlobal YO · growth design
Systems as artworksResearch to system designProductive FrictionCode & Craft StudioFalling Walls 2026 · Art & Science Top 30Expanded 2026 · accepted art paperVibeweaving · traceable generative systemTravel Tiles · museum to clayTX-Z · sound to scorePalace Loom · archive to textile conceptLACMA Art + Technology LabVerizon · product systemsGlobal YO · growth design
Three ways in.
One practice, three useful doors. Hiring teams, residency juries, and cultural institutions can enter the work through product systems, generative art systems, or workshops.
01 · Designer
Hire me to ship.
AI interfaces, mobile products, design systems, data visualization, and complex journeys with measurable outcomes.
See the work → 02 · ArtistInvite the studio.
Code & Craft Studio: generative systems for traceability, learning, cultural memory, and physical output.
Enter the studio → 03 · EducatorBring me to teach.
Hands-on workshops for museums, universities, schools, and creative teams learning through AI, code, and craft.
Plan a program →01 · Artist statement
The artifact is the system.
I work at the intersection of cultural heritage, AI, interaction design, and material practice. My work treats data as material memory rather than behavioral control.
My work asks how generative tools can carry source, authorship, and cultural context instead of flattening them into anonymous style. The system is where the public encounters the problem, learns its logic, reflects on its stakes, and makes an output that can travel into material form.
Research
System logic
Public interaction
Material output
Algorithmic Stewardship
Productive Friction
Heritage Legibility
3C: consent / credit / commercial use
02 · How I work
Research becomes structure.
My method moves from fieldwork and mixed methods into system design, interaction, reflection, and material output. Productive friction is the way I keep people in authorship: slowing the workflow just enough for them to see what the system is doing.
Principle 01
Field + mixed methods
Research the problem.
I begin with people, context, cultural memory, behavior, and material conditions. The research is not background. It becomes the source material for the system.
Principle 02
System design
Design the bridge.
The system turns complexity into something people can encounter: visualizing data, exposing logic, and making reflection part of the interaction.
Principle 03
Craft + output
Make it tangible.
The output should not stay abstract. It can become a tile, textile, score, workshop, or object that people understand through making and can hold afterward.
03 · Product systems
Commercial systems with shipped metrics.
This is where the same system method enters commercial products: mobile apps, growth flows, design systems, and measurable behavior. The proof is not that these systems are more real. The proof is what changed after they shipped.
Native iOS + Android
Growth and checkout
Design systems
Measured outcomes
Verizon Home Security
Users managed one security system across three separate apps. Churn spiked after storage limits because the upgrade moment felt like a cold upsell.
System move
I replaced the popup with an inline storage meter and upgrade triggers tied to the user journey, so the prompt showed up when the value was already visible.
View case study →
-62% churn rate · post-storage cohort
Global YO eSIM
An 80% drop-off in a 1-click checkout first looked like a speed problem. Testing showed the real issue was confidence at confirm purchase.
System move
I changed the flow into a 3-step compatibility check with plain-language confirmation. It took a little longer, but people knew what they were buying.
View case study →
+25% first-time conversion · 2-week rollout
04 · Code & Craft Studio
Code&Craft
Systems for learning, traceability, and making.
Code & Craft is the studio umbrella for my generative systems, workshops, and physical editions. The studio turns research into interactive tools that let people question a source, learn its logic, reflect on its stakes, and make an output they can own.
Input
field research · data · cultural source
System
rules · interface · provenance
Output
workshop · edition · object · score
Research
System design
Pedagogy
Traceability
Physical practice
Systems under Code & Craft · Practice 01
Vibeweaving / The Algorithmic Loom
Vibeweaving is the flagship art/science system inside Code & Craft. It responds to AI cultural flattening by keeping source, structure, and learning visible in the act of generation.
Flagship system · Falling Walls 2026 Art & Science Shortlist
From source to material output.
Sound, color, and cultural pattern logic become computational weaving structures. The interface slows generation into a learning sequence: choose a source, understand the rule, generate a pattern, then carry it into a workshop, textile, edition, or record.
Traceable sourcelineage, reference, context
Learning logicconstraints before generation
Craft practicepattern knowledge through making
Ownable outputworkshop, textile, edition, record
Sibling systems
Same method, different materials.
Travel Tiles, TX-Z, and Palace Loom show the same studio logic moving across ceramics, sound, archives, performance, workshops, and take-home artifacts.
Practice 02 · pattern to clay
Travel Tiles
A cultural-pattern learning system that moves from museum reference to motif logic, composition, and ceramic output. It treats decorative traditions as grammars, not flat images.
Practice 03 · sound to score
TX-Z
A browser sampler and workshop system for listening, slicing, performing, and printing a score-zine as a physical trace of the composition.
Practice 04 · concept study · open-data archive
Palace Loom
A speculative Vibeweaving system that turns public museum records into generative textile structures. It keeps source object, dynasty, technique, license, and provenance visible, so the archive becomes a material learning system rather than anonymous style.
05 · Generative studies
Sketches that think out loud.
Computational studies and research artifacts at the seam of calligraphy, weaving, provenance, and data. This section holds accepted papers, spatial interfaces, and earlier sketches without confusing them with the larger Code & Craft systems.
studio_studies.js
Lineage Canvas
A browser-based spatial interface where source objects, acoustic traces, governance states, and born-digital artifacts appear as connected nodes in a visible provenance chain.
Method · Productive Friction through recognition checks, refusal states, lineage threads, 3C governance, and constrained continuation
View project ↗
Algorithmic Stewardship
A spatial governance study for born-digital heritage.
Method · provenance modeled as a living graph, verified vs. pending lineage
View project ↗
Generative Ink
A character-based study that merges Chinese calligraphy with computation.
Method · brush velocity mapped to stroke weight, calligraphy as a live parameter
View project ↗
Drawdown Notation
An interactive notation tool that visualizes how a textile draft is actually built.
Method · warp × weft × threading resolved into a live draft matrix
View project ↗
Ink & Warp 墨韻經緯
Translating the dynamics of Chinese calligraphy into algorithmic weave structures.
Method · gesture vectors deform the warp grid in real time
View project ↗
The Trust Paradox
A computational narrative on the dematerialization of value.
Method · a solid lattice dissolved and reformed, value read as state, not object
View project ↗
Awards & selections
Falling Walls Breakthrough of the Year 2026
Vibeweaving was selected for the 2026 Shortlist in the Art & Science category, recognizing the project’s approach to generative systems, cultural pattern logic, provenance, and human agency.
Institutions & labs
Spatial governance system for born-digital heritage, developed within the Lab's program.
Fu Jen Catholic University
University workshops built on the Vibeweaving teaching system.
Leading roles
Founder & Principal, Code & Craft
Headline studio systems: Vibeweaving, Travel Tiles, TX-Z, and Palace Loom.
Lead Product Designer, Verizon
Senior Product Designer, Global YO
Teaching & talks
Workshop lead, productive friction & creative coding
Sessions translating sound, tile, and textile systems into hands-on making.
Invited talks & juries
Lecture, panel, and review materials can be shared with the CV.
Publications & conferences
Expanded 2026 Conference · Art Papers Track
Accepted art paper: “Lineage Canvas: Productive Friction in Born-Digital Heritage.” The work frames generative heritage as a governed cultural process through visible lineage, embedded governance, and interaction-level accountability.
Press & exhibitions
Coverage & shows
Press features, exhibitions, and selections are organized as a concise dossier.
Need the formal version? I can share a CV, project list, talks list, references, and selected documentation in one review-ready dossier.
Request dossier →07 · Writing & ideas
Thinking out loud.
Notes on productive friction, creative tools, and what happens when AI meets culture.
Accepted art paper
Lineage Canvas
“Productive Friction in Born-Digital Heritage” presents a spatial interface where lineage, consent, governance, and refusal become part of the artwork rather than metadata added afterward.
Expanded'26 Art Paper
Research framework
Productive Friction
How small, well-timed pauses, constraints, and critique points can keep agency, judgment, and authorship active inside Human-AI creative tools.
PhD focus
Framework
Algorithmic stewardship
How to design generative systems that keep source, consent, credit, and cultural context visible instead of treating cultural knowledge as anonymous input data.
In progress
Let's build something worth slowing down for.
As an artist-researcher, interaction designer, and educator, I work across cultural data, Human-AI interaction, feminist approaches to AI, and material practice. My work begins with research and becomes systems people can question, learn from, and make tangible.
Whether you are hiring a product designer, inviting a studio project, planning a workshop, or developing a cultural technology collaboration, I bring research, systems thinking, user psychology, craft, and working prototypes into the same room.
Open to roles, research collaborations, residencies & fellowships · Represented enquiries welcome