We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Wei-Fang Chang a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Wei-Fang, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

Happy overall, although life is not always happy. To me, being an “artist” is just one of my many labels. Whether being a video designer, creative technologist, or multi-media artist, I find joy in how new media arts dynamically guide me through various spaces—from my brain to others’ bodies, to physical spaces, and the world. My favorite part of the creative process is observing how audiences interact with, view, and become embodied in the works. Witnessing the dynamic flow of the media taking shape in different forms within the real world brings me immense satisfaction.

The interdisciplinary feature of my job is what I enjoy the most as part of my creative process. I believe if we remove the label of a position, and not try to define what position it should be like, all of the work and collaboration would be fluid, and we can see and feel more. I haven’t seriously considered pursuing a regular job, or actually, in a creative field could be considered as a regular job. I create regularly.

Wei-Fang, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a video designer and multimedia artist who was raised and born in Taiwan and am currently based in Los Angeles, though spiritually in the universe. I specialize in video projection design and interactive art, particularly within live experiences.
With a background in interaction design and motion graphics, I consistently integrate creative technologies while pursuing intuitive human interaction and self-reflection in my video design for performance or interactive installation. My artistic brain started to thrive while pursuing my master’s degree in Interactive Media for Performance at CalArts, within the School of Theater, in which I do video projection design for performance. It is an artistic, crazy, experimental, collaborative, vibrant, and unique school where I can feel and learn so much by just opening my eyes and sensations. Coming from a “design” background to an “art” environment, I had a hard time defining myself and felt chaotic in an art school, because I used to follow the rules to plan my design, as opposed to the art process, which takes time or space to experience or improvise. Within the numerous art practices and hands-on theater and dance production as a video designer, I learned how to be open to people, to be honest with myself, to be soft to the environment, and to be patient with art during the process.

The visual language in my works is inspired by the organic flow of nature’s transition and subtle perception of logically conflicting human behaviors and self-reflection. I retranslated these perceptions into digital geometric motion graphics, such as distorted linear patterns, rhythmic waves, and atmospheric digital gradients, evoking the perpetual transitions of nature. Additionally, I also like to explore video as a mirror for a self-portrait and audience engagement using a live camera in my installation and projection design. It is intriguing how the subjectivity of viewers can also become the objectivity of their experience, suddenly building a connection between the external and internal aspects of a monitor and the body of a user, thereby transforming audiences from passive viewers into active participants and integrating them as part of the video information.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The capacity for sensitive perception. The range of feelings accessible is far broader than what human language can convey. I really appreciate the immense sensations my body can experience through art, especially in live experience. It is interesting that a human won’t be able to fully understand another human’s sensation. We can describe or try to understand a feeling by language, but there’s no way to feel exactly the same as another’s sensation and perspective

As a video designer, I find my sparkles in live performance that creates the aura, which evolves uniquely in that time and space, through our sensations in a performance. I am intrigued by the uniqueness of live performance which allows me to immerse in chaos, confusion, ecstasy, or fear, and gives me the other psycho-somatic space to detach from the external world. I am interested in challenging the liveness of video arts by extending it outside of the frame of the window screen onto a spatial dimension within a performative environment.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My greatest motivation comes from the joy I find in observing the diversity of humankind. Arts provide the other world that people can live within and experience, observe, and perceive themselves and other people, time and space.

Trusting the process and acknowledging that a piece of art encompasses more than the objectivity of the artwork itself are significant takeaways from my artistic journey. It is crucial to remember that art serves as a gateway to expanding our understanding of the human experience; thus, remaining true to oneself is essential for my artistic creation.

Keep your eyes, emotions, and heart open. I recall a video designer whom I admire once said, “Eyes are the best learning tool, even when you are gazing upon a pile of trash.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.weihuang.website/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/w._.mp4/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wei-fang-chang-1a2237190/

Image Credits
California Institute of the Arts