Portfolio Guide

UCSC M.S. Computational Media — Fall 2026
Insun Kang

Overview

This portfolio presents selected work aligned with my proposed area of graduate study in Computational Media: the design and analysis of interactive systems through play, embodiment, and rule-based behavior. The projects included here represent the breadth and depth of my practice across the three core areas of computational media—technical systems, creative projects, and interpretive inquiry—while remaining focused on a coherent research trajectory.

Several projects appear in more than one section. In each case, the descriptions foreground different aspects of the same system (structural, experiential, or interpretive) to reflect the evaluation categories outlined in the Computational Media portfolio guidelines. Full descriptions and documentation are available on the linked project pages.

Project titles link to detailed documentation and media.

Technical Systems

Emphasis: system structure, rules, implementation

Collective Remembering

Medium: XR installation, Unity
A rule-based participatory system in which participants collaboratively reconstruct a virtual structure composed of twenty blocks using a scaled physical grid. Each participant views the structure individually, and anyone who has seen it may intervene in the reconstruction at any time. The system withholds a final “correct” configuration, allowing details to be lost, reinforced, or altered through collective interaction.
My role: concept, system design, interaction rules

Traces

Medium: Participatory installation, Unity, Azure Kinect
An interactive system that translates visitor presence, proximity, and duration into persistent audiovisual entities within a shared environment. Each visitor contributes a digital “Soft Cell” that remains in the space after their departure, allowing the system to accumulate and evolve through repeated engagement rather than discrete input.
My role: system design, interaction logic, implementation

Creative Projects

Emphasis: experience, participation, embodiment

Collective Remembering

A participatory experience structured around uncertainty and collective negotiation, where memory stabilizes through interaction rather than accuracy or individual authority.
Focus: play, collective behavior

Traces

An embodied interactive environment that invites engagement through sustained presence and proximity, foregrounding duration and co-presence as interaction variables.
Focus: embodiment, interaction

Buoyant

Medium: Virtual Reality
An interactive virtual environment composed of nine translucent rooms, each governed by a different gravity condition. Objects within each room float according to local rules, and when grasped, become subject to that room’s gravity. By navigating between rooms, users encounter shifts in perceptual expectation and spatial logic. The spatial layout is inspired by an abstract painting by Hilma af Klint, reinterpreted as a navigable system rather than a representational image.
Focus: perception, rule-based systems, embodied interaction

Interpretive Work

Emphasis: analysis, critical framing, writing

Writing Sample: Locating Installation Art in the Expanded Field

A critical analysis applying Rosalind Krauss’s concept of the “Expanded Field” to installation art, examining how audience, experience, and spatial organization reshape sculptural practice. This sample demonstrates my interpretive approach to media, space, and interaction.

Notes on Collaboration

Several projects included here were developed collaboratively. For each collaborative project, my specific contributions are indicated on the project page and summarized briefly above.