Sha Xin Wei

About

Sha Xin Wei Ph.D. is a Professor at the School of Arts, Media + Engineering at Arizona State University, where he directs the Synthesis atelier for transversal art, philosophy, and technology. He also holds a professorship at the European Graduate School in Philosophy, Art and Critical Theory, is a Fellow of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, and a Senior Fellow of Building21 at McGill University. Dr. Sha's research focuses on topological approaches to poiesis, play, and process, integrating speculative philosophy, experimental art, and visionary technologies in a reciprocal manner. His work spans gestural media, movement arts, realtime media installation, interaction design, and critical studies and philosophy of technology. Trained in mathematics at Harvard and Stanford, he has published extensively in experimental philosophy, media arts, science and technology studies, and computer science, including the book "Poiesis and Enchantment in Topological Matter" published by MIT. Dr. Sha's artistic practice includes innovative projects such as TGarden playspaces, Hubbub speech-sensitive urban spaces, and kinetic and light sculptures responsive to movement and gesture. His work has been exhibited in prominent venues worldwide and recognized by major cultural foundations. His technical research involves realtime, continuous mapping of features from environmental or ensemble activity into parameters that modulate expressive improvisation of gesture in…

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Artificial Intelligence
• Human–computer interaction
• Psychology
• Optics
• Architectural engineering
• Multimedia
• Visual arts
• Computer vision

Selected publications

• Instruments of Articulation

  2019-09-25 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author

  Building on the first author's hybrid/augmented violin practice and the second author's work with responsive media environments, we build and reflect on collectively-played room-scale instruments that afford the precision and nuance of an individually-played real-time gestural media system. We consider gestural instruments designed for the interplay of action and perception at the sensorimotor level bypassing tokenization of features of activity and sensors. Our gesturally-modulated media instru…

  PublisherDOI

• Towards realtime measurement of connectedness in human movement

  2015-08-14 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  With the proliferation of wearable sensors, we have access to rich information regarding human movement that gives us insights into our daily activities like never before. In a sensor rich environment, it is desirable to build systems that are aware of human interactions by studying contextual information. In this paper, we attempt to quantify one such contextual cue - the connectedness of physical movement. Inspired by the Semblance of Typology Entrainments, we estimate the connectedness of tra…

  PublisherDOI

• A Material Computation Perspective On Audio Mosaicing And Gestural Conditioning

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2014-06-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This paper discusses an approach to instrument conception that is based on a careful consideration of the coupling of tactile and sonic gestural action both into and out of the performance system. To this end we propose a design approach that not only considers the materiality of the instrument, but that leverages it as a central part of the conception of the sonic quality, the control structuring and what generally falls under the umbrella of "mapping" design. As we will discuss, this extended…

  PublisherDOI

• The TGarden Performance Research Project

  Modern Drama · 2005-09-01 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Five years ago, I described this vision of TGarden to my companions in the Sponge and FoAM networks of artists and engineers. Many popular imaginaries condensed around this dream, and it became a project into which at first four and eventually over twenty-five artists and engineers poured heart, body, and craft. As the set of creators shifted, the vision refracted according to the interests and professional biases of the creators, until the dream of the TGarden responsive play space materialized…

  PublisherDOI

• Processual and Experiential Design in Wearable Music Workshopping

  2020 · 3 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  This paper describes a series of workshops in which dancers participated in the design of collectively-playable, computational, wearable musical instruments, exploring ensemble experience in improvised events. We describe the progressive phases of layering and computationally creative learning that occurred during our workshops with epistemically and culturally diverse groups of participants. Our approach is motivated by processual and experiential design, as well as a relational approach using…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Hua Yang

  Shanghai Jiao Tong University

  3 shared

• Seth Dominicus Thorn

  3 shared

• Bonnie Nardi

  3 shared

• Hang Su

  Université Paris-Saclay

  3 shared

• Yawen Fan

  South China University of Technology

  3 shared

• Shibao Zheng

  3 shared

• Doug Van Nort

  York University

  2 shared

• Brandon Mechtley

  2 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Harvard University

• Ph.D.

  Stanford University

Awards & honors

• Canada Research Chair in media arts and sciences (2005-2013)
• Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology
• LEF Foundation
• Canada Fund for Innovation
• Creative Work Fund in New York

Similar researchers at Arizona State University

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• Upmanu Lallh-75
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