The Lightning Field(1977) is a land art work in the remote desert of New Mexico by artist Walter De Maria. It consists of 400 stainless steel poles with solid, pointed tips, arranged in a rectangular 1 mile × 1 kilometer grid array.

Representing Lightning Field focuses on 3D and 4D techniques for representing time basing on the research and analysis, and to travel in time into the future and demonstrate how an intervening or disruptive force fundamentally alters the land art.

Traveling into the future, the energy contained in lightning can be great sources: to generate hydrogen from water, to harvest energy from rapid heating water due to lightning, or to use the matrix of metal poles to harvest strikes either directly or by converting it to heat or mechanical energy.

Currently in New England the number of dam exceeds 14,000. Many of these are over a century old, less than 10’ high and no longer are used for their original purpose, and need to be repaired or removed. Each dam has its own unique trade-offs and a diverse group of stakeholders that will need to be engaged in the decision about the future of dam. This research project uses Potter Hill Dam as a geographical frame to investigate questions of the design, management, visualization, public engagement and decision-making. 

Drawing Credits: FutureOfDam Research Team

Model Credits: Patric Beals, Wanting Dong

Photo credits: Patric Beals

(Selected work)

Walking/seeing is a good method to understand a city. By making critical observations and asking questions, one can discover the hidden rules and intricate reasons behind the physical environment, understand how people are transforming the city and how our city is shaping us.

(Teamwork with Shi Chen)

I met a cat.

It can’t be true.

Well at least not in my neighborhood.

Usually a cat lives in the upper-class neighborhoods like Upper side or near the mountain where the

Buddha stands.

My neighborhood is filled with slums, disease and violence. A cat will never come here.

For thousands of years, we human beings had been fighting against each other, for religious, civil

rights, gender, resource and so on…Until cats came along and put all these dispute into an end. Cat

became the ultimate symbol for everything. The scale of our cities started to change to adapt cat’s

lifestyle. Vertical structure is preferred, and strings are everywhere for cats to walk on. Tons of litter

were dumped in suburban area. Farmlands were transferred into catnip fields. To be adopted by a

cat, a catnip field is a must-have. And the waiting list is already endless now. I am still working my

way up to gain my first catnip box. For those who cannot afford buying a field, you can purchase

a laboratory catnip box with lower fee. Sometimes, they are still attractive to some domestic cats.

And now there is a cat standing in front of me.

I looked at her perfect, turquoise peaceful eyes, thinking about how to start a conversation without

scaring her away. That is when I heard the voice.

“Human being No. 13594652, agree for adoption?”

“To hell yes!” What just happened?

“Man, he’s lucky” “Wow that almost never happened!” “A cat would never adopt such a loser!!”

Before I realized, I am finally a decent human being with a cat. Now I’m gonna show her my first box.

“Meow~”

LONELYTOGETHER(.NET) is a project to understand the scale and prevalence of loneliness in the RISD community. It is also a simple exposure of this school’s state of mind, which (based on the rate of responses) seems to be consistent over time.

• On an individual level, participants are encouraged to share a small, intimate detail of their lives at RISD (lonely or not lonely). 
• Their feedback is funneled into their immediate communities, to connect individuals to their known peers. 
• Ultimately, the resulting data is shared with the RISD community in a high-traffic common space as well as publicly on the web.

This project is installed in three parts: 
• First, in the elevators of each building on the RISD campus, four buttons are installed, labeled “Lonely”, “Not Lonely”, “Alone”, and “Together”. Each time a button is pressed, data is sent to be aggregated on a web server. 
• A small monitor then sits In the lobbies of each building on the RISD campus, showing the polled results for that particular building. 
• In a larger community space, the total results are projected.
 

In the end, regardless of the scale or form, this project is an exercise in empathy and understanding how we emotionally connect to the people we are surrounded by. 
Though we ask relatively little of each individual, the compounded result of the piece reveals a description of the group that would otherwise sit undiscovered.