Sophia Brueckner

Next: »
« Previous:




Most Recent Affiliation:


  • University of Michigan, Assistant Professor

Location:


  • Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America

Website:


Bio:

  • Sophia Brueckner is a futurist artist/designer/engineer. Inseparable from computers since the age of two, she believes she is a cyborg. As an engineer at Google, she created technologies used by millions. At RISD and MIT, she researched the simultaneously empowering and controlling nature of technology with a focus on haptics and social networks. She is currently an artist-in-residence at Bell Labs and an assistant professor at the University of Michigan teaching Sci-Fi Prototyping, a course combining sci-fi, prototyping, and ethics. Her objective is to combine her background in art, design, and engineering to inspire a more positive future.

Writings and Presentations:


  • Title: Embodisuit
    Writing Type: Sketch / Art Talk
    Author(s):
    Exhibition: SIGGRAPH Asia 2017: Mind-Body Dualism
    Abstract Summary:

    A collaboration between Sophia Brueckner and Rachel Freire, the Embodisuit allows its wearer to map signals onto different places on their body. It both critiques and offers an alternative to current trends in wearable technology. Most wearables harvest data from their users to be sent and processed elsewhere. The Embodisuit flips this paradigm. Informed by embodied cognition, the suit instead receives signals from an IoT platform, and each signal controls a different haptic actuator on the body. Knowledge can be experienced ambiently without necessitating the interpretation of symbols by the conscious mind. The suit empowers wearers to reconfigure their boundaries strengthening their connection to the people, places, and things that are meaningful to them. Furthermore, we hypothesize that by changing the way people live with data, it will change the type of data that people create.

    Title: Captured by an Algorithm
    Writing Type: Sketch / Art Talk
    Author(s):
    Exhibition: SIGGRAPH Asia 2019: Deep Dreaming
    Abstract Summary:

    Captured by an Algorithm is a commemorative plate series that looks at romance novels through the lens of the Amazon Kindle Popular Highlight algorithm. Each plate features one highlight and an algorithmically generated landscape. The highlights tell a story of the loneliness, grief, vulnerability, and discontent felt by the readers.

    Role(s):