Today I came across the work of Che-Wei Wang…artist-technologist-engineer-designer…he falls under so many genres, as do most creatives now, that he is difficult to explain so succinctly. No artist should have to be categorised anymore though right? Not in my book anyway. His work is very much centred around time, process, online technologies such as apps and GPS, altering structures and ways of doing things, from physically negotiating the everyday, to telling the time, to the language we talk. His website is definitely one to spend time with to sift through and experience.
Che-Wei Wang is also half of CW&T, with artist-designer Taylor Levy…they are an art and design studio run out of Brooklyn, NYC. At CW&T, “we create multidisciplinary work in collaborative environments where we leverage technology and computing. With the latest tools and processes, we imagine near future possibilities and build them into reality. Our design approach is to create lasting designs while questioning conventional thinking. In our quest to fulfil our goals, we tend to favour minimal aesthetics, intuitive interfaces and over-engineered construction.”
One piece I love due to my obsession with language and words is ‘Nounnoun’, a noun-noun compound noun generator for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. It takes 2 random nouns from a database of over 6000 commonly used nouns and joins them into a new word. And I love the possibilities…play with the web version at cwandt.com/nounnoun/. I think I suffer from “reproductionscars” all the time in a world of “referenceturkey”. So strange yet so coherent somehow.
“We use it when we’re stuck, need to name a project, start a band, start a project, name a pet, name a band, find a new domain name, give a friend a nickname, think of a new superpower, exercise our brains, think of something to do, start a conversation…the chances of you getting the same word twice is 1 in 36 million+.” – CW&T
Rachel Marsden's Words 