Degree Project: Becoming Hatsune Miku

Experimental Design, Web Design, Publication Design

A deep dive into the crowd-sourced community of Hatsune Miku, a voice synthesizer branded as a virtual pop idol, and what it can teach us about the power of hybrid physical/virtual and individual/collective identity to mobilize rigid imagery. At its core, this project is a celebration of a digital community as strange and unique as the contemporary landscape it perseveres through.

Part 1: Book & Figure

This figure uses the body as a site of discourse to explore how the seamless fantasy of Miku’s image becomes increasingly fluid through her hybrid nature. I use a combination of 3D scanning & printing technology to work at the threshold of digital and material spheres as my costumed body is repeatedly translated between the two. In the language of anime figurines, the 1/6 scale figure stands lives in a custom cut display on the cover of a book case. The book case also houses all of this project’s writings in print.

Documentation in progress.

Part 2: Website

This website is the central conclusion of this project, integratating my writing with my visual explorations. The site implements a citation system that allows the user to create a personal archive, or “playlist” of relevant terms while paying homage to the Vocaloid community’s crowd-sourced knowledge base. The model of my 3D scan becomes a navigation system in which the body metaphors in HTML tags are flipped back onto the human figure.

Documentation in progress.

Christine Wang

balances play with precision through identity, motion, and publication. Previously at Regrets Only and Apple.

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Christine Wang

Editorial Art

Illustration

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