Script Hybridity
Competition:
3rd Annual Digital Arts Student Competition 2026 – Speculative Futures Honorable Mention (Undergraduate Student)
Artist(s):
Artist School Information
| Education Level: | Undergraduate Student |
|---|---|
| School: | University of the Arts Singapore |
Artwork Details
| Year Produced: | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Medium: | 3d printed blocks, custom website, RFID Reader, NFT tags, Arduino |
| Category: | App or Software Art and Design |
| Link(s): | 3d printed blocks, custom website, RFID Reader, NFT tags, Arduino |
Description:
My design practice targets identity and cultural positioning across digital and physical spaces. In Script Hybridity, I speculate a future where cross-cultural identities are neither abnormal nor deficit. I challenge linguistic norms tied to heritage languages by visualising alternative trajectories of expression through bi-directional trans-scripting – the injection of one language’s writing system into another.
Two interactive artefacts explore these spaces of technology. Artefact 1, the Typeable Script, is a real-time responsive website where the Latin keyboard generates modular compositions, allowing the audience to physically manifest hybrid scripts. Artefact 2, Bi-Directional Translation, is an installation that translates physical interactions into real-time digital hybridity between both Chinese and Latin scripts. By scanning physical word blocks, the word uses digital processing to map personal struggles with the language, presenting an interactive representation of personalised visual translations.
Acting as active sites of script translation, these speculative artefacts use technology to iron out preconceived notions surrounding ethnicity. Through bridging dissonances between Chinese ethnicity and English as a first language, this project offers a new visual language to represent these in-between spaces. In essence, the artefacts frame digital art as a medium for translation, transforming identity convolutions into a celebration of cultural co-existence.
Technical Information:
Artefact 1 (Typeable Script) is a custom website built in HTML/CSS, prototyped using Figma. It features a set of rules limited to 10 characters per word, developed through trans-scripting (practice-based research) to create modular script compositions in real-time.
Artefact 2 (Bi-Directional Translation) bridges physical and digital spaces using NFC Tags attached to ~269 3D-printed Latin word blocks, and an RFID Reader connected to an Arduino UNO. Scanned tag data extracts its hybrid Chinese translations within a custom TouchDesigner network, while the injection of Python scripts enable real-time visual effects and customised reading alignment that uniquely visualise cultural/linguistic hybridity.
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