Jaylin Spruill ’22, East Asian Studies

Jaylin Spruill ’22

Major

East Asian Studies

Project Title

AMBI: Visualizing Urban Media, Ecologies and Sensibilities

My project’s aim was to propose an artistic digital-learning module that would encourage others to examine the post-human condition within urban and media ecologies, and the extent to which this synthetic environment affects us. In today’s fast-paced society, many of us are adorned with unnatural technological accessories, if not fully immersed in them. I engaged in a personal case study to examine the implications of this condition, specifically in Japanese urban apparatuses. I immersed myself in Japanese depictions of the city through various visualizations and media, such as photography and city pop. I then combined my reactions and memories in a sketchbook of several artistic and subjective reimaginings. By recreating what I saw and felt, I recognized patterns in the sensibilities, or aesthetics, formed by cities and their depictions. I also created a self-made glossary of urban entities, including cyborgs, abandoned buildings and uncanny objects. Through this experience, I not only gained an opportunity to engage with materials directly related to my major, but the capability to examine the subjectivities and agencies formed from living in un-environments so others may do the same.