Associate Professor Jiayi Young and graduate students from the UC Davis Department of Design are presenting their research at “Possibles,” the 2022 ISEA International (formerly Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts) conference, in Barcelona on June 15. Their abstract is an institutional presentation titled “What is Research-based Design Practice? A Collective Inquiry through a Graduate Seminar.”

This graduate seminar provided a framework for research-based design, defined a structure to carry out design practice, and offered ways of understanding giving and receiving critical feedback on practice-based projects. As a class, the students came together to make collective contributions to answer this question through case study presentations. Students conducted careful research on an artist or designer’s creative work that helped address this question.

Presented at the conference was a collection of this inquiry to exchange with other universities and institutions who have endeavored with a similar question.

The contributing students are Niloufar Abdolmaleki, Hafsa Akter, Diana Araiza Soto, Cristina Gomez, Valentyna Hrushkevych, Justin Marsh, Fatema Mostafa, Alejandra Ruiz, Pachia Vang, Ofelia Viloche Pulido, Marcy Wacker, Iris Xie and Rova Yilmaz. Vang and Viloche Pulido will present the collection with Professor Young at the conference. 

Professor Young is also presenting her own research work titled “Archiving Twitter Database and Visualization from Artwork.” Also being presented is Professor Beth Ferguson’s collaborative work: Tools for a Warming Planet, which includes tools developed by current first-year graduate student Alejandra Ruiz and alumna Sima Pirmoradi (M.F.A., design, ‘21).

Additional alumni are also presenting at the conference including Erik Contreras (M.F.A, design, ’21), whose thesis work was one of the 22 works selected internationally to show at The Santa Mònica, and Alexa Bonomo (M.F.A., design ’20). Both individuals are still mentored by the Department of Design.

ISEA, International Symposium on Electronic Art, is one of the most important annual events worldwide dedicated to the crossroads where art, design, science, technology, and society meet.

For more about the conference, visit the ISEA website.