Member Spotlight: Ziye Zhang

Gangwisch, JLS
We’re here today with Ziye Zhang.  Who are you?  Where are you?  What do you do?

Ziye Zhang   0:16
Who am I?  This is really good question.  My name is Ziye, I am from China, Beijing,  and I recently finished my graduate master program at New York University, the Integrated Design & Media Program.  My background is as a multimedia artist and game designer.   I worked at a game company for one year as a system designer and level designer.  It is a little bit hard to say where I am, in one day I will go back to China for two residencies.  

Gangwisch, JLS
What brought you to make the work you’re making now?

Ziye Zhang
I was born into an artist family.  My grandpa, my father, they are all artists, but they are like little bit more classic.  They are oil painters, portraits and other classics.  What do they call us, Gen-Z?  The newborn peoples?  We are just not familiar with all those old materials.  We have lots of new experience about the digital.  Digital paintings, digital films, movies, animations about the E in digital canteens in digital like films movies and animations.  Lots of new media comes up.  After I got into undergraduate university I realized that with my background in computer science and art I don’t need to stay in the comfort zones.  I can explore more. 

The most important thing I believe in, art is like a language.  You use your projects to tell people your emotions, your narratives, your ideas.  It depends on each artist, right?  If you learn a material, you can now pronounce more, talk more, to others.  This is the reason I try to use lots of different materials, digitals, interactives, public art.  I try to pronounce myself, and if I cannot pronounce myself I need to practice more materials.

Gangwisch, JLS
How did you find the new media caucus?

Ziye Zhang
M professor sent me a link and said Hey Ziye, I think this would be a good fit for you.  Our IDM program in not just about artists, there are lots of like UI/UX and more entertainment base artists, we only have a few pure artists like me, so he sent me the email and told me to apply.

Gangwisch, JLS
What does winning the 2024 Judson-Morrissey Excellence in New Media Award mean to you?

Ziye Zhang
It means a lot.  To be honest, it means a lot.   The first thing, I think, is that it’s like approval.  You guys encourage me a lot. Seriously. 

The second thing is, as an alien/international student, I still need to use awards and interviews to build up my resumes and cover letters.  In the future I will probably apply for the O1 visa for artists, so I can stay in American and practice as long as possible.  For now I only have one year, after that I will just get kicked out of America, so I need to find a way to stay.

The third thing is, have found really good communities here.  I read your post and all your blogs and the articles.  This is good place to get more ideas.

Last but not least, well, I do need those $200.

Gangwisch, JLS
You touched on this a bit before, but could you define new media art for us?
What does it mean to you?

Ziye Zhang
What is new?  If someone uses a new materials, that material is not new anymore, right?
So new media art is a really rough idea. like OK.  I have computer science background and my in my background lots of people use, for example , AI models to generate some new things, and maybe two years ago it was new media, but for now, is that new?  Well, sort of, but now, not too new. 

I think the new media art is like, OK I can pull something, some materials, some media, from and background and put them into art and I think that is what new means.  For example, if I am like the biology students, I touch lots of different equipment, stuff, different materials, but I’m not an art student, but sometimes one day and I want to do an art practice.  I use all the materials or equipment in my biology lab and put it into my art practice.  Others will say that is totally new media, but for that person, for that biology student, is that new?

I think the most important thing is to bring something else to art, that is new media. 

Gangwisch, JLS
Are there any other current projects you’d like to tell us about?

Ziye Zhang
I will be going back to China for a residency, It’s called hybrid 300.  They invite 300 artists to Aranya Beach, China, to practice 300 hours.  There I will be doing a land art, I will use one side mirrors and put them into the sand.  

There’s another project here called Sandcastle.  It is public art, and you can also see it in my personal website.  In this project, all the people are invited to control the space.  This is a really huge project and for one person it’s hard to finish it.  It takes around a year to let lots of different peoples come here, taking three to five minutes to play with it, growing up a real sandcastle. 

Gangwisch, JLS
Where can people follow your work in the digital or material world?

Ziye Zhang
https://www.ziyezhang.net/
https://www.instagram.com/pipizzy02