Winnie Soon
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Winnie Soon (孫詠怡) is Associate Professor at the Department of Digital Design and Information Studies, Aarhus University. They have over 10 years of experience in academic research, teaching and leadership. They are the visiting fellow at various academic institutions, including the Center for the Study of the Networked Image, London South Bank University, UK (2022-), Goldsmiths, University of London, UK (2019), School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong (2014). Soon is a co-PI of the research project Digital Activism (with Christian Ulrik Andersen) as part of SHAPE - Shaping Digital Democracy research centre funded by Aarhus University. They are currently supervising two doctoral candidates with focus on humans and digital technologies, such as Computer Vision in Critical Security Studies and Machine Learning in Electronic Literature.
Soon's research and practice intersects with art and technology in the areas of Software Studies and Computational Cultures, engaging with topics like queer code and coding otherwise, digital censorship, minor technology and software publishing to understand the potential and implications of technology in a wider cultural and societal context. They are the co-initiator of the art community Code & Share [ ], which brings code, diversity and art together. Since 2022, Soon is the co-editor of the Software Studies Book Series, together with Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Jichen Zhu, at the MIT Press, focusing on software as a site of societal and technical power.
Winnie Soon holds a doctoral degree (PhD) in Software (Art) Studies, spanning Cultural Studies, Computer Science, Media and Contemporary Art, and Performance Studies from Aarhus University (2017), two Masters of Research degrees (MSc) in Digital Art and Technology (2009) from University of Plymouth and (MA) in Media Cultures (2008) from School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong as well as a Bachelor degree (BBA) in Information Systems and Computing (2001) from City University of Hong Kong. Prior joining academia, they also had 10 years tech industry experience working in the areas of search engines, infotainment on mobile devices and IPTV in Hong Kong.
Winnie Soon has given keynotes, public talks, workshops and published their works internationally at museums, galleries, art/science festivals, libraries, universities and conferences, including FutureEverything (UK), Arnolfini Online (UK), Photographers’ Gallery (UK), ACM SIGGRAPH (USA), Pulse Art and Technology Festival (USA), Harvard Art Museum (USA), transmediale (DE), Festival for Expanded Media (DE), ZKM (DE), Digital Art Zurich Festival (CH), Upstream Gallery (NL), Creative Coding symposium (NL), Microwave Festival (Hong Kong), IFVA awards (Hong Kong), Electronic Literature Festival (CA), ISEA (CA), xCoAx (PT), European Humanities Conference (PT), DA Fest International festival of Digital Art (Bulgaria), Aarhus Center for Visual Art (DK), Ars Electronica (AT), [esc] media art lab (AT), WRO Media Art Biennale (PL), RMIT Gallery (AU), C-LAB (TPE), New Media Culture Festival (Słowenia) and among others. They are also invited to give lectures at various academic institutions, including but not limited to Hong Kong Baptist University, City University of Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong, University of Warsaw (Poland), Uniwersytet Jagielloński (Poland), National College of Art and Design (Dublin), Goldsmiths, University of London, University of Warwick (UK), University of Coventry (UK), ArtEZ University of the Arts (NL), Technische Universität Dresden (Germany), University of Siegen (Germany), Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (Germany), IT University of Copenhagen (Denmark).
They are the co-author of Aesthetic Programming: A Handbook of Software Studies (with Geoff Cox) and Fix My Code (with Cornelia Sollfrank). Recent contributions to publications include “Execution” in Posthuman Glossary (with Critical Software Thing), “Throbber : Executing Micro-temporal Streams” in Computational Culture Journal and “API practices and paradigms” in First Monday (with Eric Snodgrass). Winnie Soon has been awarded the Top-Ranked LABS Abstracts in 2017 by Leonardo and the Winner of The 2018 Aarhus University Research Foundation PhD award with the thesis titled Executing Liveness: An Examination of Code Inter-actions in Software (Art) Practice. Artistically, they received the Expanded Media Award for Network Culture at Stuttgarter Filmwinter — Festival for Expanded Media, WRO 2019 Media Art Biennale Award, the Public Library Prize for Electronic Literature (short-listed), Literature in Digital Transformation in 2019, and the 26th and 17th ifva awards (Special Mention and Silver award) in 2021 and 2012. They are actively providing and maintaining two ongoing software art projects: net.art generator (w/ Cornelia Sollfrank and Gerrit Ché Boelz) and Queer Motto API (w/ Helen Pritchard & Cristina Cochior). (2022)
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