Love Prototype

I was at a Christmas party where everyone had to bring a white-elephant gift. I made a small Christmas tree using LEDs on a breadboard.  I knew someone I had a crush on would be at the party. I secretly hoped he’d get my gift. He didn’t—the gift went to someone else. A couple of years later, I revisited that memory and transformed the physical object into a 3D digital work.

Gift Supposed For You became a digital narrative sculpture—a way for me to document this small love story. Even though the crush never worked out, I continue to practice love in my life. When building a circuit, we often prototype the circuit on a breadboard to plug in electronic components and connect them with jump wires. I see breadboard and LED as metaphors of how we keep prototyping love in life: how love can evolve, shift, and sometimes begin again. 

Floating imagines the self as a lone component drifting through the universe, waiting to connect with another component, or just enjoying themselves. Imperfect acknowledges the warmth and connection in love and how relationships are often imperfectly perfect. Cloudy Cloud depicts the dim, heavy weather of sadness that still shelters a small, persistent hope. I hope these four works delicately unfold and capture fleeting moments of love that might echo in someone else’s life, too.