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Visible things can be invisible.
However, our powers of thought grasp both the visible and the invisible.

- Rene Magritte -

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I am Sooyeon Ahn, a designer, interdisciplinary researcher, and artist who loves to explore new knowledge and technologies. My goal is to help people live better lives by supporting human cognitive development with science and technology, with a strong emphasis on a human-centered design approach. In particular, I have explored how digital interactions can enable people to become aware of and manage things that are difficult to perceive, such as emotions or unconscious behaviors. I specialize in human-computer interaction (HCI), spatial computing, UX/UI, and interaction design.

I earned B.F.A in Painting and Media Art from Seoul National University, South Korea, and M.S. in Industrial Design from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea. During the Master's program, I worked with Prof. Hwajung Hong in DxD Lab.

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NEWS

June, 2025

June, 2025

Our pictorial 'Designing OWN' received the BP Honorable Mention at C&C 2025👏

March, 2025

March, 2025

C&C 2025 Pictorial accepted🎉

January, 2025

January, 2025

Sooyeon joined Ailike.ME as a Product Designer

December, 2024

December, 2024

Sooyeon participated in exhibition ‘Crossing Over: Innovation and Boundaries’ at Ground Seoul

November, 2024

November, 2024

Sooyeon certified in ‘Boost Course <Generative AI 2024>’ by Naver Connect Foundation

October, 2024

October, 2024

Sooyeon awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution Award’ from COGITO

August, 2024

August, 2024

Sooyeon certified in ‘Boost Course <Data Science 2024> ’ by Naver Connect Foundation

June, 2024

June, 2024

Sooyeon successfully defended her M.S. Thesis

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PROJECTS

EE-SCAPE

EE-SCAPE

(2024)

Sooyeon Ahn, Eunmi Kim, Hwajung Hong

EE-Scape is a VR mindfulness application that alleviates impulsive eating triggered by emotional reasons. Our preliminary studies indicated that most emotional eaters reflect some meanings to the food(e.g., a friend comforting me). To deal with these emotional bonds, EE-SScape provides a novel virtual food experience that allows users to perceive the food differently and reflect on their emotional eating habits.

MindBattery

MindBattery

(2022-2024)

Kwangyoung Lee, Sooyeon Ahn, Jong-ok Hong, Jaehyun Lim, Namgoo Park, Uichin Lee, Hwajung Hong

MThe fast-paced and demanding nature of call center work prevents ability from recognizing worker's emotional states. In this study, we developed MindBattery, a smartphone application designed to support the emotional well-being by using a battery analogy to help call center workers gauge their emotional energy depletion and provide a set of microbreaks for emotional recovery.

MindTerior

MindTerior

(2022-2023)

Ain Lee, Juhyun Lee, Sooyeon Ahn, Youngik Lee *All contributed equally to this work.

MindTerior is a mental health care game for people with mild emotional difficulties. It analyzes each player's emotional state and shows the results as visual elements in the game space. It also suggests a gamified evidence-based mental health care activity that allows players to cope with their emotional problems.

OWN

OWN

(2021-2022)

Sooyeon Ahn, Heeyoung Beak, Gill Son, Dongbum Kim

OWN is a 3D virtual space that elaborately visualizes the abstract and invisible inner world. It was dedicatedly tailor-designed for just one person(OWNer) through in-depth psychological analysis. The psychologists suggest various therapeutic elements, which the designer visualizes as space in the virtual world. OWN comprises synaesthetic elements based on color psychology, environmental psychology, and art therapy to help calm the mind.

Mind-room

Mind-room

(2020)

Sooyeon Ahn, Youngjae Kim, Minha Kang

Mind-room is an online test designed to increase people's awareness of their emotional state. It analyzes each user's emotional state based on how they react to various situations during a virtual journey, then suggests an emotionally calming room designed based on various theories such as color psychology and art therapy.

For the STARved

For the STARved

(2021)

Sooyeon Ahn, Youngjae Kim, Doeun Kim, Seojin Park, Seungyun Oh, Minha Kang, Wootae Kim

For the STARved is an astrophotography exhibition held in an online 3D virtual space. It allows people starved of stars due to the pandemic to freely explore beautiful and fantastic galleries and watch astrophotographs taken by club members.

ARTWORKS

Meta-Gaia

Meta-Gaia

(Group Project) Sooyeon Ahn, Minsun Kim, Geunyong Park, Stella Yolanda

“Gaia, the first god who created the world, was followed by humans as Meta-Gaia. When the shadow of New God casts, the Earth is distorted.” Meta-Gaia visually explores the profound impact of human activities on Earth's ecosystems. It gracefully immerses viewers in a meditative and thought-provoking experience.

Boundary Project

My self had separated into two distinct selves: the outer self and the inner self. The Boundary Project is the process of accepting both divided selves as part of me and eventually integrating them into one.

Inner Garden Project

Inner Garden Project

Inner Garden Project is the process of recognizing my hidden dark shadows. The ‘Inner Garden’ is an inner cozy space where I am able to meet my own inner self. My each inner self has been submerged in each room keeping with my hidden depression as a hard but soft stone, a faint but sparkling light, and a parched but living tree.

Remember Project

My grandfather had suffered from a loss of memory. At his last moment, I was afraid of forgetting about him forever if I didn’t leave him in the picture. <Remember Project> is a project starting from my regret of not leaving my grandfather’s last in the picture, to try to remember him in a different way.

The Gap

No matter how we try to reach each other, there is an unreachable gap between us. My closest others(friends and family) and I stand face to face, and there is a thin, white fabric between us. We sew a Korean word, ‘틈,’ which means a gap, to visualize a space where we felt for each other on white fabric. The gap is a space where sometimes is been apart, sometimes is been closely, and sometimes is been in a tangle.

Not to be Erased

Not to be Erased

In the history of the war, there are countless people who were disappeared under the shadow of the hero. History do not record them even if each of them has their own valuable and precious. In the ‘Not to be Erased,’ I tried to express the pain of about 352,862 people disappeared by the war as inscribing them one by one with my hands.

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CONTACT

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Email to Sooyeon

syeon.studio@gmail.com

@2024. Syeon. all right reserved. Programmed by. Enif