Prof Ina Conradi
Artist, Educator, multidisciplinary artist - 2023 Best of Show Electronic Theater at SIGGRAPH Asia - 2018 Lumiere Award by Advanced Imaging Society AIS Hollywood
Every Thread a Possible World: Animation, Science, and Design Futures in Asia
About
Ina Conradi (USA/SG) is a transdisciplinary media artist and Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University Singapore since 2007. Her digital artworks, animated and adaptable to variable media spaces, creatively employ digital painting and 3D animation. Based in Singapore and Los Angeles, her work harnesses emerging technologies to bridge the gap between art and science, making complex concepts more accessible through artistic expression. Her experimental animation 'Moirai: Thread of Life,' developed in collaboration with quantum physicists, won Best in Show at SIGGRAPH Asia Computer Animation Festival (CAF) 2023, marking a first for Singapore. Chrysalis earned her the 2018 Lumiere Awards from the Advanced Imaging Society (AIS) and VR Society’s Hollywood and 2017 Europe chapters. She also received the 2019 Raw Science Film Festival Award for a collaborative project with Fraunhofer MEVIS, combining digital medicine, arts, and STEAM. In 2019, her co-produced art-sci project Quantum Logos (Vision Serpent) premiered at Ars Electronica Deep Space 8K for the festival's 40th anniversary. Ina has presented her works at major events like SIGGRAPH, UCLA Art|Sci Center, Beijing Film Academy, Ars Electronica (2010-2024), where she was a jury member in 2019, Beyond Festival ZKM Karlsruhe, Media Architecture Biennial, SGIO Tokyo, FMX Stuttgart, ISEA, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, among others. In addition to her artistic practice, Ina curates Media Art Nexus (MAN), a platform for urban digital placemaking, and initiated NTU's inaugural Campus Exhibition at Ars Electronica 2023. MAN is a highlight of NTU Museum’s Campus Art Trail and connects artists globally with institutions like UCLA Art | Sci Center + Lab, Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall in Hamburg, and others across Europe and the UK. Media Art Nexus has been part of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) since 2020. She has served as a jury member for the 2019 Ars Electronica Animation Festival, NTU Singapore's Global Digital Art Prize, and as a mentor for the Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize. Her contributions to education have earned her the Koh Boon Hwee Scholars Award and the Nanyang Education Award.
Talk details
Every Thread a Possible World: Animation, Science, and Design Futures in Asia
About this talk
Cities are wrapped in a digital skin, yet these surfaces too often deliver spectacle rather than meaning. My work asks how animation might communicate science: not by illustrating it, but by translating it through textile traditions, cosmologies, and metaphors of thread and root. Working with physicists and ocean scientists, and now with AI, I treat metaphor as an instrument of understanding, and invite young designers, especially women, into these emerging spaces.
Key takeaway
- How large public surfaces can move from spectacle to worlding, becoming sites of memory, care, and shared perception rather than displays.
- How metaphor and regional knowledge systems can carry complex scientific and ecological ideas to broad audiences, offering a decolonial alternative to inherited Western visual frameworks.
- What design education in Asia can become when students learn to compose with AI for public audiences at urban scale, and what that asks of us as educators and industry partners.