Undergrad Thesis 2025

Luna Lens Film Festival is a space for connection, celebration, and discussion of feminine creative power within Asian cinema. Showcasing independent and experimental feature and short films from Asian female and nonbinary filmmakers along with student submissions, workshops, and post-screening discussions, the festival aims to hold space for filmmakers and students to foster connections and share their stories—whether it be from the narratives in their films, their practices in the film industry, or their experiences in the world.

A Nomad’s Heart is a multi-concept stop motion animation depicting themes of growth, egoism, naivety, misunderstanding, emotion and acceptance through the lens of an alien rabbit. It physically loses & grows as a result of increased emotions, and accepts love from itself to accidentally provide for the world. The work dissects the preconceived notion that self-worth is on the line when one grows – it is a gift rather than a punishment.

Unlocked Unknown is an immersive VR experience set in the tomb of the Yanroth, an alien species whose worldview is shaped by the belief that perception creates reality. Though players remain in the same physical space, VR carries them through vastly different environments—blurring the boundary between presence and illusion. The project explores how belief and perception shape our understanding of space, self, and what it means to exist. (WIP – core environments and interactions still in development.)

The Hyphen Between is an immersive multimedia project that explores immigration through diverse perspectives across Mexico. Blending documentary filmmaking with interactive exhibition, it weaves together stories of indigenous heritage, environmental conservation, and human displacement. The project delves into indigenous traditions, the urgent ecological battles facing Michoacán’s monarch butterflies and the whales of Baja California Sur, and the ongoing immigration crisis at the U.S. border.

With the recent rise of Western music companies incorporating elements of the K-pop phenomenon into their projects, WAAPS strikes the iron while it is hot. Through the form of an essential Korean Pop product, an album, WAAPS plays with, queers, and diversifies the form of the Western K-Pop album; before unaware audiences start to form preconceived notions around them. Simultaneously, We Are All Pop Stars uplifts six local queer artists. Framing these artists through the K-pop cultural products of photocards, photo books, and posters proves they deserve to be celebrated as much as any K-pop idol or Western pop icon.

The world does not revolve around me, the universe does is an interactive film installation navigating the complexities of familial relationships. Materialized as a recreation of the artist’s childhood bedroom, four films play throughout the space each containing a letter to her family. Through re-interpreting techniques from art therapy practices, the artist’s goal is to find new ways to communicate her feelings and vulnerabilities with her family that would otherwise go undiscussed.

Gen Love is a performance installation built from conversations on love, collected as a living dataset. As technology and AI increasingly define what it means to be human—through metrics of efficiency, objectivity, and productivity—I ask: Can love offer another way to understand ourselves? Each conversation shapes my AI’s evolving definition of love, and in the process, I shape my own.

My Brother's Memory Palace is an unscripted documentary short following two siblings to the places they grew up in Koreatown Los Angeles, as one attempts to replace memory loss with filmed content. It questions how current modes of identity formation through digital capture, consumption, and posturing appear to depose or obscure the necessity of cultivating actual relationships to cultural communities and places.

"Echoes" is a narrative music video where in a quirky, heartfelt journey sparked by accidental edibles, three generations of women rediscover the love, happiness, and shared identity they hold as a family. This project aims to bridge gaps with empathy, encouraging us to find comfort in shared experiences amidst chaotic family dynamics.

Peacelily is an immersive infinite film that explores themes of time, space, and memory. Inspired by raw imagination and abstraction found in children's drawings, the film has no ending or beginning and is driven by music and math. The project acts as an exploration into nonsense and play.

Threaded is a short film that navigates the loss of people and time, finding comfort in what remains. Blending archival footage, TouchDesigner visuals, and illustrations, the film forms a poetic narrative about memory and connection. The thesis includes a companion zine called "The Remaining Thread" that acts as a space for reflection.

en busca de la nada: configuration_C is a live audio-visual performance that merges film, sound, and design into an immersive meditation on existence—an invitation to unlearn societal constructs of identity and purpose, freeing ourselves from neoliberal-imposed frameworks. Inspired by Zen teachings, the work proposes a blank slate from which new understandings can emerge, allowing nature, time, and our surroundings to reshape our perceptions. Rather than seeking concrete answers, the project embraces uncertainty, uncovering deeper truths through experience and discovery. What do you find when you go in search of nothingness?

In the Zone is a projection performance exploring the immersive mental state extreme athletes experience during challenging ascents. It follows Lucy Westlake, a record-breaking mountaineer, as she describes her experience of “flow,” a state of complete focus where mind and body move in perfect harmony with the environment. Inspired by my own experiences as a rock climber, I wanted to create a piece that captures the profound peace and clarity found in these moments of total presence. Using projection mapping, Lucy’s internal world is visualized directly onto a rock face as she climbs, blending her mental and physical journey into a single dynamic performance. Through this project, I hope to share the beauty of connection, both to oneself and the world, in moments of challenge and grace.

The Sum of the Things We Leave Behind is an interactive mixed reality installation featuring an abandoned dinner table about the evolving relationship between two siblings. Using forgotten objects to represent pivotal moments in their lives, the installation celebrates the versions of ourselves we abandon to shape who we are today. Drawing from research on enhancing museum engagement through interactivity, the project uses interactive artifacts to evoke emotion to cultivate a deeper understanding of the past. Visitors will engage with the installation by uncovering hidden messages to unlock recordings of the past.

JIMB-bot is a state of the art conversational bot, engineered for the evaluation of temporal efficiency and perceptual analysis. Employees visiting the installation will be able to talk with JIMB-bot and receive an in-depth assessment of their time optimization aptitudes. Efficiency, productivity, measurable outcomes — JIMB-bot knows that this is the correct definition of time. Non-conformist approaches to these neoliberal ideals are not tolerated and personnel optimization procedures will be conducted on offending individuals. JIMB-bot’s assessment may seem precise, but is time really something to be optimized, or is there more to it than what’s measured and controlled?