Blog
SFPC Orientation
May 28, 2025 What I enjoyed the most about the orientation event was the community agreement discussion. I have never thought of the idea of people talking too much in a group setting being a violation of an ideal learning environment before this discussion, and maybe that is something I need to think about more as an educator.
Summer Reading List
May 28, 2025 This summer, I have chosen a reading list centered around reinventing the way I create and document my work. I also wanted to write about what I have read. I like writing and wanted to schedule time in my calendar to be able to prioritize something that I really enjoy.
Resarch for people who would rather create by Dirk Vis (Author), Florian Cramer (Introduction)
“Research is not meant to remain only within the mind of the practitioner, or to be communicated solely between student and tutor. The goal of a research document is to share knowledge that has been developed through research. By sharing knowledge, you participate in and help build a community.”
The rule book The Building Blocks of Games (Playful Thinking) Paperback by Jaakko Stenros (Author), Markus Montola (Author)
Cult Tech Residency
May 22, 2025A few weeks before the school year ended, my application was selected for the CultTech Residency, a program that explores new technologies in performative works. The program is organized by CultTech Association, in collaboration with leading tech companies that offer solutions for the creative industries. Their technical partners offered lectures and seminars focused on enhancing the creative experience through technology. Since the residency took place during European time, it was challenging to fit it in during the school year.
I took part in the Enhancing Relations track of the educational program, which focused on answering the question of how technologies can deepen, rather than disrupt, our connections—with audiences, with artworks, and with one another. This track explores how digital tools can be used not just for creation or spectacle, but for relation: for fostering dialogue, presence, and co-creation in increasingly mediated environments. This track emphasized the politics and poetics of relation and asks when relations are enhanced by technology rather than being replaced and how tech can deepen experiences rather than distract us from them.
I am unfamiliar with many of the technology introduced. Going into the residency educational lab, I was somewhat skeptical about them. The first technology introduced was Voice Swap, an application that allows the user to borrow singing abiliy from actual artist to create their own singing voice. I am not sure what this technology could be used for within my creative practice, but I was interested in the discussion surrouding the conceptualization and application of this technology.
My SFPC Application
May 18, 2025I recently discovered Laurel Schwulst's arena channel, Teaching is Creating Educational Environments, which contained timely reading materials that inspired me to consider my own teaching practices. As a teacher, I am constantly finding new places to learn and to bring back to my own classroom, so this opportunity to take a School of Poetic Computation class came at the right time for me. I have been feeling that it's become more challenging over time to teach interaction design, as students don't seem as excited about technology or learning about it as they once did. Maybe my classroom need to change in a big way.
Taking a class at SFPC has been on my wish list for a long time because of their unique approach to thinking about and working with technology. I am finally able to take a class on something that I have taken for granted, and I hope to rekindle my love for this technology as a result. It is exciting to be able to be a student again.
I think that being vulnerable and being true to myself in writing the application is important, and the questions were an excellent opportunity to self-reflect. For those who want to take these amazing classes at SFPC, maybe my application can help by offering a different perspective.
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Post a short bio (~150 words) here. We may use this bio for communications on our website and social media.
Linh Dao is a designer and educator who likes to learn about and explore interactive technology in her work. She's interested in the experiences of immigrants, people who come from elsewhere, people who don't feel like they belong, and people who have the body, memories, or experience of a woman. She has created work about her personal history and wants to use that work to invite others into a conversation with her about their shared experiences and everything else that she hasn't yet experienced. A graphic designer by training, she cares deeply about how design can be used not just for businesses to make profits, but also for individuals to make meaning, and how the expressive power of computers can be a part of that process. She writes and publishes my work with the Design Research Society, International Association of Societies of Design Research, and The American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Please provide context about the link(s) that you have shared above. Was the project created by yourself or someone else? How does this project represent your creative, artistic, social practice?
I proposed and led both of the following projects, as well as collaborated with one or more collaborators. They both involve immersive technology and typography, which fits nicely with my interests and body of work at the intersection of migration, immigration, and identity.
My first project, Transitional Threads, is a project in collaboration with Amanda Stojanov, a friend that recently reconnected with me at a conference over our shared experiences and interests. It is an immersive virtual reality experience about migration as a complex multigenerational process. In this experience, the player interacts with sculptural types that carry sentimental meanings. Each of these words that we wrote together tells our story in two parts: one of us leaving from elsewhere, and the other arriving from elsewhere, both wanting to be truly at home here in the United States. We both worked on the conceptual background and execution of this project. I took care of the design and Amanda of the development. We became good friends over the course of this project and later shared an exhibition despite working on opposite sides of the country. I included this project because it was conceptual, experimental and collaborative. The most challenging part of any experiment of this type for me has always been finishing the project, and my collaborator Amanda's patience and resilience was crucial in helping me finish this one. In the early stages, the collaboration were small and then organically grew into a sustainable schedule, an exhibition that was well-received, and a concrete vision for the next steps. But most importantly, the collaboration developed into a friendship that allows me to learn how to listen to and support somebody else.
My second project, Amorphous, uses augmented reality typography to bridge the gap between physical and digital spaces through a compact learning experience for queer art activists and enthusiasts, consisting of an identity and wayfinding system and a digital archive. The experience is designed to blend seamlessly into guerilla exhibitions, transforming the printed descriptions on the wall into a portal of sorts, leading visitors to a network of curated similar or related queer works. Using a portable and powerful mobile device, on-site wayfinding and off-site exploration are both possible. For several months during the summer, I worked on this project with my students Elise Coatney and Chenin Gelera. I was able to pay them for their contributions with modest funding from my college, which kept some of them covered by health insurance over the summer. I included this project because it was a large project with collaborators who contributed differently than I was used to, and that had many questions to answer, and with less defined parameters. I learned both about the topic itself, as well as about teaching, motivating, and assisting people with continuously changing goals and destinations. During this project, I was told many times that it was not valuable in different ways, which I viewed as a huge opportunity to learn. The opportunity to investigate something new and unknown with my students, and to open doors for them, is very rewarding for me.
Tell us why you're interested in studying at SFPC and why studying at the school is relevant to where you're at in life.
I am interested in the expressive power of computers and how abstraction through coding can help us understand the world and understand ourselves better, for example, how the inner workings of the internet can be altered or disrupted, or whether they should stay the same. When I was in school, most lectures focused on how to code, not why. Now that I teach, I wish I had known more about it to discuss it with my students. SFPC is concerned about this and more, including how to view codes through different lenses. Even things with a long history like typography are still renewable as how we read, write, and communicate with each other continues to change, especially on screen. I'm concerned about how we have lost the beauty of individuality, authenticity, and of the large and small moments. I have this romantic idea that the internet can be less manipulatively compartmentalized and more like a garden of words.
I have always enjoyed reading and writing. I envision coding as a second language that allows me to see the world in more depth. I am excited about being a student again and learning from my classmates, many of whom must go about learning differently than me. I want to be able to just enjoy the process of learning itself and the experimentation that comes with it, which is something I am not able to do much of in my current teaching job.
What is it about SFPC that would improve the way you learn? What is your favorite way to learn? How do you feel when you learn that way?
Classes offered by SFPC are taught by people that I look up to, and allow me to be part of a community with people that I know I can learn from. I am also really interested in the unique theoretical and conceptual content that they cover. I think they are both contemporary and critical. I also love that the classes have both beginner and advanced content, and that they take place virtually. I cannot afford to live in an urban area, and always feel I miss out on educational opportunities others have. This summer is particularly tough for me because I am going through fertility treatment, and if this class was in-person, I would not be able to take it.
My favorite way to learn is reading written tutorials rather than watching video tutorials, taking and organizing my notes, and listening to how others talk about how they work. Some people like to talk about their process while others talk about their inspirations. People always have questions I have not thought of before, which is always the best part of learning. All of that is valuable because the creative process is a soft and fluid thing, and sharing can really help it take shape and that is just as enjoyable as the end product itself. I have not yet invested in my own practice in this way, and at this point in my career, I feel privileged to be able to do so.