Episode 06: The Craft of Creative Technology with Siah Tiong Hong
Self-taught programmer and visual designer, Siah shares his views on honing the craft of creative technology.
Siah Tiong Hong is a Malaysia-born, Singapore based, programmer and visual designer who has worked on projects dealing with 3D, AR, touch design, audio and visual reactive design.
Self-taught Programming
Having majored in science at school, Siah was drawn to art school and studied Design Communication with image making at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore. He taught himself programming.
“It's a constant journey. As you learn new things in programming, you sort of discover other new things you could do if you knew this other part of it, and it just never stops. It’s very exciting.”
Starting Out on His Own
After leaving his job of nine years, Siah designed the GIF FEST website and volunteered for an arts festival in Japan, after which he started his own practice, Screensavers.
Making Sound Visible
Siah created a visual piece for a music project, where he worked with Leslie Tan from the Tang Quartet to deliver the visuals for their original musical composition. The TouchDesigner project received real time audio feedback from musical instruments and translated them into giant visuals that wrapped around the musicians on stage.
Check the project out here.
Find out more about TouchDesigner here.
Inner Like The OutAR
Siah collaborated with artists Reza Hasni and Tina Fung on Inner Like The OutAR, a physical installation with interdisciplinary artist-collaborators. It is an experience that uses Augmented Reality, set and sound design to imitate the magic of nature.
Discover Inner Like The OutAR here.
On Creative Technology
Siah follows Waxy, a programmer who collects and compiles interesting new cultural phenomena, creative works and mediums in new technology on his blog.
Check Waxy out here.
Advice
There’s a tendency to take technology for granted and overlook the work that goes into making them possible.
‘There's no magic. If you unpack everything, there's a way this is done. While it seems like magic from the outside, if you unpack it enough, you can learn how to do this, and you can do it yourself. Given enough time and effort, you could make your own personal version of Instagram or Fortnite.”
Recommendations
Siah is also a huge science fiction reader, and has recommended a few of his favourites that are worth checking out:
More from Siah
