AMPD Faculty and Artists-in-Residence featured at 2025 Connected Minds Conference » School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design
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Aristis-in-Residence Ar Ducao (left) and Gala Hernández López (right).
3 mins read AMPD Department: CMA Department: Digital Media Research

AMPD Faculty and Artists-in-Residence featured at 2025 Connected Minds Conference



York University’s  School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), in partnership with Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts & Technology, played a leading role at the 2025 Connected Minds Conference, held from October 6 to 8 at York’s Keele Campus. 

The annual three-day event brought together researchers, artists and innovators to examine how humans and intelligent technologies shape one another, with discussions spanning technology, health and society.

The Opening Arts Reception on October 6th, transformed two theatres into immersive exhibition spaces, where various installations highlighted the intersections of art, research and technology.

Man at podium with dark background and university flags to his right.
Michael Adam Murray, CEO, Ontario Arts Council
Three people standing with name badges on a stage with dark background.
Left to right: Shayna Rosenbaum, Professor and York Research Chair in the Clinical Neuropsychology Stream; Laura Levin, Director, Sensorium and Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance; Helen Lee, Coordinator, Sensorium.

AMPD Faculty Installations on Display

Taien Ng-Chan
Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema & Media Arts
Director, Sensorium

Professor Taien Ng-Chan exhibited You Are What We Eat, an augmented reality installation that playfully replaces participants’ faces with foods from the artists’ Prairie childhoods. The work examines food as a symbol of heritage, blending personal memory with questions of cultural identity and consumption.

Sihwa Park
Assistant Professor in the Department of Computational Arts 

Professor Sihwa Park presented Diffusion TV, an interactive audiovisual installation that invites audiences to explore the hidden processes of AI through a nostalgic CRT television interface. Viewers adjusted dials and antennas to reveal diffusion models, transforming chaotic data into recognizable forms. 

Mark-David Hosale
Associate Professor in the Department of Computational Arts 

Professor Mark-David Hosale presented The Body In\Verse, a collaborative work that merges biophysical sensing, emotion-based sound and generative poetry to explore how technology mediates human emotion and embodied experience.

A person looking into a vertical screen with food graphics hovering on the screen, black stage background.
You Are What You Eat by Professor Taien Ng-Chan
People surrounding an installation with black backdrop and blue lit up cubes.
Diffusion TV by Professor Sihwa Park
An installation of a woman on a screen with a sign beside against dark backdrop.
The Body In\Verse by Professor Mark-David Hosale

Artists-in-Residence

The reception also featured opening remarks from AMPD’s Connected Minds Artists-in-Residence, Ar Ducao and Gala Hernández López, who reflected on their residencies at York.

Over the course of their residencies, Ducao and Hernández López developed new research-creation projects, led workshops and public talks, and engaged students and faculty through studio visits and discussions. 

Ar Ducao speaking on stage.
Ar Ducao, Artist-in-Residence.
Gala Hernández López on stage giving a talk.
Gala Hernández López, Artist-in-Residence.

These contributions highlight AMPD’s role in shaping how creativity and critical inquiry inform technologies of the future, a theme that echoed throughout the conference. By connecting students and faculty through collaborative research, mentorship, and creative exchange, AMPD continues to foster the kind of innovation that drives discovery across disciplines.

About Sensorium

Housed within AMPD, Sensorium is a leading research centre dedicated to creative inquiry at the intersection of media arts, performance, and digital culture. Bringing together artists, scholars, and technologists, Sensorium serves as a dynamic hub for interdisciplinary collaboration and artistic experimentation.

About Connected Minds

Led by York University in partnership with Queen’s University, Connected Minds is a first-of-its-kind research program that studies the risks and benefits modern technology has on society, now and in the future. Connected Minds brings together experts from across multiple disciplines to explore and seek answers on how best to balance technological progress and its unintended consequences for society, particularly for equity-deserving groups.

Photos courtesy of Connected Minds.