Sougwen Chung

Sougwen Chung (born in Shanghai, raised in Canada, based in New York) is one of the most distinctive artists working in the space between human creativity and artificial intelligence. A former MIT Media Lab researcher, her practice centres on the gesture of drawing — specifically what happens when that gesture is mirrored, learned, and extended by machines.

Her collaborative robot systems — collectively called DOUG (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation) — have evolved over years of development into sophisticated creative partners that draw alongside Chung in real-time performance. The results are neither purely human nor purely machine, but something genuinely new.

Installations like Chiaroscuro (2013) established her reputation for large-scale immersive work that maintains the intimacy of hand-drawn mark-making even at architectural scale. Her work has been exhibited at the Barbican, Victoria & Albert Museum, and major festivals worldwide.

Chung has been named a TED Fellow and her work has been covered by The New York Times, Wired, and BBC.