The odd choices, the strange paths, and the blend of art and science.
If I have to pick a movie that represents my life, I’d choose “Mr. Nobody”. The movie is simply about a plethora of choices that people can make during their life. Each choice opens a door and each path leads to a different outcome.
I too have choices in my life and as far as I know, I have always made odd choices.
I was a marketing graduate, a photographer, a visual designer, and now a Machine Learning engineer.
It was back in 2014 when I was in college in Japan, there was an annual exhibition of World Press Photo, where they showcased the work of renowned photojournalists around the world.
I remembered myself standing stunned in front of the documentary of the African immigrants to Europe. It was inspiring how photos that were taken a thousand miles away could give me a sense of “pain”, physically and mentally.
Greatly touched by the work, I started doing photography. After several years of working with photos, my creativity expanded into exploring visuals in an interdisciplinary way.
I started to incorporate my work with other domains including graphics, writings, music, and psychology. Out of everything, I found myself fascinated by the blend of art and science the most.
During my visit to TeamLab (Tokyo) and Meow Wolf (Santa Fe), I saw LED systems that can change into gardens following human gestures, machines that translate human voice on the spot, intermedia installation that can mimic the sound of nature.
It was nothing I had seen before, the artwork was alive and interacted with audiences. My nerdy soul woke up and I started to look into how AI changed the way we visualize our world.
At that time, I had a thought, that if photography can represent the world onto images, with science, can we break down those images, in some way to teach machines to make sense of those visual elements, then use that machine back to support our life?
Or if images are the representative of real life, with science, can we use a machine to create a virtual life based on those images?
It was the very first time I came in touch with the idea of Computer Vision.
In the hybrid field of art and science, Neri Oxman is my inspiration. She leads the MIT Media Lab research group, including product designers, AI engineers, and biologists to create work that embodies environmental design and digital morphogenesis.
She once explained her philosophy in design: “Usually, art is for expression, science is for exploration, engineering is for invention, and design is for communication.
Why can’t we create a circle out of them? Like a clock, where you are constantly moving or shifting from one domain into another. Then, the output in one domain becomes the input for another. Science converts information into knowledge. Engineering converts knowledge into utility.
The design converts utility into cultural behaviour in context. And art takes that behaviour and question our perception about the world. There is a flow of information, a flow of creativity that happens across all disciplines."
I too have choices in my life and as far as I know, I have always made odd choices.
I was a marketing graduate, a photographer, a visual designer, and now a Machine Learning engineer.
It was back in 2014 when I was in college in Japan, there was an annual exhibition of World Press Photo, where they showcased the work of renowned photojournalists around the world.
I remembered myself standing stunned in front of the documentary of the African immigrants to Europe. It was inspiring how photos that were taken a thousand miles away could give me a sense of “pain”, physically and mentally.
Greatly touched by the work, I started doing photography. After several years of working with photos, my creativity expanded into exploring visuals in an interdisciplinary way.
I started to incorporate my work with other domains including graphics, writings, music, and psychology. Out of everything, I found myself fascinated by the blend of art and science the most.
During my visit to TeamLab (Tokyo) and Meow Wolf (Santa Fe), I saw LED systems that can change into gardens following human gestures, machines that translate human voice on the spot, intermedia installation that can mimic the sound of nature.
It was nothing I had seen before, the artwork was alive and interacted with audiences. My nerdy soul woke up and I started to look into how AI changed the way we visualize our world.
At that time, I had a thought, that if photography can represent the world onto images, with science, can we break down those images, in some way to teach machines to make sense of those visual elements, then use that machine back to support our life?
Or if images are the representative of real life, with science, can we use a machine to create a virtual life based on those images?
It was the very first time I came in touch with the idea of Computer Vision.
In the hybrid field of art and science, Neri Oxman is my inspiration. She leads the MIT Media Lab research group, including product designers, AI engineers, and biologists to create work that embodies environmental design and digital morphogenesis.
She once explained her philosophy in design: “Usually, art is for expression, science is for exploration, engineering is for invention, and design is for communication.
Why can’t we create a circle out of them? Like a clock, where you are constantly moving or shifting from one domain into another. Then, the output in one domain becomes the input for another. Science converts information into knowledge. Engineering converts knowledge into utility.
The design converts utility into cultural behaviour in context. And art takes that behaviour and question our perception about the world. There is a flow of information, a flow of creativity that happens across all disciplines."
I believe that in the future, no scientist, engineer or designer will work alone but an interdisciplinary effort will be in demand to solve bigger problems.
With that in mind, I returned to Saigon to work as a visual designer and later came in touch with CoderSchool through my friends.
The first time I went to CoderSchool was to attend the workshop by Professor Sybil Derrible. For two hours, he introduced us to how Machine Learning was used in urban design to sustainably renovate our habitation, including his recent project on Tau Hu and Ben Nghe Canal.
I forgot how many times I nodded during his talk.
Without a doubt, I decided to join Coder School with the hope to learn about Computer Vision so that in the future, I can design to support people's lives like this.
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The first time I went to CoderSchool was to attend the workshop by Professor Sybil Derrible. For two hours, he introduced us to how Machine Learning was used in urban design to sustainably renovate our habitation, including his recent project on Tau Hu and Ben Nghe Canal.
I forgot how many times I nodded during his talk.
Without a doubt, I decided to join Coder School with the hope to learn about Computer Vision so that in the future, I can design to support people's lives like this.
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It is not random that my class was named after the deepest place on Earth.
Three months in Mariana is a long journey, much longer than what I expected. I remember in the first class, Anh Minh told us several things to do during this boot camp.
One of them is to be fit — keep ourselves healthy — and it was not a joke. We had class every day from 10 AM to 5 PM and to keep up with that massive amount of new knowledge, one must be very steady.
My sister told me to sleep early, I was like “Urg, I have codes to finish.” My friends asked me to hang out on weekends, I was like “Dude, I have a thing called a weekly project.”
It was intense but once you are through it, you are on another level. It was pretty much like you constantly evolved like a Pokemon.
One of them is to be fit — keep ourselves healthy — and it was not a joke. We had class every day from 10 AM to 5 PM and to keep up with that massive amount of new knowledge, one must be very steady.
My sister told me to sleep early, I was like “Urg, I have codes to finish.” My friends asked me to hang out on weekends, I was like “Dude, I have a thing called a weekly project.”
It was intense but once you are through it, you are on another level. It was pretty much like you constantly evolved like a Pokemon.
I think the reason that Mariana succeeded was that we collaborated.
We are not just merely teachers - students, but more like a group of friends studying together.
Anh Minh and the 3 TAs, Tom, Minh Anh, and Nguyen, did a good job of forming a knowledge-sharing circle where they made sure that everyone in the class understood to the level that we were ready to implement the things we had learned. Not only that, they always supported us mentally by giving out advice, and physically by buying us milk-tea (🐷).
Besides the teachers, I have wonderful classmates who were with me through thick and thin. We came from many different backgrounds; some knew some code, some knew nothing, but we never laughed at each other for not knowing something.
Anh Tien once stayed with me and anh Tan at CoderSchool until 9 PM on Saturday just to make sure that we could make a flask app.
We treat each other like brothers and sisters. We discussed, we learned together and made sure that no one was left behind.
I think those eclectic layers of collaboration were what made everyone advance so fast in such a short amount of time.
My time at CoderSchool may have ended, but the path right ahead of me is wide open, and I’m excited to explore with each and every step I’m about to embark on.
(Nhan Phan’s Demo Project that made it into the Top 6 Finalists of Demo Day was about Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Network, you can check out his presentation here)
To all my future Machine Learning fellows, it might be terrifying before taking a leap into anything that is as new as this. I was once like you, I knew that feeling.
I also contemplated a lot before making this journey but now, looking at what I can do with my little laptop, I’m telling you, every effort was totally worth it.
Machine Learning holds a powerful key to open the door to many paths. Think clearly about which path you want to open. Then go. "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars".
To all my future Machine Learning fellows, it might be terrifying before taking a leap into anything that is as new as this. I was once like you, I knew that feeling.
I also contemplated a lot before making this journey but now, looking at what I can do with my little laptop, I’m telling you, every effort was totally worth it.
Machine Learning holds a powerful key to open the door to many paths. Think clearly about which path you want to open. Then go. "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars".