Envisioning a flourishing world
through situated media.

Questions

Information → Materials → Relationships

01

Situated Information

How can information become more considered?

02

Material Communication

How can materials communicate?

03

Relational Media

How can media connect?

Selected Works

A sea-green DUST device showing the day's climate news on its e-ink screen, standing before a stack of translucent, grey, black and yellow case shells
Feb 2026 · AI IoT

DUST

An #AIforHumanity pocket news device. Advanced summarisation techniques remove trigger words and biases, ending sensational news.

Milan Design Week 2026 · Isola Design Profile · As seen on Dezeen · Design Intelligence Awards Nomination
A study grid of translucent biomaterial specimens cast from food waste, flecked with coffee, herbs and eggshell
Feb 2026 · User–material interaction

MILES

Material journey. Biomaterials cast from a household’s own food waste and displayed as a conversation piece.

RCA Natural Matters Lab · Hangar Gallery · Exhibition Road Spring Show · DRS Textile Intersections 2026
The finale meal under the tree canopy — a long table set with food, dried flowers and wine as residents gather in evening light Two cast organic forms resting on a textured cast-glass sheet, made during the residency
Jul 2026

Reading Design

An investigation into crafting human–environment delight.

London Design Festival 2026, Buckinghamshire, UK
A point-cloud rendering of a red amaryllis in bloom against black, with attention and meditation biosignal traces along the base
Aug 2026

Signal Garden

Practice-based study of eight generative, biosignal-driven interactive installations.

ACM MM 2026, Rio de Janeiro · MobileHCI 2026, Wales

Publications

Material Attunement in Minimal Media: Designing Tactility for Information Engagement Full paper · Sole author · Proceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference 2026 · Cambridge University Press · Dubrovnik, Croatia Published May 2026 · DOI 10.1017/pds.2026.10621
Designing Context-Aware Generative Installations: A Modular Framework for Adaptive Public Space Demo paper · First author · MobileHCI 2026 · Wales, UK Accepted, forthcoming presentation Aug 2026 · DOI 10.1145/3821581.3833135
Textile as Ecological Index: Casting Domestic Food Waste Full paper · DRS Textile Intersections 2026 · Design Research Society Digital Library · London, UK Accepted, forthcoming presentation Sept 2026
Signal Garden: A Longitudinal EEG Installation on Affective Conference Presence First author · ACM MM 2026 · Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Accepted, forthcoming presentation Nov 2026
‘HI’ Human Intelligence ACM UbiComp / ISWC 2025 · Helsinki, Finland · Textile electronics; workshop on model compression and optimisation Oct 2025 · Workshop contributor
More-Than-Human-Centred Design & Design for Meaningfulness Expert panel · Led at IASDR 2025: Design Next · Taipei, Taiwan · With Cees de Bont (NUS), Tsai Lu Liu (Virginia Tech), Sheng-Hung Lee (MIT); critique from Don Norman Dec 2025

Research projects & lab affiliations

Design for Flourishing Wellbeing Technologies Lab, Imperial College London · PI: Professor Rafael Calvo · In collaboration with the National University of Singapore. Positive computing technologies for wellbeing, affect and decision-making. 2026 —
DUST Media RCA Computing Lab. AI news media as an RSS Feed+ IoT object; summarisation that removes trigger words and bias. 2026 —
Minimal Media Imperial Robotics Lab. Designing tactility for information engagement; form factoring against cognitive overload. 2025 — 2026
Mediated Communications RCA Natural Matters Lab with Imperial Food Science. Information exchange and visualisation through user–material interaction. 2026 —
W*NK WONK Imperial Chemical Kitchen. Multisensory confectionery for health information communication. 2026 —
Critical & Explainable AI IDE Studio. Open-source epistemic vigilance tools addressing time cost and misplaced trust in AI use. 2025
Human–AI Frontiers Conversational interfaces exploring base-3 human–AI interaction, developed in collaboration with the OpenAI San Francisco design team. 2025

About

Portrait of Valerie Chua, smiling, in a white organza garment with a floral print

Valerie Chua Yan Tong is an artist and research scholar in media design and engineering. She is currently based at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art.

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