International Journal of Creative Multimedia

International Journal of Creative Multimedia (IJCM)

2025-12-31T13:54:38+08:00

The International Journal of Creative Multimedia (IJCM) seeks scholarly work that explores the intersection of multimedia technology with creative content and research. We are interested in contributions that take advantage of the affordances of digital platforms in creative ways. The aim of this journal is to showcase current research in multimedia and other creative domains where knowledge of rapidly evolving digital media and its growth towards our lifestyle can be shared. IJCM is a double-blind peer-reviewed open-access journal published bi-annually (April & September) and is offered for online publication free of charge, without any submission, review, or page fees.

Icons of Sustainaissance

2025-12-31T13:15:18+08:00

Three digital paintings entitled Sustainaissance envision cultural icons—Michael Jackson, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix—as icons of environmental sustainability. Fusing digital environmental storytelling with classical iconography, the works respond to the exhibition theme "SUSTAINAISSANCE: Emotion. Expression. Identity." Each portrait depicts its celebrity subject in a narrative tableau that connects destruction of the natural environment to symbols of renewal and rebirth. Juxtaposing expressive portraiture with the emotional resonance of iconic figures, the series frames sustainability as a personal issue. Each icon's legacy and identity are harnessed to evoke empathy and inspire collective responsibility towards the earth. Augmented reality integration and the use of cutting-edge digital tools further enrich the narrative, demonstrating how innovations in new media can give ethical messages and emotional expression added resonance. In all, Icons of Sustainaissance turns nostalgia into an aspirational call for environmental consciousness by harnessing digital art and cultural iconography.

Seasons of the Tree: A Symbolic Journey

2025-12-31T13:18:29+08:00

‘Seasons of the Tree’ is a looping holographic animation that explores the cyclical rhythms of nature as a metaphor for emotional, ecological and personal transformation. Rooted in the theme SUSTAINAISSANCE: Emotion, Expression, Identity, the artwork reimagines the tree not as a literal object, but as a symbolic anchor for renewal and continuity. Each season, spring, summer, autumn and winter, embodies distinct emotional tones, hope, joy, nostalgia and contemplation. These invites viewers into a meditative experience of time and change. The work addresses sustainability not only as environmental concern but as a philosophical return to balance and harmony with the Earth’s natural cycles. Through the use pseudo-holographic display technology, the piece creates an immersive, ambient space that encourages stillness, reflection and emotional engagement. It also explores identity by prompting viewers to consider as stewards of the environment and participants in the broader ecological narrative. Overall, this artwork offers a poetic and sensory dialogue between technology, nature and the human spirit.

Morphology of Kinesis

2025-12-31T13:22:41+08:00

Morphology of Kinesis is a biophilic, AI-driven, low-energy installation that transforms a living terrarium into real-time projection to ask how digital art can redistribute the emotional benefits of nature. A 360-degree camera streams real-time images of the moss, soil and plants' micro-ecosystem to a diffusion model, which re-renders the scene according to prompts. The expansion transforms a handful of nature into a never-ending forest, revealing hidden bioluminescence and morphing according to the user’s interaction with the camera angle. Each iteration multiplies the minimal matter, building upon boundless digital habitats. Aligned with SUSTAINAISSANCE theme, the work frames sustainability as creative regeneration rather than conservation alone. By using lightweight processing, it creates a deep sensorial experience with minimal energy consumption, focusing on revising the possibilities of sustainable eco-aesthetic designs. The aim of the installation is to evoke the sense of eco-nostalgia and propose new, intimate and individual possibilities for collective shaping of healthier futures. The installation functions as a collaborative canvas: audience-generated prompts steer the AI, making spectators co-authors of the growing landscape. In terms of identity, the installation foregrounds our role as custodians who can re-envision nature into shared possibilities.

NOKTAH: The Ellipsis Within

2025-12-31T13:26:49+08:00

NOKTAH is a multimedia installation that frames sustainability and consumerism through a reflective visual dialogue, shaped by the symbolic lens of the NOKTAH, the Malay word for "full stop." While a full stop marks an end, its repetition as an ellipsis suggests continuation, evolution, and resilience. This work explores the emotional and expressive dimensions of environmental awareness using projection mapping on upcycled materials, visual storytelling, and symbolic composition. It reflects on shifting patterns of consumerism in the face of planetary crisis and invites viewers to pause and consider how sustainability involves not only environmental action but also inner renewal, memory, and meaning making. Digital storytelling, salvaged forms, and living plants are layered to evoke the tension between loss and regeneration, blurring the boundaries between organic and manufactured, life and waste. The narrative builds toward a final, resonant question: “What was your last retail regret?”, anchoring the work in the emotional landscape of modern consumer identity and connecting sustainability to everyday decisions. By merging craft with digital expression, NOKTAH creates a liminal space where endings become beginnings, and identity is shaped through transformation. It is a quiet protest and visual meditation on grief, urgency, and the hope for a more connected future.

Invitation to Variables

2025-12-31T13:29:17+08:00

Invitation to Variables explores digital fatigue and emotional disengagement in an age of algorithmic sameness. Inspired by the repetitive structures of online content, the artwork investigates how users respond to perceived redundancy, whether they disengage or persist in seeking variation. A 3x3 grid of QR codes printed on fabrics serves as the primary interactive element. While six QR codes link to the same video, three offer distinct experiences, creating a tension between uniformity and novelty. This work aligns with the exhibition theme SUSTAINAISSANCE: Emotion, Expression, Identity by reframing sustainability through the lens of psychological endurance. Here, sustainability refers not to environmental resources, but to our capacity to sustain emotional engagement, intentional expression, and identity in a hyper-digital world. The repetitive scanning becomes symbolic of how digital users navigate choice, curiosity, and expectation. The piece prompts reflection on our threshold for boredom, our assumptions about content, and the resilience required to remain self-aware amid digital saturation. By shifting the focus toward inner sustainability, Invitation to Variables suggests that preserving curiosity, attention, and critical thought is just as vital as sustaining the planet, offering a nuanced critique of how we consume not only products but also information and experience.

# otherisland

2025-12-31T13:32:37+08:00

# otherisland emerges from the enduring gap between islanding and de-islanding, those movements that inscribe lines both inside and outside of cultural identity. This work has undergone transformation from an immersive experience to a corner installation with a customized printed roller blind and thermal blanket. What I term "spatial distillation" reaches its apex in this iteration, where the Korean consonant # serves as both a linguistic vessel and a spatial portal, creating a hidden threshold between the familiar corner and the alien landscape beyond. The rectangular form of # functions as what Jacques Derrida calls a "parergon," a frame that is neither inside nor outside the work but constitutes the very condition of its appearing. Through this corner installation, the work embodies SUSTAINAISSANCE, demonstrating how my practice transforms and rebirths from a large immersive installation into a corner iteration. The Korean consonant # amplifies the core concept of this work, functioning as epoché for viewers, creating a phenomenological moment to think beyond immediate reality, suspending assumptions about space and identity to reveal new pathways for diasporic otherness. The roller blind format re-presents staged photography, transforming the act of revealing into a phenomenological gesture, while the thermal blanket grounds viewers in the immediate present, the physical space and time where participants stand. This metamorphosis of the installation suggests that spatial distillation can amplify experiential intensity, creating "portal aesthetics": the sustainable artistic practice that reinvisions a minimal architectural space into potential speculative futures.

Gelora: Embodied Alienation

2025-12-31T13:34:44+08:00

Gelora: Embodied Alienation is an augmented reality (AR) artwork transforming fallen flowers from California streets into alien hybrid creatures through mobile camera interaction. This work engages SUSTAINAISSANCE, the convergence of sustain to preserve the ability for action with naissance as giving birth, reimagining our fundamental energies to circulate through technological transformation. Participants perform four-phase elemental rituals based on East Asian cosmology, gathering scattered forces to resuscitate Gelora, an alien-hybrid being embodying the artist's diaspora displacement. The emotional dimension manifests through uncanny valley experiences where participants confront simultaneous attraction and repulsion toward hybrid creatures resembling human anatomy yet remaining fundamentally other. Expression emerges through embodied gestures: bending to scan, dragging elemental dots, waiting for emergence that mirror the artist's original scanning rituals with silica gels. Identity exploration occurs through the artist's experience as a legal "alien" in California, transferring feelings of displacement into technological encounters that transform estrangement into connection. The work demonstrates how present awareness through camera-mediated interaction connects to speculative futures, proposing that alienation serves as a renewable resource for posthuman kinship rather than isolation.

Legacy of Hang Tuah: Virtual Reality Game for Ancient Malay Heritage

2025-12-31T13:36:22+08:00

This virtual reality artwork draws inspiration from Hikayat Hang Tuah, a classical Malay epic, to engage with the theme “SUSTAINAISSANCE: Emotion, Expression, Identity” through a visual narrative that blends tradition with contemporary digital storytelling. Set within a reimagined tropical village at sunset, the work presents a solitary figure, symbolic of Hang Tuah, situated in a serene yet emotionally charged environment. Through the considered use of light, colour, and culturally grounded elements, the artwork evokes emotions associated with loyalty, inner conflict, and nostalgia. By reinterpreting a legendary figure through a modern immersive medium, the work proposes a form of cultural sustainability, whereby heritage and moral values are revisited and re-articulated through digital expression. The emphasis on solitude and reflection foregrounds the tension between personal identity and communal duty, echoing enduring human concerns. Within an increasingly fast-paced and homogenised digital landscape, the artwork reflects on the role of creative practice in sustaining emotional depth and cultural narratives. In doing so, it aligns with the notion of a contemporary “renaissance” of identity and meaning, positioning art as a connective bridge between inherited wisdom and future-oriented consciousness.

Inner Renaissance: The Noise Within, The Calm Beyond

2025-12-31T13:38:30+08:00

Inner Renaissance: The Noise Within, The Calm Beyond is a multimedia installation that captures the emotional journey from mental chaos to a state of calm. Drawing from research on the impact of background music on attention and emotional regulation, this artwork features two contrasting digital visuals. One side represents cognitive overload with complex abstract strokes and tension-filled composition, while the other presents a visual sense of peace through smooth gradients and minimal elements. Each visual is paired with a unique audio experience using soundscape compositions that reflect the emotional state of the artwork. By scanning a QR code or using an AR app, visitors can listen to the corresponding music and feel the transformation within themselves. This work reflects the theme of “SUSTAINAISSANCE” through emotional renewal, self-awareness, and the sustainable use of digital tools to enhance creative expression. The project encourages reflection on how sound, emotion, and design contribute to our mental well-being. It aims to show that sustainability is not only about the environment, but also about sustaining the self through emotional balance and mindful engagement with the world.