shm likes trains. they have made a number of art pieces made about, and with, BART (the Bay Area Rapid Transit system), including two BART costumes (with working lights!) and a sound sculpture that uses real-time departure data, with their friends Oliver DiCiccio and Sudhu Tewari. here i will enumerate my BART-related projects!
i made this Halloween costume for fun in 2023! I wore it to UIST 2023, and it also doubled as a mini portable workstation lol. It has working headlights, a small inside table surface where I could put my laptop + a place to store my phone / portable charger / put a cup of coffee. the Legacy BART costume was graciously awarded Best Craftsmanship at the UIST 2023 costume contest, organized by my friend and research senpai Jingyi Li! (...meaning this is technically my first HCI research conference award...) photo credits to my dear friends James D. Smith, Timothy J. Aveni, and Hila Mor for all of my Legacy BART costume photos.
after seeing the legacy BART costume on social media, BART reached out to commission me to make another for Halloween 2024! this time modeled on the new "Fleet of the Future" cars. they also invited me to make some instructional booklets documenting my build process for the growing BART costume-making community! This one also has working (rainbow!) headlights, and an LED matrix sign that displays the BART "line" and "next stop" ! thank you to BART's official @sfbartable social media team for supporting this awesome project! Photography by the talented Ricky Chen (@ttl.media)!
i made a series of short-form video content for @sfbartable:
the build booklet / instructions commissioned alongside the costume — including a soldering guide for the lights.
Transbay Tubes is an instrument played by BART. It uses real-time departure data from 501.org to produce sound whenever a BART train enters the Transbay Tube (from either direction) connecting the West Oakland and Embarcadero stations. Check out the web monitor page to learn more and see its current status!