<...statement:

Growing up, I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to be intelligent… efficient… industrious… Instead, as an artist, I pretend to be one. “The factory” is my imagined site of work. In my factory, OSHA guidelines are strictly followed, with clearly marked walkways and designated areas for machine operation. It’s filled with custom-made robots that I design and build. By playing ‘make-believe’, my work enters the realm of speculation and expresses perspectives of current and future imagined realities.

Within these imagined realities, my “research” in automation, play, and robotics is highly respected within my field. Perpetual Operation System: Rubber Duck utilizes an industrial robot arm to repeatedly transport a rubber duck from conveyor to conveyor with precision and efficiency. My Single-Celled Battery Organisms are a group of individual gearbox motors equipped with a mechanism that enables movement, and were possibly used in a study in animal behavioral sciences. In the Automated Play series, miniature robotic arms activate scaled-down playground equipment in a factory setting, effectively revolutionizing the play industry by achieving the highest plays-per-minute (PPM) ever recorded.

Each imagined reality offers an ironic/playful take on industriousness and innovation. This serves as a reference point and expresses broader criticism of non-fictional practices and ideas, including unethical labor practices, cycles of mass production and consumption, and the waste these systems generate. As it develops, my practice will reflect on both these oppressive systems and the technology that enables them, and also serve as an alternative approach to repurposing that technology for humanitarian benefit.

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<...cv:

Yusuf Shamma <> forwardkinematics1@gmail.com <>  @forwardkinematics

education >>
2026    MFA Art and Technology/Sound Practices, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
2023    BFA New Media, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, ON, CA.

exhibitions >>
2026   Graduate Exhibition Two, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
2025   Soft Systems, Plot, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
2025   Waveforms 2025, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, IL, USA.
2024   Waveforms 2024, Asian Improv Arts Midwest, Chicago, IL, USA.
2023   Odyssey, Northern Contemporary Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada.

awards >>
2025 & 2024   Visionary Scholars Award, Chicago, IL, USA.
2025 & 2024   Merrill L. Golightly Scholarship, Chicago, IL, USA.
2023   TD FCCP Education Foundation New Horizon Scholarship, Toronto, ON, Canada.



















hi :)

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