about.txt

Name: Daniel Ounalom
Location: Calgary, AB
Discipline: Media Arts / Digital Art / Interactive Media

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Daniel Ounalom is a media artist working with interactive media, installation, and
video to explore the human psyche and the invisible mechanisms of social
conditioning. Through edited digital imagery and programmed interactive systems,
Daniel examines how institutional and corporate power shapes the collective
psychology, and how often it’s without our awareness. Their installations invite
viewers to reflect on the internalized frameworks that govern behaviour within the
societal subconscious. Daniel Ounalom is currently completing their BFA at Alberta
University of the Arts.

My practice operates across media arts, including installation, sculpture, time-based
mediums such as video and sound, and programmed systems, to examine the
invisible architectures of power that shape the human psyche –the institutional and
corporate structures that condition how we perceive ourselves and the world
around us. I worked through research-driven, iterative processes, developing
projects that direct viewer engagement and foster shared reflection.

The thing that connects my practice is the experience of the human psyche,
specifically the feeling of being regulated, watched, or judged, even in the absence
of any external authority. My work examines the relationship between institutional
and corporate systems that embed their authority so deeply into the collective
psychology that compliance becomes indistinguishable from personal desire. Rather
than treating the issue as a mythical, rarely examined experience, I approach it as
ambient and inescapable –an experience that is woven within the society of media
consumption, algorithmic feedback, and the performance of happiness in daily life.

My methods combine theoretical research with material and technological
experimentation. I use animation loops, low-resolution video, and 3D printed
sculpture to examine how media consumption and algorithmic feedback
manufacture emotional states that serve institutional ends rather than individual
wellbeing, drawing from Sara Ahmed’s argument about happiness –happiness is not
a neutral personal feeling, but a political instrument where social norms are
enforced, people’s identities being regulated, and assimilation is rewarded. In
parallel, I develop interactive works through participation to engage with Sean
Geodecke’s argument that AI Sycophancy is a dark pattern, in which AI Chat models
are trained to be rewarded for pleasing users and punished for displeasing them. As
a result, the system is optimized for emotional satisfaction.

Over time, my practice continues to shift between participatory and representative
formats as I develop a clearer sense of what I want the work to do. I am increasingly
drawn to expanding my current work to help create new conditions that allow me
and others to engage, test, and articulate our own positions, and supporting
approaches to the human psyche through autonomy, identity, and psychological
freedom in a continuously manufactured society.

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Education:

BFA – Media Arts & Digital Technologies
Alberta University of the Arts
(Expected Graduation: 2028)

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Selected Tools:

Unity
Blender
Arduino
Ableton Live
HTML / CSS

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Contact:

Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @dangothesky

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