Nice to meet you! My name is Bre Dulay, I go by she/her pronouns, and I'm a second year SJSU student studying under the Digital Media Art program. As the daughter of two Filipino, Ilocano immigrants and as a Bay Area native, culture and identity are the two major influences in my life and in my work. My family lived in La Union, a region located in the Northern Philippines, before moving to the Bay Area where I was born. Although I was born in the US, my ties to Ilocano culture are strong. I attribute part of this to growing up in a melting pot of a city and the other part to all the stories passed down from family that have piqued my interest in learning about my culture, as well as the cultures of others in my community.

In the future I hope to be able to open a community art center where individuals can submit, make, appreciate, and talk about art in a community setting. This is one of my long term goals because I want to recreate the diversity, empowerment, and community togetherness through art that I grew up with. I want to keep building a community that can communicate and relate to one another using creative processes, and ultimately become a product of understanding and mutual appreciation. I hope to use my understanding of digital media to facilitate this exchange of stories and ideas in the future. Storytelling and narrative, being important in my life, is also a significant aspect in my projects. The stories we choose to share and how we choose to tell those stories is something very powerful to me. This is why stories that can be told in non traditional ways, through virtual or augmented reality, visual novels, video, and photography is a source of interest and inspiration for me when I am working on my own projects. Currently, I have experience in using Photoshop, AfterEffects, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, html/css/python, p5.js, and have dabbled in using Fusion4 and Maya. I am looking forward to seeing what I create when I gain more technical experience to supply my ideas.

I chose to be a part of the Digital Media Art program because we are in the heart of Silicon Valley where technology is constantly expanding. Living in the middle of this technological hub, I feel that it is a prime opportunity for me, academically and professionally, to learn about the technology that can improve experiences and provide solutions. I see stories like virtual reality helping the elderly experience things they otherwise couldn’t and that is the type of contribution I want to dedicate myself to making in my career. One of the questions I hold myself to answer throughout my time in this program is how can we go past just updating to the new, but instead using that new technology to solve current and long standing issues? This is largely why I am interested in pursuing a career in product or interaction design, which I feel is more important than ever. When I’m not studying or working on projects, I love reading mystery stories, tending to my succulents, and playing Stardew Valley.