Lu Chen

Lu Chen is a designer with an Advertising Design background. Before RCA, she worked as a UI/ UX designer in the healthcare and automobile industry. She Passionates about complex problems(technology&humanities, social innovation), interested in figuring out them using logical thinking and aesthetic design. The experience of RCA has raised her interest in collaborating with interdisciplinary students to explore possibilities of design as well as using speculative design as a tool to examine what the future would look like.

Moreover, she is intrigued by everything going on around her, resulting in many side projects ideas in her mind. She is currently working on a side project about bringing the multi-sensory experience into drinking alcohol with friends. Also, she is on a daily illustration challenge.

I explored the bright and dark side of technology in my dissertation, which received a distinction, including listeners losing the opportunity to read up on new music due to algorithms, but technology should make us better. Herbert Simon said the design is concerned with how things ought to be, using design to resolve the shortcoming in technology exists me. This is the starting point of Bebop.

Bebop is a platform that distributes indie music by connecting people. We aim to find more diehard fans for indie musicians and provide a more friendly and exciting way for audiences to access and explore different music.

Nowadays, we stream on the internet to access all kinds of information. Algorithm becomes our best friend to filter what we might want to know.

But through understanding our browsing habits, it can also put us in bubbles of our echo chambers.

It can be more and more challenging to access something very different or new outside of our comfort zone.

Streaming platforms are dominated by popular playlists, traffic stars, and recommendations that sounded more and more similar.

It's difficult for audiences to hear different kinds of music if we do not have the habit of exploring actively.

On the other hand, unique musicians without promoting resources are struggling to be discovered by a wider audience. Their works are not preferred by the algorithms since their lack of traffic. It is difficult for them to make a living without a steady fanbase.

How can we address the situation for both musicians and audiences?

We conducted a participatory workshop and an experiment with musicians and music fans. Something magical happened...

In our Secret Santa playlist experiment, we invited 34 music fans to create anonymous profiles (including their music preferences, hobbies, and what kind of music they want to explore) and ask them to choose someone from these profiles to create a playlist for.

18 participants curated playlists for others, 19 participants received playlists from other music fans, and 15 liked the playlists they received.

Participants told us, "This playlist opens up another universe of music for me. Better than any algorithm.” The independent band Qianchuan Drugstore who participate in this experiment as one of the secret Santas also gained four passionate new fans. "I'm glad that they like the playlists. I will love to create more if they want!" Qianchuan Drugstore said.

We realized that sharing music between people can be a fantastic way to lower the threshold of exploring and brings a magical change to the experience of listening to music. Thus, Bebop was born!

We are thankful for the lovely people who have helped us along the journey. This project also makes our own playlists richer than ever before by receiving numerous songs from bands and fans. Check out the video above to see some of the lovely feedback from our users!

Come and join us to meet people with niche taste and discover new musicians in the Bebop universe! The team is currently developing a demo version of the application. We are eagerly looking for more unique musicians and passionate music fans to join our demo test. If you are interested, subscribe through the link below, we’ll inform you as soon as the service is ready to go!

Lu Chen

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Royal College of Art