Notes Before Departure
scent collection
2021
a collaboration with Sam Vasen and Megan Pai
notes cards collected by The Antilibrary from The Center for Book Arts
n.1
Suburban Backyard
castoreum, black pepper, corander, mountain air, lavender
Obligated to throw a pool party for neighbors but you forgot to add chlorine so no one can swim. Everyone is standing around, deteriorating under the prevailing overcast.
n.2
Himalayan Medicinal Candy Shoppe
peppermint, orange, cedarwood, furikake, clove, coriander
Stand at the entryway. The air is thin outside, but go through the door and you will be engulfed in bliss and tradition. Like a kid in a candy store.
n.3
Interspecies Essence Convention Hall
true animal, castoreum, musk
Every year, all worldly creatures gather in this convention hall for a day of essence competition.
n.4
Cozy Swamp
amber, eucalyptus, oak moss, juniper, sage
A moss couch nestled under a willow. As night draws near, sink in and listen to the sounds of the Swamp come alive.
n.5
Insect Palace
myrrh, frankincense, vetiver oil, castoreum, lemongrass, grapefruit, fern
A crystal palace hidden under the leaves. Insects of all colored patterns fly, scuttle, writhe, crawl and dart in to meet their collective queen.
n.6
Fairy Restaurant
fern, amber, mountain air, petitgrain oil, origanum, eucalyptus, oak moss
Wafting from the back garden adjacent to the outdoor seating. Food is served on smooth pieces of slate and the wait staff have a twinkle in their eyes.
n.7
Botanical Garden on Mars
frankincense, wormwood, vetiver oil, fern, cananga, peppermint
What Mark Watney would have hoped to create. Life thrives but not in ways we understand. Less about cultivation but more trying and failing to tame the wildness of Space.
n.8
Glittery Dimension
coffee, cedarwood, buddhawood, tea tree, tarragon oil
Float through the neon void tingling all the way. Watch out for stray turtle shells that monotonously float past.
Installation View
UI design
Siheyuan Co-House
co-living program10.1.20 - 11.5.20
This will probably be the most special memory from my 2020.
In July, after I learned that I had no choice but to go back to China to take remote classes in the fall, I decided to rent a siheyuan in central Beijing for a month and live with other Chinese students in US colleges like me, to have a sense of community in this uncertain time. Through friends, and friends of friends, I found 13 really cool human beings, almost all of whom I barely knew at the time.
The 36 days of living in this siheyuan were beyond anything I could have hoped for. With these new friends, I went to art shows, walked on the streets of Beijing at 2am, experienced sensory-deprivation tank, visited a psychedelic guitarist, watched sunrise outside the Forbidden City, visited a worker’s union exhibition, camped under the Great Wall, and watched the US election.
Many conversations happened in the common room from 12am to 7am -- that’s right, because I have “afternoon” classes at Princeton -- about the commonalities between mathematicians and artists, what to do with a so-called elite education, why we want or don’t want to have kids, and our thoughts about love.
We also opened the space to our friends outside the siheyuan every week. Events we hosted include: mid-autumn festival celebration, themed discussions, halloween pumpkin carving, election watch party, and a few casual gatherings. Every event was open to everyone who was interested. At certain points of our events, there could be 30 to 40 people in this little courtyard. And everyone interested was added to our “Friends of the Siheyuan” groupchat on WeChat, which has grown to almost 150 members by now. Because many people in this group met each other at our events, they now share information about art shows and film screenings in Beijing to find people to go together.
The siheyuan was only a beginning, of many beautiful experiences and relationships yet to come :)
In July, after I learned that I had no choice but to go back to China to take remote classes in the fall, I decided to rent a siheyuan in central Beijing for a month and live with other Chinese students in US colleges like me, to have a sense of community in this uncertain time. Through friends, and friends of friends, I found 13 really cool human beings, almost all of whom I barely knew at the time.
The 36 days of living in this siheyuan were beyond anything I could have hoped for. With these new friends, I went to art shows, walked on the streets of Beijing at 2am, experienced sensory-deprivation tank, visited a psychedelic guitarist, watched sunrise outside the Forbidden City, visited a worker’s union exhibition, camped under the Great Wall, and watched the US election.
Many conversations happened in the common room from 12am to 7am -- that’s right, because I have “afternoon” classes at Princeton -- about the commonalities between mathematicians and artists, what to do with a so-called elite education, why we want or don’t want to have kids, and our thoughts about love.
We also opened the space to our friends outside the siheyuan every week. Events we hosted include: mid-autumn festival celebration, themed discussions, halloween pumpkin carving, election watch party, and a few casual gatherings. Every event was open to everyone who was interested. At certain points of our events, there could be 30 to 40 people in this little courtyard. And everyone interested was added to our “Friends of the Siheyuan” groupchat on WeChat, which has grown to almost 150 members by now. Because many people in this group met each other at our events, they now share information about art shows and film screenings in Beijing to find people to go together.
The siheyuan was only a beginning, of many beautiful experiences and relationships yet to come :)
2021
Metaz0a is a series of virtual organisms that challenges the traditional dichotomy between "natural" and "artificial/technological." It imagines a future of harmonic meta-symbiosis amongst what are now conceived as "nature," "technology," and "human."
Evoking viscerality through a virtual medium, Metaz0a is at once an organic technology and an artificial life.
Evoking viscerality through a virtual medium, Metaz0a is at once an organic technology and an artificial life.
Fever Dreams of An Automated Fungal Technicist
2021
VQGAN + CLIP
This Jewelry Does Not Exist
project in progress
Virtual jewelry proving the existence of the non-existent (AI-generated) people, that you can try on
NFT: The Dawn of Our Tokenized World (Crypto Wonderland 2051)
NFT: The Dawn of Our Tokenized World is a speculative exhibition set in the year 2051, about the rise of NFTs in the early 2020s.
It is a web 3D experience in which player can move around and explore the fictional museum Crypto Wonderland, the architecture of which is specifically built for the narrative of this exhibition.
Working with a mixture of selective documentation of real NFT events and speculation over possible NFT scandals or incidents, this project invites the player to reflect on what kinds of value NFTs bring to our society, and prompts the audience to imagine where we are headed with the increasing convergence of the virtual and physical worlds.
It is a web 3D experience in which player can move around and explore the fictional museum Crypto Wonderland, the architecture of which is specifically built for the narrative of this exhibition.
Working with a mixture of selective documentation of real NFT events and speculation over possible NFT scandals or incidents, this project invites the player to reflect on what kinds of value NFTs bring to our society, and prompts the audience to imagine where we are headed with the increasing convergence of the virtual and physical worlds.
Cerebral Cybernetics, Inc.
2021︎
download game
At Cerebral Cybernetics, Inc. you have a chance to create a better life for yourself. Not everyone starts at the same place, but you may as well do what you can to get ahead.
Within the walls of Cerebral Cybernetics, Inc., you will view and purchase cybernetic enhancements that are backed by scientific research. In doing so, you may choose how you will live the life you haven’t even begun yet. Will you enhance your chances or leave it up to fate?
Within the walls of Cerebral Cybernetics, Inc., you will view and purchase cybernetic enhancements that are backed by scientific research. In doing so, you may choose how you will live the life you haven’t even begun yet. Will you enhance your chances or leave it up to fate?
collaborator: Matt Trotter
Cerebral Cybernetics, Inc. is an interactive 3D environment where players navigate through a shop for fictional cybernetic enhancement products. Items range from beauty products for brain lobes, to more advanced technologies for modifying the size of one’s amygdala. Each player is given a set amount of balance that doesn’t allow them to purchase every item -- now the question is, what do you buy or not buy with a limited budget? Each product is provided with a description of its functions and side effects. And upon each entry to the game, the player is given a different amount of money that would influence their shopping experience.
Cerebral Cybernetics, Inc. challenges the players to generate their own stances on cybernetic enhancement, cyborg technologies, and human’s long quest for perfection and transcendence.
Cerebral Cybernetics, Inc. challenges the players to generate their own stances on cybernetic enhancement, cyborg technologies, and human’s long quest for perfection and transcendence.
Product List
Environment
The Courtyard
2020-2021
documentary feature in development
Breakfast is Here
short film2020
This short film was made during the filmmaker’s mandatory quarantine in Shanghai, after she flew from New York to take remote classes as an international student. Focusing on the quarantine workers in white PPE, the filmmaker portrays an almost sci-fi room service experience in the covid pandemic.
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2D
Eusapia
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“No city is more inclined than Eusapia to enjoy life and flee care. And to make the leap from life to death less abrupt, the inhabitants have constructed an identical copy of their city, underground...
“They say that every time they go below they find something changed in the lower Eusapia...And the living, to keep up with them, also want to do everything that the hooded brothers tell them about the novelties of the dead. So the Eusapia of the living has taken to copying its underground copy.
“They say that...actually it was the dead who built the upper Eusapia, in the image of their city. They say that in the twin cities there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead.”
“They say that every time they go below they find something changed in the lower Eusapia...And the living, to keep up with them, also want to do everything that the hooded brothers tell them about the novelties of the dead. So the Eusapia of the living has taken to copying its underground copy.
“They say that...actually it was the dead who built the upper Eusapia, in the image of their city. They say that in the twin cities there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead.”
--- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Alternative Book Covers
2018-2019
Architecture of the Apocalypse
2020.7
Gallery for Moses
2019.4
duration: 1 mo
thesis: extreme views of falling and power exchange
Spatial Relationship Study
duration: 1.5 mo
thesis: dualities in unity
The model is mainly formed through two triangular volumes that are connected by lines. Similar elements (2 “L” shaped planes in different sizes, as well as a hinged rectangle with windows) mirror each other diagonally across the front and the back.
I used two sets of axes that are 45 degree apart, and employed the two thin, straight lines from the given elevation as two guiding lines of the model, forming an “x” at the center of the plan. The front side follows the elevation plan, with most of the rectangles being planes turned by 45 degrees to the same direction. Looking from the top, the turned plans become lines, while originally hidden “ribbons” reveal themselves as they run from bottom to top, or top to bottom, connecting the two major triangular volumes.
In addition, I sought to develop my architectural language by forming volumes with minimal planes that connect with each other at corner points, and I explored the hinges in particular.
The model presents different levels of solidity and opennessat different angles or from different sides.
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Soundspace
2018.7
duration: 1.5 wk
site: under the highline,
w. 22nd street at 10th avenue, south side of the street
thesis:
a parallel experience with what’s above the High Line
a contrasting texture with the structure of the High Line
dark v.s. bright
heavy v.s. light
industrial v.s. organic
around each opening are recordings taken from above the highline
each sound/recording drifts in and out of the visitor’s ears as the visitor move in and out of th
e circular openings
in the middle of an opening, the visitor hear the symphony of all sounds, just as one hears on top of the highline
Mitla in Chaos
2020.2
weaving
Arquetopia Residency
Oaxaca, Mexico
Your Half Fortunes
2017resin, transparent vellum
I asked students, faculty and staff of my high school to write down a fortune for themselves. When they came to the show, they had to flip over numerous resin hemispheres on which texts were suspended until they found their own fortune. Visitors to the show could also write down their fortunes on the cards I had prepared, and stick them around the pedestal.
Many of the hundred fortunes mentioned the words “love” and “happy” - reminders to take better care of themselves. After reading each fortune over and over, one classmate whom I barely knew personally told me she had written an anonymous note for another school project that I shared online, with the words, “I have a constant fear that I am not enough.” At this exhibition, she wrote a card saying, “you are always enough.”
This work enabled me to connect with my community. I felt fortunate to help convey the participants’ tender and honest sentiments with relative simplicity and emotional depth and see how we all share similar hopes and fears.
Life
Life Soup
2016performance at RISD
I made paper pulp “life soup” for my audience. Each “customer” could pick up to two life flavors from my menu. I shredded slips of paper with images corresponding to the “flavors” and placed them into a blender with water. Customers could tear away any parts of the self-guidance books on topics including marriage, career, or faith as their add-on ingredient. The paper would deform in the swirling warm water into paper pulp. Customers could then pick a poem from a 500-page collection as their “topping.” Finally, they would “pay” me with life tips they wrote anonymously.
The final product of Life Soup was, of course, not edible. But it was the process of each person making choices that mattered more: what life ‘flavor’ to pick, what issues seemed pertinent, what literary language resonated, etc. It was also interesting to be the artist and observe the process. I watched “happy” quickly run out, and “wealthy” almost remain in full stock. Most of the life tips were about staying true to oneself.
It was also interesting to be the artist and observe the process: “happy” quickly ran out; most of the life tips were about staying true to oneself.
Finding the Shortest Path
2017
charcoal, watercolor
43 in. x 31 in.
Traffic lights are regulators: they point at the right direction at the right time. But what if they turn green in every direction? This is the confusion my generation often faces. Whereas a world full of red lights can seem hopeless, a world full of green lights deludes people into believing they own the key to success.
This World in a Nutshell
2017
charcoal, watercolor
31 in. x 43 in.
During rush hours, the subways in Beijing are packed with commuters. Everyone tries to hold onto the handrails (or, at least the other hands gripping the rails.) Hundreds of bodies jammed into the carriages sway, collide, rub against each other as the subway travels. I see this imagery as a perfect metaphor for life.
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The Architecture of Awe
The Architecture of Aweindependent research at UPenn’s Positive Psychology Center, with guidance from David Yaden
[Paper]
Neuroscience informs design, now what? Towards an awe-inspiring spatial design
published in Conscious Cities Anthology 2019: Science-Informed Architecture and Urbanism
[Gallery]
Awe-inspiring spatial design
-- with examples from art and architecture
visual supplement to the research
Neuroscience informs design, now what? Towards an awe-inspiring spatial design
published in Conscious Cities Anthology 2019: Science-Informed Architecture and Urbanism
Awe-inspiring spatial design
-- with examples from art and architecture
visual supplement to the research
1
The Self-less Heaven and Hell
-- Comparing the no-self experiences
in Depersonalization Disorder and Buddhist meditative practices
2020.12
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Lobotomy: A Successful Collective Self-Deception
2020.10
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The Silence that Did Not Let Others In
John Cage, Susan Sontag, encoding/decoding theory
2019.5
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4
Transferred Nostalgia of the Kowloon Walled City
globalization, urban memory
2019.3
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Can Abstract Art Be Propaganda?
Abstract Expressionism, Cold War
2017.5
Academic Writing
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Puzzles
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Let’s Care About Starving Artists
[pdf] [solution]Princeton Puzzle Hunt 2019
Meta 2
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Photo Album
[pdf with solution]3
Calligraphic Cures
[pdf]Phillips Exeter Academy Puzzle Hunt 2017
Meta 5
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James Turrell - 呼吸光
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高中成天翘课的诺贝尔奖得主跟我说，要尽可能多地冒险
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James Turrell - 呼吸光
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Mucha x Banksy - 要把作品搞到货币上，也要格格不入地被历史垂青
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三周室内设计课--我的作品，以及“面对不完美”
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JR - 用艺术改变世界吧！
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Wanda Koop - 纽约大街上全是这个不知名的艺术家
Blog Articles
on contemporary art, design education, and unconventional career paths
2018
