World 00: Primordium

Eternal Revolutions of Techne

2024
Looped video diptych
2048 x 1152

Three Hares is a symbol that has been found in caves and churches from East to West. With the earliest discovered in China (Dunhuang Mogao caves, dated to the 7th century), it traveled to Mongol metalworks, Iranian brass trays, Islamic glasswares, synagogue ceilings, eventually reaching English churches, picking up different meanings along the way.

Inspired by the mysterious life of a symbol shapeshifting in meanings, Wendi Yan created a diptych meditating on the undying theme of technological and cultural transference in the history of civilizations, across time and geography.

On the left, the Dunhuang cave breathes, the three hares spring forrth from an undulating rock lotus, powering an eternal life force.

On the right, in an unspecific future, the cave painting leaps out of the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas, and becomes a mechanical instrument. Surrounded by aluminum clouds, the three hares revolve as a machine of perpetual motion.

History from Underground

2023
Game

design, modeling, environment art, programming by Wendi Yan
selected models by Luma AI
AI NPC trained with Inworld

Game download (PC only)

In an alien archaeology lab filled with giant fungi and bronze sculptures, the player confronts a moving artifact—a specially trained AI—which speaks, literally, to the player about the cosmic beginnings of everything, Daoist philosophy of civilization and history, and “Mammoth Technologies” (coined by the artist).

Primordial Vision

2021
speculative materials

A collection of materials and an essay speculating a more organic framework of technology.

Metaz0a

2021
3D renderings

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.

Notes Before Departure

2021
scent installation

A collaboration with Sam Vasen and Megan Pai
Note cards collected by The Antilibrary from The Center for Book Arts
Graphic design by Megan Pai

Notes Before Departure is a collection of 8 scents that take the smeller on journeys. Each scent is a collaborative effort between Wendi and Sam, as they built on each other’s imaginations to conceive the destination for each scent: the materials, temperature, scale, inhabitants and activities of each space.

Ranging from “Suburban Backyard” to “Botanical Garden on Mars”, these are notes before departures to imaginary architectural spaces, designed during a time when we were geographically bound to the campus. The note cards borrow from the visual styles of train tickets, providing loose descriptions for the scent-initiated, imagined travels. Through a brief additional outdoor installation, we brought friends together on an intimate but immaterial journey.

Adam is Dreaming

2022
documentary short
5’ 47’’

A dream scientist at MIT, Adam Haar Horowitz, shares his vision for dreams beyond scientific research.

After decades of scientists’ effort to turn sleep and dream research into a serious scientific topic, the dream scientist Adam Haar Horowitz discusses the complexities of objectifying a fundamentally subjective experience. What is at play between the dynamic of the “authoratative scientist” and the “perfect subject” in the performative space of the lab? And what, after all, is dreaming?

Adam takes a nap in his house, and shares his dreams.

Kute Kingdom

2019
3D renderings

Kute Kingdom imagines a world powered by collective meditations on the Cute God, as a distorted reflection of the world we live in today. Heavily inspired by Simon May’s The Power of Cute, Wendi Yan investigated the evil side of cuteness through this speculative rendering.