World 02: Carbon Breathwork

WENDI YAN

Observe the Way of heaven
Gather essences of the cosmos
Harness the cosmic timing
Attain the Carbonic Elixir
Correspond with the Heaven
Inhale and exhale the
waxing and waning of the Cosmos

观天之道
吸日月精华
造化火候
修得碳丹
与天地感应
一呼一吸
为宇宙盈亏

The Inner Carbon Classic

2024
Game in Development
Estimated length: 60 min

Level 1 Completed. Exhibition copy available.
Gameplay duration: 45 minutes.

Directing, Writing - Wendi Yan
3D Modeling, Art Direction - Wendi Yan
Level Design - Yi Xie
Interaction Design and Programming - Yi Xie
Animation - Wendi Yan

Support by The Steve Jobs Archive

The Inner Carbon Classic (ICC) is a series of 3D games that explore the alignment of human breath with the planetary circulation of carbon. Inspired by the Daoist Inner Alchemy "Chart of the Inner Landscape," ICC presents a rite of passage within an alternative science-fiction universe. Through a series of simulated somatic tunings via the game controller, the player-adept—embodied as a bundle of Daoist qi—enters into a dynamic exchange of energy with a metaphysical landscape rendered from the human body's inner rhythms. Using system worldbuilding and philosophical mechanics derived from Daoist cosmotechnics, ICC stages a porous self, situated between the human and the planetary, the material and the spiritual.

At a time when an atmospheric element becomes integrated into the global financial system, ICC is concerned with the question of how geoengineering can be exercised in alignment with spiritual beliefs and practices. Instead of mechanical gimmicks imitating divine forces, technology in the ICC game world is a sincere means of seeking the Dao, the experience of cosmic truth, and a higher dimension of conscious existence.

Exhibitions

If/then, Ujazdowski Castle CCA, Warsaw, Poland (2025)
Lagrange Point, Slash, San Francisco (2025)
Game Om, TANK Art Center, Shanghai (2024)

If the Daoist adept strives to return to the state of “sacred embryo”, could our epistemic self, one day, return to the original intuition, while maintaining a higher level of resonance with the cosmos?

GAME TRAILER

Ujazdowski Castle CCA
IF/THEN

Photo credit: Jakub Owczarek.

IF/THEN

Artists: 2Girls1Comp, Andrei Chodera-Isakau, Anna Bidzilia, Cassie McQuater, Dorijan Šiško, Filip Kostic, Jan Możdżyński, Janne Schimmel, Joshua Citarella, Kévin Bray, Léa Porré, Levi van Gelder, Lucie Gottlieb, Maciej Krygier, Sara Bezovšek, Sebulec, Sonia Górecka, Theo Triantafyllidis, Tomas Sjögren, Wendi Yan, Wojtek Didkowski, Yi Xie, Yuliia Frolova

Curators: Sara Szostak, Marta Grytczuk

TANK NYE EXHIBITION: GAME OM
油罐艺术不眠夜2025

𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐎𝐦社会游戏 𝐱 𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐊 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐢

Artists:
卑鄙的我们 (Despicable Us)
蔡宇潇 Rhett Tsai , supported by Allfather Productions (Justin Bortnick)
曹澍 Cao Shu
童年象限 XYZ (Childhood Quadrant XYZ)
突凸秃 2pm to 2am
温小舟 Wen Xiaozhou
武子杨 Ziyang Wu
颜文笛 Wendi Yan & 谢弈 Xie Yi
CNYOB
转塘黑肺姥 (Zhuantang Black Lung Matron)
zzyw (汪洋 Yang Wang and 漆贞贞 Zhenzhen Qi , 李骄阳 Jiaoyang Li , 刘宗鹰 Zongying Liu, 李茜霖 Qianlin Li

Curated by:
Open Media Department, School of Intermedia Art, China Academy of Art (Ziyang Wu, Rhett Tsai, Cao Shu)
Visual Design: Lin Zhuangxiang
Exhibition Coordination: Zeng Yuxin
Supporting Unit: Ministry of Education’s Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Sciences — Mixed Reality Lab of Art Media at China Academy of Art

Opening: December 31, 6:00 PM

Organizer:
TANK Shanghai
2380 Longteng Avenue, Shanghai

Archive

Scenes from Inner Carbon

2024 --
animation sequence
variable length

Figure for the Cultivation of the Spirit (Carbon Alchemy)

2024
Tapestry
62 in x 62 in

Mixing the classic taiji symbol with the first image of DNA’s double helix (“Photo 51”), this tapestry illustrates yin and yang as the cosmic order encoded into the human body. This revised symbol is featured in Wendi Yan’s game on Daoist carbon alchemy, titled “Inner Carbon.”

Lavender Town, curated by Miles Peyton and Cori Cannavino

Archive

A Magnetist Dreams of Universal Healing

2024
Single-channel video
1920 px x 1080 px
1:26 min

Commissioned by Flora Weil for Design in Rising Winds, a research project sponsored by M+ Museum and Design Trust

A Magnetist’s Dream of Universal Healing imagines a satellite remote sensing the subtle magnetic fluids circulating amongst heav ens, earth and living things.

In 1779, Franz Anton Mesmer declared his discovery of “animal magnetism,” a “universal agent” with magnetic qualities subtly flowing through all of nature. In the same year, An anonymous Jesuit mis sionary brought Chinese concepts of yin-yang into Enlightenment France, documenting its hydraulic vision of the body maintaining a balance of energy.

Joseph Marie Amiot, a missionary based in Beijing, believed that Chinese natural philosophy could guide European science. While Mesmerism was quickly discredited by chemists, Amiot continued trying to bring Daoist philosophy into Enlightenment France. He outlined a plan to form a secret society, Order of the Universal Figure, that would unite European science with Chinese natural philosophy.

What if Mesmerist magnetism is a real scientific mechanism? What if Amiot’s secret society came to fruition? What if the intellectual products of the Enlightenment are turned upside down? A magnetist may dream of a hydraulic planet-body, a jade satellite orbiting the earth to perform remote healing.

Design in Rising Winds, research project led by Flora Weil
2024
^{Sponsored by M+ Museum, Design Trust}

Lavender Town, curated by Miles Peyton and Cori Cannavino
2024

Archive

Diagram for Carbon Alchemy

LINK

2024
Website. Essay.

Commissioned by Berggruen Institute.

FUTURE WUNDERKAMMER TEAM

Claire Isabel Webb, Creator & Editor
Director, Future Humans at the Berggruen Institute

Adrianne Toomey, Program Lead
Senior Program Manager, Future Humans

Liv Foss, Program Coordination & Support
Senior Program Coordinator, Future Humans

Theo Detweler, Editorial Support
Research & Editorial, Future Humans

Public/Offical, Design & Art Direction

Two-Eyed People, Development

Former Team Member: Ulysses Yarber, Program Coordinator (2022–2024)

Wendi Yan’s contribution to the Future Wunderkammer program at Berggruen’s Institute is an interactive web-based diagram that reimagines the classic Chart of the Inner Landscape. In light of the climate crisis, this project takes the philosophical stages from the Daoist interior visualization technique of the human body and adapts them to the contemporary quest to lower the carbon dioxide concentration in Earth’s atmosphere.

Archive

The Inner Carbon Classic

Scenes from Inner Carbon

Figure for the Cultivation of the Spirit (Carbon Alchemy)

A Magnetist Dreams of Universal Healing

Diagram for Carbon Alchemy

Spinal Taihu