Hi, welcome to my personal website!
I have been working on developing a new website (but I never get it done for various reasons). I use this website as a placeholder to show some recent and old projects.
If you want to know more about me, please go to About. I also share my ongoing PhD. journey there. You can find some of my academic Writings.
Recent Projects (2021 - 2025)
My most recent finished project is East Beijing Road VR (2022-2024). It is an asymmetric VR installation to re-enact a story of a building in Shanghai, China. In this project, I hand-processed 16mm films in the dark room. After digitalizing the 16mm films, I used AI to reimagine the scratches of the films, and made a short film Seeing Through the Dark (2024). I also created an interactive installation version for a gallery exhibition, Seeing Through the Dark at East Beijing Road (2024), in which audiences can use hand gestures to collectively reveal layers of the story. In the single player version of Seeing Through the Dark at East Beijing Road (2025), the audience can use both hands to move horizontally and vertically to traverse across different times. I also made a 2D linear version of East Beijing Road (2024-2025).
I made some performative games with my friend Yuemin. We made a game Seize (2022 -2023), which is an augmented reality game workshop to invite players to re-map their personal experiences within physical environments. We also organized a series of Performative Virtual Play In Covid Lockdown in 2022.
I made a site-specific board game, Retelling the Tales of an Old District (2022), for a local city festival in my hometown Changsha, China. In this game, players can reimagine the stories of one of the oldest district in the city collectively.
In 2021, I worked with Raiden and had a one-month virtual exhibition at a blockchain “metaverse” Cryptovoxels, named Blocks of Memories.
Chameleon Gallery (2018 - 2021) - MR in Collective
I founded Chameleon Gallery, a Mixed Reality collective, at the end of 2017. During the active period from 2018 to 2021, we organized three physical exhibitions, two virtual exhibitions, and published two titles on Steam:
I worked with Jonathan Turner and published Endless Becoming on Steam in 2021.
I curated a VR exhibition in 2019, Longing.
I collaborated with Nandan and Xin and made a VR performance, Moooore Mall 1.0 in 2019.
In 2018, I worked with six artists, including painter, sound artist, sculptor, and video artist, to create Virtual Reality version of their MFA thesis work.
Chameleon Gallery is not active at the moment. If you want to collaborate, please feel free to contact me. I am open to work together to publish work on the major gaming platform, organize exhibitions, or conceptualize some speculative & fun MR and game projects.
Older Projects (2017 - 2021) - Fire
From 2017 to 2021, my practice focused on exploring the element of fire: physical or virtual, destructive or protective, internal or external, and fire as a symbol of desire, civilization, or a form of technics.
From 2018 - 2020, I worked on a project named Fair Sai Re Pi. This project is based on a real pyramid scheme company claiming to modernize Traditional Chinese Medicine. I created a multi-sensory VR installation to use an uncanny and surreal Virtual Reality fire therapy to criticize this conflict between Chinese tradition and capitalism.
In 2020, I worked with Yidong and created a multiplayer game prototype, Looking in an Immersive World, to imagine the gay gaze in the future VR world.
From 2016 - 2022, I made a series of works, including documentary, VR, digital prints, and 3D prints to retell a historic fire happened in my hometown in 1938, named Wenxi Fire:
I made a short documentary, Cao’s House, which is about my grandfather who recalls his memories of his father and his father’s houses
I made a VR installation, Hymn to the Fallen, which includes a VR and a video to re-enact the historic fire in the current cityscape.
I created a project, Untitled Disappearing, to parallel this historic fire and ongoing gentrification in the city.
During the 2020 pandemic, I was evacuated from my apartment because of the forest fire in Santa Cruz, California. At that moment, I felt my practice of imagining the fire came to life. I wrote a small piece in Chinese when I stayed in my professor’s house temporarily. This experience still lingering around as a “perfect” summary of my experience in practicing Fire.