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 - 2024)
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.
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)
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.
Older Projects (2017 - 2021)
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.