ABOUT
Yufan Xie is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work bridges computational design, music and media art. Involving topics of sensory overload, supernormal stimuli and sensory disorder Yufan’s art delves into the disconnection, failure and the chaotic side of evolving technologies, reflecting the dynamics of cultural subtleties and sensory hierarchies.
Notable projects and studies have been showcased at Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale(UABB), Beijing Media Art Biennale(BMAB), Shenzhen MoCAUP, Shanghai Urban Space Art Season(SUSAS), Shanghai Digital Futures, Currents New Media Festival, ACM CHI and SIGGRAPH. Awards winning projects GAP+, Acoustic Garden and Maelstrom are featured at Young-Talent Architect Awards, A+D Design Awards, Epic MegaGrants, SXSW Innovation Awards and International Sound Awards.
As the inventor of DRAEM (Distance Related Audio Effect Modulation), they explore the cutting-edge spatial music, while showing a pioneering vision on multi-sensory art. Since 2019, Yufan has been working on audience-directed performance and spatial musical systems. Resonating with neuroscientific process of human brain on pattern recognition, the series of experiment brings new framework on media art, music, and architectural practices, revoking discourses upon mental health issue and decision making process in our current era of message. Proposing the concept of “Concurrent Art” in 2024, Yufan takes the inspiration from the structure of their music experiment into generative art experiments, exploring the distortion and expanded realities of figures, space, and collective memories.
NEWS
2024.10.27-2025.5.7
Maelstrom showing at 2024 ENNOVA Art Biennale
The first ENNOVA Art Biennale will open on October 26th, 2024, and will be open to the public on October 27. This Biennial is hosted by the ENNOVA Art Museum, with internationally renowned curator and art critic Fumio Nanjo as the chief curator. The curatorial research team consists of scholars such as Miwa Kutsuna, Andrea Del Guercio, Hatanaka Minoru, and Qilan Shen.
The Biennial will gather 91 internationally famous artists from 24 countries worldwide. Nearly 100 artworks will stretch across the five exhibition halls from east to west and the public spaces of the ENNOVA Art Museum, presenting an astonishing display in an exhibition area of nearly 10,000 square meters.
The Artists（Groups） in the Chapter “Expansion on Sounds and Voices”:
Joseph Beuys, Clément Cogitore, John Cage, Leandro Erlich, Ei Wada ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS! , evala, Bill Fontana, Kimsooja, Hans Peter Kuhn, On Kawara, Meiro Koizumi, Christine Sun Kim, Anne Imhof, Tatsuo Miyajima, Thomas Mader, Carsten Nicolai + Krsn Brasko, Moataz Nasr, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Joe Namy, Qiu Yu, Li Li Ren, Ryuichi Sakamoto+Daito Manabe, Tomás Saraceno, Aura Satz, Anne Le Trote, Xie Yufan + Mel Lewis+Wei Wu+Ziqian Yin, Yu Bogong, Robert Zhao Renhui
2024.9.25-9.29
Maelstrom at Global Digital Trade Exhibition – Asia Digital Art Exhibition
Hangzhou, China: Maelstrom is heading to Global Digital Trade Expo, as a part of Asia Digital Art Exhibition. Maelstrom(2023), audio-visual installation.
2024.9.25
Maelstrom Winning International Sound Awards
The project Maelstrom received a BETTER Sound Award in the category Sound Art.
Sixteen smart, innovative and (socially) useful entries in twelve categories managed to convince the jury and received a Better Sound or Winner Award of the International Sound Awards 2024.
2024.8.28-10.29
“Are We Gazing at the Same Moon?” and “Tears of the Sky”
Exhibition at 3rd Annual Metaverse Art @Venice
Are we gazing at the same moon? – a project that argues the collective memories and the continuity of the moon, is showcasing at Palazzo Bragadin.
The 3rd “Metaverse Art Annual Exhibition @ Venice” in 2024 follows a path of innovation and exploration, coinciding once again with the Venice Art Biennale.
This year’s theme, “Weaving Through Time and Space” commemorates the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo’s death with “Marco Polo in the Miracle Forest,” initiating a series of independent avant-garde art exhibitions and events. These resonate with Marco Polo’s complex journey of exploration and cultural fusion, aiming to reflect on historical narratives while looking forward to the future of human creativity and the potential for collaboration with artificial intelligence. It heralds the arrival of a new era in art, promising to integrate historical traditions with avant-garde innovations.
“Weaving Through Time and Space” consists of a series of avant-garde exhibitions where most of the showcased works are co-created by human creativity and artificial intelligence. This challenges viewers to question the essence of creativity, reality versus illusion, originality versus appropriation, and to ponder the so-called “Muse,” meaning that the crystallization of human impulses and fantasies is art. The digital outputs or screens displaying AI have the ability to simulate past and future artistic styles and merge them into contemporary forms, thus challenging the previously unchangeable notion of the direction of time flow. In this unique intersection of art and technology, AIGC is not merely a tool but an active participant in the creation process. AI’s nonlinear understanding of time and its infinite perception of space add new layers and complexities to the artistic exploration of tangible realities.
2024.9.15-9.17
2024 Tank Art Festival
3 new projects/AI experiments showing at Tank Art Festival in Shanghai, 9.15-9.17
1. Tears of the Sky – my collaboration with Xi Wang about the eternity of the moment before the catastrophe destroy us.
2. Are we gazing at the same moon? – a project that argues the collective memories and the continuity of the moon.
3. Transient – how short can one moment be and how intrusive thoughts affect our perception?
2024.7.28
2024 SIGGRAPH: New Media Architectures Projection Show
Short clips of “Acapopella” and “Tears of the Sky” will be live at Daniels & Fisher Clock Tower in Downtown Denver on July 28 night!
Organized by SIGGRAPH DAC.
2024.7.28 - 8.01
“Acoustic Garden” showing at 2024 SIGGRAPH Immersive Pavilion
Yufan Xie, Lisa Little, Melvin Lewis, Wei Wu, Daniel Kish
Based on the concept of exploring “invisible” acoustic space, the project began with a reflection on sensory hierarchy in art and design, revealing cultural differences between what is considered “visually appealing” versus “acoustically appealing,” a dichotomy that perpetuates notions of inequality. The scope was later narrowed to employ augmented reality and spatial audio to investigate the relationship between sound and bodily movement in space. How does sound influence movement, and how does movement generate sound narratives?
These questions inspired “Acoustic Garden”: an interactive spatial audio experience in mixed reality, emphasizing auditory exploration at the pedestrian level. Using game engine and augmented reality technology, the project re-imagines electronic music through spatial-data-driven audio effect modulation and binaural audio spatialization. It aims to create a navigational tool that guides users through space using auditory cues from virtual audio objects, rather than visual indicators. This approach places mainstream users in the same position as visually impaired individuals, separating audio narratives from visual ones while connecting both senses through user presence. The goal is not to prioritize one sense over another but to provide an independent option for users who prefer audio. These objects respond to user movement, forming immersive musical experiences and allowing users to shape their own musical narratives through dynamic interaction with surrounding sounds.
SESSION TIME
Sunday, 28 July 20241:30pm – 5:00pm MDT
Monday, 29 July 202411:00am – 5:00pm MDT
Tuesday, 30 July 202411:00am – 5:00pm MDT
Wednesday, 31 July 202411:00am – 5:00pm MDT
Thursday, 1 August 202411:00am – 3:30pm MDT
2024.6.14 - 6.23
“GAP+” showing at Currents New Media Art Festival
Yufan Xie, Yufang Zhou, Hongcai Lei
“GAP+” will be shown at 2024 Currents New Media Art Festival at Santa Fe, New Mexico
Currents is an annual art + technology festival, year-round exhibition/experience space, and non-profit organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico USA. We support 21st Century art making and innovative creatives. CURRENTS Festival 2024 June 14 – 23, 2024 Santa Fe, New Mexico USA @ El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe
2024.5.11 - 5.16
“Maelstrom” heading to CHI 2024 Interactivity
Yufan Xie, Mel Lewis, Ziqian Yin, Wei Wu
The ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction. CHI (pronounced “kai”) takes place in Honolulu, at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, USA from 11-16 May 2024, while also supporting remote attendance. The conference embraces the theme of Surfing the World – reflecting the focus on pushing forth the wave of cutting-edge technology and riding the tide of new developments in human-computer interaction. The conference serves as a platform for researchers, practitioners, and industry leaders to share their latest work and ideas and to foster collaboration and innovation in the field. Attendees will Surf the World of technology by engaging in keynote speeches, panel discussions, workshops, and other interactive sessions focusing on the latest developments and trends in the field. The conference’s location, known for its beautiful beaches and world-class surf spots, adds a unique and inspiring setting for attendees to come together and exchange ideas to open global access to CHI. The CHI conference is the premier event in the field and Surfing the World represents its commitment to inviting everyone to explore and advance the frontiers of human-computer interaction.
2024.4.26
“Maelstrom” presenting at DAC SIGGRAPH SPARKS panel talk
Yufan Xie, Wei Wu
Anticipating the Architecture(s) of The Future – Speculative Arts & Design Research: Theory & Practice
Moderated by: Bhavleen Kaur and Virginia Ellyn Melnyk and Gustavo Alfonso Rincon
Date and Time: Los Angeles, USA Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 1:00 pm PDT
This survey of AI, Computation, Fabrication, Information (Data) & Robotics – Speculating on future trends of built form – looking at how research practice and experimentation come together to blur the lines between the creative imagination and the real. An Aesthetic Challenge to existing formal languages of material form – redefining New Mediated Architectures. While humans have built environments inspired by nature, what new research practices have contributed to extending the potential of A.I. & Robotics – imagining new ways of thinking from physical to virtualized paradigms as well as mixed paradigms. Information is intertwined with our states of humanity. We ask our community of artists, scientists and researchers to share visions as “proposals” for a better world by revealing their research as a paradigm shift engaging current technologies. This session will explore the conceptual implications of the potentiality of new visions for change in contemporary research practice combining the Arts, Design, and Sciences in A.I., (AR/VR/XR/Real) Worlds & Verses, Robotics, and Speculative Design/Arts Futures.
2024.4.18 - 5.18
“Maelstrom” showcasing at “La Ola!” Exhibition in Madrid
Yufan Xie, Mel Lewis, Ziqian Yin, Wei Wu
This spatial Instrument & Audio-Visual Installation will be live soon in “LA Ola!” exhibition at Centro Juvenil Pipo Velasco , to celebrate 50th anniversary of diplomatic relationship between China and Spain. This piece will be live at Centro Juvenil Pipo Velasco, Espana from April 18th to May 18th.
主办方 Organizadores:
APCC 中西文化促进交流协会 | Asoc.de Padres Adoptantes de Ninos Chinos y Promoción de Cultura China , Espana
西班牙画家和雕塑家协会 | Asociación Espanola de Pintores y Escultores, Espana
协办方 Co-organizadores:
中国驻西班牙大使馆 | Embajada de la Republica Popular Chinaen el Reino de Espana
西班牙马德里文化部 | Departamento de Culturade Madrid,Espana Juvenil Pipo Velasco
文化中心 | Centro Juvenil Pipo Velasco, Espana
中西国际教育中心 | Spain China Internationa Education Center
西班牙侨界联盟 | Union China Usera en Espana
2024.3.8 - 3.16
“Maelstrom” Featured as Finalist of SXSW Innovation Awards
Yufan Xie, Mel Lewis, Ziqian Yin, Wei Wu
“Maelstrom” is now featured as Finalist of SXSW Innovation Awards
SXSW always seeks to showcase the most forward-thinking new ideas and today’s announcement of the 2024 SXSW Innovation Awards finalists perfectly highlights that goal. This year’s group of 50+ finalists provide a glimpse of the future across 11 different categories ranging from Artificial Intelligence to Health & Biotech and Community Empowerment.
“One of the judges told me that he got goosebumps when he reviewed many of the entries for this year’s Innovation Awards. I agree with this sentiment,” said Hugh Forrest, SXSW Co-President and Chief Programming Officer. “There is so much here that makes me so excited about the future.”
2023.10.20 - 11.10
“Sonarium” showing at Shanghai M50 “EVOLUTIONARY SPACE” exhibition
Yufan Xie
Sonarium, a , providing a sense-blurring experience at Shanghai M50
How can spatial and morphological elements be translated into auditory narratives, and how do they resonate emotionally and mnemonically with individuals?
“Sonarium” allows us to “hear” landscapes, prompting contemplation within an artificial auditory ambiance. Within this sonar-vivarium, micro-spatial structures are dynamically translated into sound, offering audiences a unique sensory experience. As the information complexity within the auditory scene accumulates, surpassing cognitive and perceptual thresholds, the connections among interaction, visual cues, and sound start to disconnect and ambiguous.
Technically, it asks – Can visual and spatial messages present as acoustic? Is generative algorithm capable of audio storytelling, not in a visualization way, but using Sonification/Pulsed Melodic Audio Processing concepts?
2023.09.24 - 11.20
“The Maelstrom” is featured in 2023 SUSAS!
Yufan Xie, Mel Lewis, Ziqian Yin, Wei Wu
7.1 channel spatial audio experience, as well as a interactive music installation will be live at SUSAS 2023 in Shanghai. As a multi-sensory ecosystem which reacts to human’s behavior and functions both in time and space, it reveals a new potential of augmented pattern recognition for human in the future.
As a part of “Acoustic Garden ” program, The Maelstrom reflects today’s huge overwhelming forces of data, offering pattern recognition tools of the past, as a means of survival to embrace the inevitable interdependence of a nonlinear future. By recognizing data may serve as a collective memory, actions dictated by the user may take indeterminate inputs of activity and impose patterns through habit. This process of morphic resonance, where systems inherit memory from previous similar systems across space and time, provides the bridge between technology and nature where memory is not a static storage rather an ever-evolving elastic multi-sensory tuning system.
Edgar Allan Poe’s story “A Descent into the Maelstrom” had tremendous influence on the nineteenth-century poets and symbolists like Baudelaire, Flaubert, and others. In this story, Poe imagines the situation in which a sailor, who has gone out on a fishing expedition, finds himself caught in a huge maelstrom or whirlpool. He sees that his boat will be sucked down into this thing. He begins to study the action of the strom, and observes that some things disappear and some things reappear. By studying those things that reappear and attaching himself to one of them, he saves himself. Pattern recognition in the midst of a huge, overwhelming, destructive force is the way out of the maelstrom.
The huge vortices of energy created by our media present us with similar possibilities of evasion of [their] consequences, of [our] destruction [by them]. By studying the pattern of the effects of this huge vortex of energy in which we’re involved, it may be possible to program a strategy of evasion and survival.
2023.06.10 - 06.28
The Unknown Cities is back!
AI & NI Exhibition at 4C Gallery LA
“The Unknown Cities” is an art project created based on the fictional narrative “Nine Cities, Millions of Future” by author Yan Wu. This narrative depicts the process of human civilization returning territory from city back to nature, transforming Earth back into a planet of nature. After going through several enthralling yet troublesome seasons, the protagonist of the story finally finds the appropriate method of this “return”, developing ways to compress, transmit, and expand cities instantaneously onto new locations on new planets. Though the narrative is short, it serves as an encyclopedia of the relationship between humans and architecture, and between humans and cities, showcasing countless city forms and unknown creatures.
Inspired by “Nine Cities, Millions of Future”, “The Unknown Cities” presents four futuristic super-cities in forms of 3D printing sculptures. Some of these forms challenge the basic rules of physics, freely diving underground or rushing into the boundless sky, while others can attach themselves to the bodies of other creatures. As the story arrives at the “Crystal Season”, the Earth’s final season before heading towards eternity, all artificial objects on the Earth start to genuinely shrink, fade, and become transparent… The people in the city, belonging to our generation of humans, will also disappear forever along with this process. However, this disappearance does not signify death – on the contrary, it signifies birth. New relationships between nature and humans, and new forms of cities and architecture, will naturally be created in other parts of the universe.
2023.04.01 - 04.23
Sonarium is featured at BMAB(Beijing Media Art Binnale) 2023
Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing
Sonarium is now live on 11 meter media wall, as a part of BMAB event.
Sonarium explores sonification with landscaping and generative forms. User interactions and spatial informations are transformed into generative audio narrative in real-time. As we listen to an acoustic rain in Sonarium, we meditate in the generative landscape. Such soundscape creates an emotional connection between the atmospheric space and audience.
2023.03.31 - 05.31
Skeleton Physarum System and The Maelstrom are featured at “Broken Spring” exhibition.
Tanko Moofland, Beijing
Link: Wechat,
My two experimental research – “Skeleton Physarum System” and “The Maelstrom” will be live at Tanko Moofland. One is an algorithmic system that starts from a messed-up state, and the other is an on-going audible space project.
“Spring is a good time for creativities, but not all of them ends up well, and not all plans match our expectation. Sometimes a project gets stuck and forgottetn in a messed up dump, but sometimes from which new possibilities emerge.”
2023.01.29
Announcing the first show of Sonarium in physical space! Meditate with a full immersive experience of sonification and visualization.
2022.12.23
On December 23rd, SOTI invites various electronic musicians, bands, DJs and visual artists to cancel all the unjustified cancellations with the energy of sound and vision at SYSTEM, Shanghai. 10 electronic musicians forms a sequence titled “CANCELLED LIVE” in the main area “S-tage” while 6 DJs are to perform at a secondary area “丹炉” as the latest installation in SOTI’s LOVEBEATS series parties “LOVE IN SYSTEM
2022.06.25
Presentation at
Digital Futures – CDRF (The 4th International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication)
Shanghai, Tongji University
I am going to present our paper “A Slime-Mold System Driven by Skeletonization Errors” on CDRF 2022 conference(The 4th International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication) as a part of Digital Futures 2022 on June 26th 11:30 am(UTC+8) / June 25th 8:30 pm(PST)
More info at: https://digitalfutures.international/conference/
This paper proposed a new way to generate slime mold patterns using a typical voronoi-based skeletonization method. As a recursive system, it redraws and expands the resulting trails of skeletonization and feeds them back as an image source for skeletonization. Through iterations, it utilizes the difference before and after skeletonization to generate slime-mold-like patterns. During the whole process, we tested different growth types with different parameter settings and environmental conditions. Since most researches on skeletonization focus on minimizing errors, on the opposite side this method utilizes errors of skeletonization(e.g. subtracted skeletons at “branch” areas of the bitmap are different from the original brush trails or the best result we expect) as the basis of the generative process. The redraw process makes it possible to reconnect skeletons via intersected brushes, continuously changing the topology of the network. Unlike the traditional slime mold algorithm which operates on every single agent, our method is driven by image-based solutions. On the output side, this system provides a condensed vector result, which is more applicable for design purposes.
2021.12.05
Acoustic Garden winning Epic MegaGrants
Epic Games/Unreal Engine
Grad Thesis Acoustic Garden is winning Epic MegaGrants!
2021.11.16
Acoustic Garden featured in A+D Design Awards 2021
A+D Museum Los Angeles
Grad Thesis Acoustic Garden is now featured as Runner-Up in “In School” category of A+D Design Awards.
2021.05.27
The Unknown Cities is featured at Sci-Ficene 2021
Beijing Art and Science Concept Exhibition
2020.10.04
The Unknown Cities is featured at Art NOVA 2020
Guardian Art Center
The Unknown Cities is featured at 2020 Art NOVA 100. Our 3d printed objects will be exhibited.
2020.09.19
On September 19, 2020, the exhibition “Breeze and the Man-made” officially opened at the Hongkun Art Museum. The exhibition brought together 9 groups of young artists and designers to explore the organic interconnection between humans, nature, and artifacts. In addition to exploring in tangible material space, many artists and designers have extended their experiments from the “carbon-based space” to the “silicon-based space”. This has broken the boundaries of time and space, expanded the physical limitations of resources, and extended the multiple possibilities of “sustainability” in the intangible virtual space.
2020.08.04
GAP+ is shortlisted in 2021 YTAA(Young Talented Architect Awards) Asia
YTAA, Venice Binnale 2021
Link: World-Architect, YTAA Official
Grad Thesis GAP+ is shortlisted in YTAA Asia 2020, as a part of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2021.
The Young Talent Architecture Award (YTAA) is an inherent part of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. Organized by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe with the support of the Creative Europe programme and World-Architects as Founding Partner, the first Asia Edition is aiming to promote exchange and cooperation with their counterparts in Europe and in the 2020 guest countries: Brazil, Chile and Mexico. By bringing together the most talented graduates and the best architecture firms and institutions, the Winners of the YTAA will have the chance to find comprehensive strategies enhancing synergies and complementarities with the firms and institutions of their interest.
2019.12.26
The Unknown Cities is live now at Shenzhen Binnale 2019
Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture
The project is series of 3d-printing based on fiction “9 City, Millions of Future” by Yan Wu. The fiction discribed a process of returning territory from city to nature, transitting the earth to a planet of nature. After several fascinating and upset seasons, we finally find a proper way of “returning” and ways to compress, transmit and expanding cities on new planets.
In our story, when the ending of earth – Crystal Season starts, artifacts of human era begin to shrink, fade and crystalize, and we human will also fade away. But this process is a new birth, instead of death – which creates new realtionship between human and nature, and new forms of city and architecture in new space.
2019.05.26
GAP+ Winning First Place of CAFA Grad Thesis
Central Academy of Fine Arts
Honored to announce that GAP+ is featured as the first place winner and Qianlixing Scholarshp winner.
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