Xin Liu (b. 1991 in Xinjiang/China) is an artist and engineer whose “practice […] creates experiences and artifacts to measure and modify the distance and tension between personal, social and technological spaces. They are moments of re-organization, creating ripples in the fabric of subjectivities, common experiences and beliefs.”[1]

Xin received a Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Fine Arts in Digital + Media from Rhode Island School of Design, a Bachelor of Engineering and, as a second major, a Bachelor of Arts in Interaction Design, both from Tsinghua University, Beijing.

Currently an artist-in-residence at SETI Institute, Xin is also Arts Curator at the Space Exploration Initiative at MIT Media Lab, a resident at the Queens Museum Studio Program (NY, 2018-2020), artist-in-residence at New Lab (Brooklyn, NY, 2018-2020) and a member of NEW INC (New Museum, NY, 2018-2020); in 2018, she received a Van Lier Fellowship from the Museum of Arts and Design (New York) and, in 2019, was appointed Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab Fellow. Together with Gershon Dublon, Xin co-founded the studio slow immediate LLC; in 2019, they were awarded a residency at the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab (2019).

In addition, Xin has received several awards and fellowships; in 2018 she was the recipient of the SXSW Interactive Innovation Award and, in the same year, was a Huayu Youth Award Finalist (2018).

Xin was a Visiting Researcher at Keio University (Tokyo, 2017) and a Research Assistant at both Fluid Interfaces Group / MIT Media Lab (2015-2017) and at RISD’s Digital + Media program (2014).

In 2020, she was appointed faculty member at The Terraforming, a new research program at Strelka Institute.

Xin’s work has been presented and exhibited at numerous venues, including, more recently, Ars Electronica (Linz), IMPAKT Centre for Media Culture (Utrecht), Today Art Museum (Beijing), Parsons School of Design (New York), The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Exploratorium (San Francisco), CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), Minsheng Contemporary Art Museum (Beijing), SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards Showcase (Austin), Music Tech Fest (Berlin), Dubai Design Week, Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum, ASVOFF9 (Sofia), Boston Museum of Fine Art, Tribeca Film Festival (NY).

Solo exhibitions include Prologue: A falling tooth (Museum of Arts and Design, New York, 2019) and Living/Distance (Make Room, Los Angeles, 2019). Living Distance, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2020, “is a fantasy and a mission, in which a wisdom tooth is sent to the outer space and back down to Earth again. Carried by a crystalline robotic sculpture called EBIFA, the tooth departs”[2]. The three-part work consists of “the outer space performance, a 2-channel video installation, and a VR experience. In this technology-infused outer space performance, Xin weaves her tooth’s journey together with her personal inquiry on land. The performance will be represented in a two-channel video installation that mixes documentary footage of the methodical but contingent unfolding of the launch with imagery of the artist performing underwater and in the Texas desert. The installation opens up a space in between the space mission and the dreamlike ceremonies that anoint its passage. In the VR experience, the audience takes on the role of the tooth and experiences the journey firsthand. A wisdom tooth emerges in darkness, destined to extraction, but its life takes an unexpected turn when it enters another darkness: the infinite of outer space.”[3]

Other recent works include A Book of Mine – Volume X, a printed presentation of Xin’s genome (shown at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2019) and the zero gravity performance Orbit Weaver (2018).

This year (2020) Xin Liu was selected to Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list.

^[1] https://www.xxxxxxxxxinliu.com/info

^[2] https://www.livingdistance.space/about

^[3] https://www.livingdistance.space/fantasy-and-mission-1