Xin Liu is an artist and engineer. She creates experiences/experiments to take measurements in our personal, social, and technological spaces in a post-metaphysical world: between gravity and homeland, sorrow and the composition of tears, gene sequencing, and astrology. Her work resides between the measurable and ineffable, seeking tensions and reconciliations at macro- and micro-scales beyond our daily experiences. Her recent research and interest center around the verticality of space, extraterrestrial explorations, and cosmic metabolism: the metabolism of our planet and how it has been affected by technological infrastructures in the past few decades.
Xin is the Arts Curator in the Space Exploration Initiative at MIT Media Lab and an artist-in-residence at SETI Institute. She is an advisor for LACMA Art+Tech Lab and a researcher at Antikythera, Berggren Institute. Her recent institutional solo exhibitions include Seedings and Offspring (2023) at Pioneer Works, New York, and At the End of Everything (2023) at ARTPACE, San Antonio. Her recent group exhibitions include the 2023 Shanghai Biennale, the 2023 Chiang Rai Biennale in Thailand, the 2024 Sapporo International Art Festival, and the 2024 Autumn Group Exhibition at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Xin will also participate in Rhizome’s flagship program, 7x7, in Jan 2024 and join the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University as the first artist in residence related to the Houston Asian American Archive in the Spring of 2024.
She has been commissioned by institutions including Artnet (UK), BMW Culture Group, M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Aranya Art Center (China), Ars Electronica (Austria), Rhizome (USA), Media Art Xploration Festival (USA), Onassis Foundation (US & Europe) and Abandon Normal Devices Festival (UK). She also has held solo exhibitions at Anaya Art Centre (Beijing, China) and the Museum of Art and Design (New York). Her works have been exhibited at the MAXXI (Rome), MoMA PS1, Yuz Museum (Shanghai, China), Ars Electronica (Austria), Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum, etc.
Xin graduated from MIT Media Lab with a master's in Media Arts and Sciences after her M.F.A from Rhode Island School of Design and a B.E from Tsinghua University in Beijing (Measurement, Control Technology, and Instrument).
HONORS
2023 Developing your Creative Practice Grant, Arts Council England
2022 Karman Fellowship
2021 Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow List
Porsche Young Chinese Artist of the Year
2020 X Museum Triennial Award
Inaugural Knight Art + Tech Fellowship Nomination
Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia and China list
Creative Capital On Our Radar
2019 Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab Fellow
Inaugural Europe ARTificial Intelligence Lab Residency Award
2018 Huayu Youth Award Finalist
SXSW Interactive Innovation Award
Van Lier Fellowship in Museum of Arts and Design, New York
ISWC Best Paper Honorable Mention
2017 Core 77 Interaction Design Award (multiple categories)
Fast Company Innovation by Design Award (multiple categories)
RESIDENCIES & PROGRAMS
2024 7 X 7, Rhizome
Artist-in-residence, Houston Asian American Archive
2023 ARTPACE International Artist-in-Residence
2021-2022 Silver Arts Project at 4 World Trade Center
2020-2022 Inaugural ONX studio program hosted by New Museum and Onassis NY
2019-2022 Artist-in-residence, SETI Institute
2019-2021. Europe ARTificial Intelligence Lab residency
2018-2020 Queens Museum Artist Studio Program, Queens, NY
2018-2020 NEW INC, New Museum, New York, NY
2019. International Summer Program, Watermill Center, Long Island, NY
2019 Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab, Sundance, Utah
2018-2022 Artist-in-Residence, New Lab, Brooklyn, NY
2018 Pioneer Works Tech Residency, Brooklyn, NY
2018 Artist Studio in Museum of Arts and Design, Manhattan, NY
2016 Artist in Residency, Industry Lab, Cambridge, MA
2015 Wagon Station Encampment organized by Andrea Zittel
Solo Exhibitions in 2023
(online)The Earth is An Image, M+ Digital Commission, HongKong & Online
Seedlings and Offsprings, Pioneer Works, New York
At The End of Everything, ARTPACE, San Antonio
Self Devourer, MakeRoom LA, Los Angeles
Selected Group Exhibitions in 2024
Fever Dream - Swivel Gallery, New York, USA
Sapporo International Art Festival 2024: Last Snow, Sapporo, Japan
Selected Group Exhibitions in 2023
Cosmos Cinema - Shanghai Biennial, Power Station Art 2023
The Open World - Thailand Biennial, Chiang Rai 2023
New Eden - ArtScience Museum, Singapore
To Your Eternity - The 4th Future of Today Biennial, Today Art Museum, Beijing
Time Gravity - Chengdu Biennial, Chengdu Art Museum, Chengdu
Evolving Pixel, Venus over Manhattan, PROOF Curated X Artblocks, New York
LIFELIKE, Vellum LA, Los Angeles
Fabricated Realities: Video Art and Film from Southeast Asia and Beyond, Art SG, Singapore
Selected Talks in 2023
Keynote Speaker - Planet Justice with Slow Factory and New York Live Arts
Conversation - Biohacking Creativity: What Does It Mean for Non-Humans to Make Art? - Art Basel Miami
Artist conversation - The Courtauld Institute of Art and Asymmetry Foundation
Artist talk - Design Academy Eindhoven \ Transformations of the Human (ToftH) \ Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava \ Hokkaido University.
TECHNOLOGIES AND DESIGN
Her creative technology studio, slow immediate LLC, together with Gershon Dublon, produces multi-sensory performance using cutting-edge technologies and creates bespoke platforms for unique experiences. Their clients include The Shed in New York, David Bryne, MIT Media Lab, and Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Her transidicipinary work is widely covered by international media including NY Times, Nature, Wallpaper, VICE, Scientific American and Artforum.
SPACE EXPLORATION
2022 INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION MISSION WITH SpaceX CRS-26
MicroPET Payload Project Lead
MicroPET is an autonomous payload for enzymatic reactions and microbial cultivation with fully programmable serial passaging and sample preservation. The payload is a compact, modular bioreactor system that allows for automatic media transfers and precise data monitoring from integrated sensors (e.g., temperature, optical density, etc.). We apply this system to study the biological upcycling of the commonly used polymer poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) in space in a two-step system in which PET film is enzymatically degraded and microbially upcycled.
2020 INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION MISSION WITH SpaceX CRS-20
Sojourner Payload Project Lead and interim Mission Integration Manager
Five payloads are deployed over a 30-day mission, allowing the research teams to study the effects of microgravity, on-station radiation environment, and launch loads on their hardware, in preparation for further deployments. For this launch opportunity, the payloads are integrated into the Nanoracks BlackBox platform.
2019 SUB-ORBITAL FLIGHT WITH BLUE ORIGIN NEW SHEPARD
Single Locker Payload Project Lead
This mission marks MIT's first research launch with Blue Origin and the Media Lab's first-ever rocket launch and constitutes a core milestone in the schedule of iterative microgravity testing that the Space Exploration Initiative undertakes throughout the year. These payloads crossed the 100km Karman line and tested research during three minutes of sustained microgravity inside Blue Origin's New Shepard experiment capsule.
2017 & 2019 ZERO-G PARABOLIC FLIGHT
Project Lead and interim 2019 Mission Integration Manager
The zero-gravity flight comprised 20 parabolas, with periods of hypergravity on the incline and decline and spans of lunar, Martian, or microgravity over the top of each parabola.
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