Xin Liu (China/US)
Xin Liu is a multidisciplinary artist and engineer, who creates sculptures, digital experiences, and films that feature machinery, genetic material, petroleum, and rocket debris, to explore the verticality of space, extraterrestrial explorations, and cosmic metabolism. She is an artist-in-residence at SETI Institute and works as the Arts Curator in the Space Exploration Initiative at MIT Media Lab. 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. She is an advisor for LACMA Art+Tech Lab and a researcher at Antikythera, Berggren Institute. Her work has been shown at Shanghai Biennale, Thailand Biennale, M+ Museum, Yuz Museum, MoMA PS1, MAXXI Rome, Sundance Film Festival, Ars Electronica, and Onassis Foundation, Sapporo International Art Festival, among others.
Keywords: AI, engineering, space, art, science, sci-fi, outer space, universe
Afternoon topic: Into the Universe
Technology enables discovery, exploration, and new understanding of the universe we are a part of. How deep can we go? How does the connection between art and science contribute to discovery? Can the Moon become our next home?
We can understand the dimensions that transcend us with the help of mathematics, physics, computing, statistics and other artificial tools. These not only give us the illusion that we understand our universe, but also the illusion of order that reflects the nightmares of perceived chaos. But we refuse to acknowledge that this illusion has gradually become law. The space we call the Universe seems to have multiple possible interpretations, and meanwhile advanced data systems are gradually building a parallel, virtual, imprint of it. Scientific models and explanations of the nature and origin of the Universe, like other theories, have naturally gone through phases of acceptance and transcendence. Do we now find ourselves once again in a similar era that, albeit without corporal punishment, is moving on to another paradigm of interpretation of the physical nature of matter and the universe? How many more interpretations and plausible theories will have to gradually fall before we finally find the answer?
