Tactile Mahjong
Board Game, Chengdu, 7-9/2021; Collaboration with Yaxin Ye, made in A4 International Artist Residency representing Tactileye.
Touch is deeply related to memory and can easily trigger imagination, but people ignore their communication most of the time. In this board game, the players' eyes are blindfolded. By coming up with an imaginative description of the tactile bottles, people use their tactile sensibility to puzzle other players and eventually win the game.

The rule is a little similar to the traditional rule of Chinese Mahjong but still has a very different core mechanism. When giving out a bottle, one describes what the bottle feels like or what it reminds one of, and other players decide whether or not to take it depending on the description.
A bottle = a card (catagorized by tactile feelings.)

Paper Clay Tactile BraceletsWorkshop,
3/2022
Jianze Zhao and I developed a paper clay version. and organized two online and one offline paper clay workshops, including group building for companies.

Tactile Animation Bracelets Online Workshop,
3/2022, Host: Jianze Zhao, Leilei Xia
We initiated an online workshop every two people partner together to maker their bracelets based on their feelings to each other. We mailed the participants materials package and instructions on the making. Each partners would make a special bead, and they try to transform one into another, as if they are trying to get close to and understand each other.

Tactile Jam Workshop
In “Touch Jam” workshop, sparticipants share their life experiences and transform that experience into improvised tactile theatre within a day. We have done more than 6 Touch Jams in various places.
(Above:Tactile theatre exploration in touch jam workshop, two people's hands are connected together.)

Rotten Girl's Love
23'10'', 1920*1080p. Live action with animation, 2019.
A girl, fascinated with gay romance, fell in love with a gay man, and started questioning her identity both as a Fujoshi and as a heterosexual.

Frame
13'37''', 3840*1080p. Multi-media performance with hand-drawn animation projection, 2020
A documentarian, who always can't capture the most important footage, tries to use documentary film to understand her grandfather's death. Through this story, I reflected on how media is framing and limiting our memory. The video image I projected is shown below on the right. I had various interactions with the projection shown below on the left.

Run
4'20'', 1980*1080p.Digital animation made frame by frame with photoshop effect, 2019.
Racing in a running field is as dizzy as looking at a Morie Pattern.

Harvard College Film Festival, Staff Choice, Boston,
(below are all official selection & Screenings)
Feinaki Beijing Aniamtion Week,Beijing
Ivy Film Festival, New York and Rhode Island,
Malt Adult, New York and Ohio,
Paris International Animation Film Festival, Paris
Insomnia International Animation Festival, Moscow
Defy Film Festival, Nasville,
New Wave Film Festival, HongKong,
Experimental Super Star, Novi Sad,
Stoptrik International Film Festival, Maribord,
Animation Volda Festival, Volda.

Scar
4’16’’, 1920*1080p.Animation made with needle scratching on paper, 2019.
After I attended a funeral, the unrealistic feeling engulfed me. Maybe living in the world is like engraving on paper, even though we try to live so hard, it turns out fo be so transparent from the far.
58th Ann Arbor International Film Festival, The BarbaraAronofsky Latham Award for an Emerging Experimental Video Artist, Michigan

The Horse Guessing Game
8’59’’, 1920*1080p. Stop-motion animation 2021.
A girl is taken by a magician into the world of shadow, only to find that she is trapped in the realm of hidden rules.

The Palace
11'24''', two-channel video installation, 2023
A king meets a monk and evokes their memories in the unseen palace.
Part of a big project Empty-Touch

Cat
3'25'', 1980*1080p. Hand-drawn, cut-out, sand, paint on glass animation, water color animation, and so on, 2017.
Award:
Five Continents International Film Festival, January 2018, Best Student Short Film
Official selection:
Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards
Los Angeles Cinefest
Sunday Shorts Film Festival
Hollywood Screening Film Festival
New Orleans International Film Festival
Semi-Final list:
Miami Independent Film Festival Monthly Edition

Knotty Magic Workshop
3 weeks online workshop collaborating with Ro Maiti and Icosa Magazine, ongoing now, 2023
This is a 3 week's "LARP + Learn" workshop aiming at individuals who are looking to strengthen their self-learning skills and tap into the art of community learning. Participants join the workshop as part of the magical world wizards or witches, and help each other learn knot theory and create projects with it, which involves mathematics, art, philosophy, live-action roleplaying… In our Knotty Magic workshop, learning will be fun, communal, and self-driven. Everybody enter the space with something unique to teach and learn from each other. The first test workshop prototype outcome. People "dressed up" in zoom to role-play the magician.

Still from the video instllation The Palace
Translucent gauze, two-channel video, two-channel sound, 2023
The Palace is a video installation featuring a narrative based on empty touch— drawing inspiration from Buddism classic Shurangama Sutra and Andersen’s FairyTale The Emperor's New Clothes, the video is a narrative tutorial: tells a story between a monk and an emperor, who they both have forgotten about each other, but found their connections in deep memory in “the Palace”. It takes people through a journey of entering the palace and create invisible object.

Empty Touch
“Empty touch” is a tactile experience I discovered that can simulate the feeling of touching something by reenacting the gesture of touching the object guided, by verbal or visual cues.

Empty Touch Workshop
workshop
Using the same fictional framework of “The Palace”, the workshop is an embodied an interactive journey of the empty touch. The workshop starts with watching the video installation of “the Palace”, and then I acted as the host of “The Palace”, guide participants with various exercises: to touch objects, to extract texture from objects, to touch the space, or to use this method to experience other artworks, such as poems, films, etc.
This workshop has been hosted in UCCA Museum and VCUarts Graduate Candidacy Group Exhibition.


workshop at UCCA.

workshop at JC penny, a goup of people in a circle trying to do palace some of the drawings made by participants in JC Penny. Not very sure who the author is because they didn't leave their name. The after communication part. Photo credit Xiaolin Zhou.

when collaborating with deaf participants, we tried doing the invisible palace using vision I made a little zine for participants to learn how to do the Palace invisible sculpture by Yinan Liu.

I covered a pillar that was already in the gallery, and turn it into a pole. Visitors are welcomed to staple anything on the pole. an interactive map is installed on it, and audience can also see the video on the wall through the pole.



display of TV

Stapoleology
Single channel video and Interactive map Installation, wooden board covered pillar, and a city walk, VCUarts Depillar Gallery, 2022
Amazed by the wild yet intricate pattern on the utility poles in Richmond, I created a fake research term “Stapoleology”, meaning the “research on staples on utility poles”.
The main part of the research is an open-access map of the “masterpieces” of utility poles in my neighborhood, and a video essay where I acted as an enthusiastic stapoleology researcher explaining the philosophy behind the staples on utility poles.





image stills from the video.

The current map, Link to the map is HERE

the original map

A city walk tour to introduce people to the “masterpieces” around the street.

I also summerize the project and wrote an article that is published in "BIEDE", a sub-culture online media platform. It's in Chinese and you can read it HERE

pushing hands outside.


After pushing hands outside, people come back indoor and do it again.




We project our animation together, give advices to each other.

We also emphasized the dynamic process instead of a fixed outcome in making the short. We used the software interface as part of our visual element, to show the spirit of push hands--listening and following--is implemented not only between people but also between the animator and the software.



When we are working together, we also do push hands just like in reality.

Push Hands + Blender Animation Workshop 1-month workshop, Guangzhou, 4/2022-5/2022, Animation Collaboration with: Haomin Peng; Workshop Collaboration: Yifei Chen from Prickly Paper, workshop participants: see the credits at the end of the film. Supported by: HB Station

In collaboration with Huangbian Station (Guangdong Times Museum), I initiated a 3-week, 7-session workshop that combines 3D blender animation and a traditional Chinese sport called “Push Hands”, similar to Taichi. Inspired by Jacques Ranciere's The Ignorant Schoolmaster, I wasnot focusing on teaching the 3D software techniques, but was trying to build a community that encourages self-learning, communication and sharing, and investigation of the mind-body connection. The process, instead of outcome, is highly emphasized in our practice. In the workshop, we do animation and push hands alternatively, and had a group sharing at the end of each session. Participants also collaborated on animation clips, as if pushing hands both in real life and in software.

After the workshop, I collected participants’ animations and their audio responses to the workshop and collaborated with Haomin Peng to make a short about the workshop itself. The short is both an independent film, a summary of people’s works, a text for critical reflection, and guidance for other people to carry out a similar workshop.We rebuilt Xiaogang Park where people practice pushing hands, put the participants’ animation assets in the scene, and let them speak to their author about the experience in the workshop.


Above is the tutorial I made for entry to blender. We use Notion as our online communication platform. In the beginning, I wrote a tutorial to introduce the very basic knowledge just enough to make one grease pencil animation clip, and the rest of the advanced techniques are all optional. Later, we explore advanced techniques by ourselves, and participants write their own tutorials for each other. At the beginning of each session, we also have a “demo cypher” that allows participants to answer each other’s questions.


The Real Park.

The Park in 3D software.