Huichuan Wang | The Essence of Life Flowing Between Pixels
Date: 11/03/2024
Writer: Quanchi Chen
Keywords: computational arts / generative arts / algorithmic art / non-anthropocentrism / future archaeology / archiving / artificial intelligence / image production
In September 2024, on the first floor of the V&A Museum, visitors paused to gaze at the white square canvas where an array of specimen boxes contained organisms that seemed to "breathe randomly." This is the second year the artist Huichuan has participated in the V&A Digital Design Weekend. Her work this year, “Pixel of the Sea”, continues her exploration of “life entities” that do not exist in the natural world. Last year, she exhibited another piece here, “Tangible Illusions”—an ecosystem that, using only cameras, interacted with viewers’hands in real time, creating a virtual sense of touch. Her research trajectory remains consistent, aiming to explore the essence of life at the intersection of reality and virtuality.
The exhibited piece,“Pixel of the Sea”, transforms virtual digital life forms into tangible entities. Twenty-five fictional creature models are submerged in transparent, chip-like boxes filled with water and turpentine, arranged in a grid on a square canvas. This arrangement evokes a sense of standardized, precise grids, circuitry, and the modular language of mechanical design. Huichuan often likens her artistic territory to a pure white square “canvas,”where the side length equates to a corresponding standard unit in any space. The 10cm x 10cm specimen boxes and the 1m x 1m canvas represent what she describes as “pixels”—standard units of pure, clean potential, infinitely connectable and extendable.
“Pixel of the sea”, 3D printings in acrylic boxes pinned on canvas, turpentine, water, arduino, switchable films, white sand, 1m×1m, Photo from exhibition: “This is why the whole remains open[...]”, Apr.29-Sep.1 2024, St James Hatcham Church, London, https://vimeo.com/1007609261
这些生命实体的形态来源于绘川的上一个动态影像作品《信息分解者（The Lens of AI: Decomposer Of Information）》。这件作品中，人工智能（AI）被视为一种数字生态中的分解者，类似于生物界的分解者如真菌和细菌。在这个赛博空间中，AI分解了化石复杂的数据结构，这些从英国南部海岸线Folkstone和Charmouth采集的、被放置在显微镜下的化石作为一种自然、坚实，对人类来说几乎永恒的形态，而AI则解构了以往看似坚不可摧的复杂结构。随着摄像头的缩放和移动，AI生成的类似黏菌或真菌的形态显现出对更整洁的和高度结构化的数据的偏好，总是附着在清晰锐利的影像边缘，使其逐渐撕裂和扭曲，最终溶解在数字海洋中，被拆解为原子化的像素。
The forms of these life entities are inspired by her previous moving image work, “The Lens of AI: Decomposer of Information.”In this artwork, artificial intelligence (AI) is envisioned as a decomposer within a digital ecosystem, much like biological decomposers such as fungi and bacteria that break down organic matters. In this cyberspace, AI deconstructs the complex data structures of fossils, collected from the southern coastlines of Folkstone and Charmouth in the UK. These fossils, viewed under a microscope, represent natural, enduring forms that are nearly eternal to human perception. However, AI dismantles these seemingly indestructible structures. As the camera zooms in and out, AI-generated forms, resembling slime molds or fungi, reveal a preference for cleaner, highly structured data. These forms cling to the sharp edges of the imagery, causing it to tear and distort, eventually dissolving into a digital ocean and breaking down into atomized pixels.
人工智能时代看似能够分解一切事物——从数值，向量和矩阵构成的庞大的数据结构—到分门别类的tag—至每一行代码和数字的基本元素，然后再重组，再生产，再循环。这个实验影像将“视觉”赋予机器，将AI模型比作了分解者，类黏菌的分形形态和生态系统的隐喻桥接了微观与宏观，隐含了某种在视觉形式里，无论自然与否，无论体量大小的普遍规律。此外，这种隐喻不仅是在比较数字与有机生命的形式，作品中持续的变化和对感知的叙述促使观者更深入地反思信息与技术在赛博生态系统中所扮演的角色。
In the era of artificial intelligence, it seems that everything can be decomposed—from vast data structures composed of numbers, vectors, and matrices, down to categorized tags and even the basic elements of lines of code and individual digits. Then, these components could be reassembled, reproduced, and recycled. This video experiment endows machines with “vision,” likening the AI model to a decomposer. Fractal shapes resembling slime molds, alluding to metaphors of ecosystems, bridge the aesthetics of the microscopic and macroscopic worlds, suggesting a universal rule that persists in visual forms—whether in cyberspace or natural environments, regardless of scale. Furthermore, this dynamic metaphor goes beyond comparing digital and organic life forms. This ongoing transformation and narrative of perception prompt deeper reflection on the roles that information and technology play within the cyber ecosystem.
“The Lens of AI: Decomposer of Information”, Moving image, 1920×1080px, 3'01", TouchDesigner and Stable Diffusion Animation, 2024, https://vimeo.com/937511170
然而，这一过程不仅是对数据结构的机械解构，还涉及了对视觉形式的重新编码。如果使观众与这些形象直接交互，会是一种什么样的体验？回到绘川2023年的代码实时演算的创作“Tangible Illusions ”, 屏幕里由纯粹的代码构建的海洋生物会根据观众的手部动作做出不同的反应，粒子系统与物理模拟系统表现出了吸引力、排斥力、拖拽、环境引力等特性，为这些生命赋予了生动、灵活和流淌的动态。实时互动的虚拟触觉回应了观众的身体感知，模拟出“触摸”与“被触摸”的双向体验, 模糊了虚拟与现实的边界，同时突出了“柔软”的固有吸引力。从静态的视觉解构到动态的触觉反馈，AI与模拟系统成功再现了数字世界里的“生命力”。
However, this process is not merely a mechanical deconstruction of data structures; it also involves a re-encoding of visual forms. What kind of experience would it be if viewers could directly interact with these representations? Returning to Huichuan’s 2023 real-time code-based work, Tangible Illusions, the marine organisms constructed purely from code respond differently to viewers' hand movements on screen. The particle and physics simulation systems exhibit characteristics such as attraction, repulsion, dragging, and environmental gravity, infusing these life forms with vivid, fluid dynamics. The real-time interactive virtual touch responds to viewers' bodily perception, stimulating a dual experience of “touching” and “being touched,” blurring the boundary between the virtual and the real, while highlighting the inherent allure of “softness.” From static visual deconstruction to dynamic tactile feedback, the AI and simulation systems successfully recreate a sense of “vitality” within the digital realm.
“Tangible Illusions: The Soft Boundary of Life”, Real-time algorithms displayed on 3 screens. Photo from: “DADU DONGNAN( 大都东南 )”
Science and Technology Art Exhibition, Nov.17-Dec.20 2023, Beijing Smart e-Sport event Center
人民艺术网报道：http://www.peopleart.net/wap/news/1413.html
作品简介&视频：https://www.paintriver.art/TangibleIllusions/tangibleIllusions.html
Science and Technology Art Exhibition, Nov.17-Dec.20 2023, Beijing Smart e-Sport event Center
人民艺术网报道：http://www.peopleart.net/wap/news/1413.html
作品简介&视频：https://www.paintriver.art/TangibleIllusions/tangibleIllusions.html
如同“Tangible Illusions ”里由代码和公式创建的代码水母一般，绘川的创作灵感源于对非人类生命形态和自然环境核心规律的抽象与探索。从高等的智慧动物追溯至原始的埃迪卡拉纪生物，从植物的根茎与叶片回溯到分形与数学的源头，她试图提炼出简洁普适的规律，并在此基础上随机生成虚构的实体。2023年初，艺术家尝试使用自己刚学会的计算机工具：递归的循环和L-system的规则来分析和再现自然形态的本质。Recursive Growth 作为一件完全静态的人工制品（artifact），将计算机生成的模型附着到经典的架上艺术载体“画布”上，呈现出一系列虚构的、静默的“化石档案”，就像未来遗迹陈列在观众面前一样，标志着艺术家的创作从传统的纸本和架上绘画迈向计算机和虚拟的领域。
Just as the code-based jellyfish in “Tangible Illusions” was created through algorithms and formulas, Huichuan’s creative inspiration stems from her abstraction and exploration of core principles underlying non-human life forms and natural environments. From highly intelligent animals to the primitive Ediacaran biota, from the roots and leaves of plants to the origins of fractals and mathematics, she seeks to distill universal, concise patterns and use them as a foundation to randomly generate fictional entities. In early 2023, the artist began using newly acquired computational tools—recursive loops and L-system rules—to analyze and recreate the essence of natural forms.“Recursive Growth”, a completely static artifact, mounts computer-generated models onto the classic art medium of “canvas,” presenting a series of fictional, silent “fossil archives” arranged like relics of the future. This work marks her transition from traditional paper and easel-based art to the computational and virtual realms.
它对当下提出质询，今天人类所创造的物质文化、数字文化和技术产物，将如何在未来成为不可控的遗迹。艺术家试图以一种想象性的，“未来考古”的视角与研究方法，将算法与人工智能视为被化石化的“考古学对象”，探讨其未来的存续状态——我们今天的世界，将以何种方式被未来所记录与解读？
The piece serves as a reminder of how today’s human-made material culture, digital culture, and technological products may one day become uncontrollable relics in the future. Through an imaginative perspective of “future archaeology,” she treats algorithms and artificial intelligence as objects of fossilized “archaeological” study, probing their potential future states. How will the world we inhabit today be recorded and interpreted by future generations?
Recursive Growth, 3D Pringting/Laser cutting on acrylic canvas, 55x55x15cm, 2023
接下来，绘川将参与项目“寰宇弧光（Cosmic Arclight）”这个由浦东碧云美术馆、蓝箭航天和独立策展人龙星如联合发起的项目，将去到宇航工业的现场，围绕火箭发射中心、火箭坠落点的探访、徒步和搜寻，思考可回收技术和轨道及太空经济的可持续未来，回应天空媒介的具体性和新太空时代的人类生存环境，探索围绕它的经济、文化、伦理和人文价值。同时，她和艺术家00 Zhang合作的游戏“Honey”也即将在北京X美术馆展出。
Next, Huichuan will participate in project "Cosmic Arclight”, initiated by Being Art Museum in Shanghai Pudong, LandSpace Technology Corporation, and independent curator Xingru Long. This project will involve on-site residency and exploration within the aerospace industry, focusing on visits to rocket launch centers, rocket landing sites, hiking and field searches. It aims to reflect on the sustainable future of reusable technology, orbital and space economies, and respond to the “material specificity of the sky” and the human living environment in the new age of space, exploring its economic, cultural, ethical, and humanistic implications. Meanwhile, her collaborative game“Honey”, developed with artist 00 Zhang, will soon be exhibited at X Museum in Beijing.
艺术家介绍 Artist Introduction
绘川（汪汇川，b.1999），计算机艺术家，设计师，插画师，策展人。2021年毕业于中央美术学院公共艺术与体验设计工作室，2024年毕业于Goldsmiths MFA Computational Arts，现工作生活于英国伦敦，活跃于多个非盈利艺术家团体和研究项目。
她的作品涵盖综合材料绘画、装置、游戏开发以及代码实时演算等多种媒介。她探寻技术与图像生产在当下数字生态中的位置与意义，解析流动的意识、温度与想象，最终指向对‘生命力’本质的理解与表达。
她的作品曾连续两年进入V&A博物馆，同时也在上海双年展，中央美术学院美术馆，以及伦敦、巴黎、北京、上海、成都、沈阳等多地展出, 在参加展览的同时，她往往还在策展团队中兼任视觉设计师和执行策展的工作。
Huichuan Wang (b.1999) is a computational artist, designer, illustrator, and curator. She graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2021 and MFA Computational Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2024. Currently, she is based in London, UK, actively participating in multiple non-profit artist groups and research projects.
Her artwork spans diverse range of media, including mixed-media painting, installations, game development, and real-time computation. She explores the role and significance of technology and image production within today’s digital ecosystems, examining fluid consciousness, warmth, and imagination, ultimately aiming to understand and express the essence of “vitality."
Her works have been showcased for two consecutive years at the V&A Museum and exhibited at the Shanghai Biennale, the Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and in cities such as London, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Shenyang. In addition to participating in exhibitions, she often serves as a visual designer and executive curator within curatorial teams.