Xin Liu
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 an artist-in-residence at SETI Institute, an advisor for LACMA Art+Tech Lab, a researcher at Antikythera, Berggren Institute and the founding Arts Curator in the Space Exploration Initiative at MIT Media Lab. Her recent institutional solo exhibitions include Seedings and Offsprings at Pioneer Works, New York, and At the End of Everything at ARTPACE, San Antonio. In 2024, she participated in Rhizome’s flagship program, 7x7 and joined the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University as the first artist-in-residence in the Houston Asian American Archive.
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), and Onassis Foundation (US & Europe). Her works have been exhibited at the Shanghai Biennale (2023), Thailand Biennale (2023), National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome (2022), MoMA PS1(2022), Sundance Film Festival (2020), etc.
Xin is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including the inaugural K11 Artist Prize, Karman Fellowship, Porches Chinese Young Artist of the Year, Silver Arts Project in the World Trade Center , Forbes 30 under 30 Asia, X Museum Triennial Award, the Van Lier Fellowship from Museum of Arts and Design, Sundance New Frontier Story Lab, inaugural Europe ARTificial Intelligence Lab residency with Ars Electronica, SXSW Interactive Innovation Award, Core 77 Interaction Design Award, Fast Company Innovation by Design Award, Queens Museum Artist Studio program, New INC, Watermill Center and Pioneer Works.
She has led and successfully launched two International Space Station payloads and one sub-orbital flight payload onboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard system, and flown three parabolic flights.
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).