We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Xiangrui Zeng a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Xiangrui, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The most meaningful project I’ve worked on recently is an art game called “I Want to Be a Tree (But Life Has Other Ideas)” that I collaborated on with Ian Tang. It’s about being a basket, climbing on a drawing, and putting leaves back on trees. It was recently nominated for the 2024 A MAZE./ Berlin Awards. The game started with the desire to express a feeling—the struggle of trying and working hard, not knowing where you’re going or what you’re striving for, yet still continuing and hoping to eventually figure it out. This feeling has been with me since graduation, especially in a challenging year for the gaming industry as an international new grad facing visa and financial pressures while aspiring to be an indie game developer. So, learning about the nomination made me very happy, feeling like many people understand my feelings and appreciate my work.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Hi! I’m Xiangrui, an independent game developer and creative technologist based in New York. I recently graduated with a master’s degree in Interactive Telecommunication Program (ITP) from New York University. I enjoy utilizing diverse media to explore new ways of experiencing games, moving beyond traditional mouse, keyboard, and controller inputs, and engaging players with unique and emotionally resonant experiences. I have also created some wearable instruments, audio interactive installations, and musical robots.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I believe the most rewarding aspect is that being an artist/creative allows me to keep my mind vibrant. It constantly reminds me to observe the world like a child and not take everything around me for granted. In other words, I try to find interesting, playful, and artistic elements in familiar things. Since creation is not a simple or natural process for me, I put in a lot of effort to think and absorb various things, making my life more challenging and fun.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My biggest goal is to create things that I personally very enjoy. If others like my work or find inspiration in it, that’s a wonderful bonus and an additional surprise. I am quite critical of my own work and find it hard to truly appreciate it. Often, I feel a brief sense of satisfaction after completing a project, but soon I no longer like it. So, if I can express what I want in a way that I find exquisite, that’s my biggest goal. My art is essentially created for myself, not for others’ approval or commercial value. You could say it’s a naive but pure purpose haha.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zengxiangrui.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sirozengzxr/
