We were lucky to catch up with Wenjun Chen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Wenjun thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The work, Aliens of Me, is a self-exploration based on my personal data with Internet-based technologies, utilizing the web, video, virtual reality, and installation. I am using keywords from my memories shared online and figures of my health data captured by my smartwatch to reconstruct myself through virtual avatars, a story of my growth, and new bodies in which to hold these avatars and stories. This also reflects my identity as a newcomer from China, migrating to an open new world that blends analog and digital.

In 2021, I left China and entered the MFA program in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice at the City College of New York in the US. This experience marked a significant turning point for me, initiating a journey of inward and outward exploration. Transitioning from a culture of control and collectivism to one of freedom and individualism, I began to appreciate the value of individuality. Moving from being part of the majority to a minority, from Han Chinese to Asian people in the US. I started to understand the challenges associated with minority status. Shifting from a Cantonese and Mandarin cultural base to an English cultural context necessitated the reconstruction of certain meanings and the creation of new meanings. It felt as if I was navigating a new character in a computer game. This significant transformation led me to reassess my identity. As I attempted to recall my memory using the items I possessed, I realized that most of them were stored on hard drives and the Internet.

Then I decided to start a journey of self-exploration with Internet-based technologies, which is based on keywords from my memories shared online and figures of my health data captured by my smartwatch.

Wenjun, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As a self-taught photographer, I have always utilized photography as a means of exploring and connecting my identity to others and my surroundings. My early works were focused on the subject of rapid urbanization in China, drawing upon my personal memories of childhood. Later, I turned my lens toward examining the intimate relationship and self-exploration with my partner as a photographic autobiography.

In 2021, I left China and entered the MFA program in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice at the City College of New York in the US. This experience marked a significant turning point for me, initiating a journey of inward and outward exploration. Transitioning from a culture of control and collectivism to one of freedom and individualism, I began to appreciate the value of individuality. Moving from being part of the majority to a minority, from Han Chinese to Asian people in the US. I started to understand the challenges associated with minority status. Shifting from a Cantonese and Mandarin cultural base to an English cultural context necessitated the reconstruction of certain meanings and the creation of new meanings. It felt as if I was navigating a new character in a computer game. This significant transformation led me to reassess my identity. As I attempted to recall my memory using the items I possessed, I realized that most of them were stored on hard drives and the Internet.

In the pursuit of new artwork, I started a journey of self-exploration with Internet-based technologies. This exploration led to the creation of virtual avatars, derived from keywords extracted from my memories and corresponding image search results from the Internet. These elements served as the private and public facets of identity, later amalgamated with AI-generated content based on the keywords, including sewing machine, mother, lap, time, hand, only son, smile, laughter, etc. In addition to the keywords, I harnessed my health data, captured by my smartwatch, to generate geometrical shapes. These shapes, envisioned as new bodies, encapsulated the avatars and memories.

Ultimately, the title Alien of Me emerged as a profound reflection of my journey. This work is intrinsically tied to the metamorphosis of my identity, a transition that spans both the real and virtual realms. It encapsulates the exploration of unfamiliar facets of self, those that reside beyond the confines of a realm I once considered my own. This exploration started with my physical body and then departed from my body in the form of data, eventually generating the strange aliens of me. This is also a journey of alienation.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

In the beginning, it was a self-exploration based on my personal data, reflecting my transitioning identity. It is a way for me as a newcomer to re-examine my identity. Later, it became an exploration of the inter-transformative relationship between the real and the virtual, the tangible and the intangible, the material and the immaterial since we are generating more and more digital data, and virtual life is becoming increasingly dominant. Personal identities are becoming interchangeable and indistinguishable between the virtual and real worlds.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I like doing experiments in the field of art. Transitioning from a photographer mainly working on photography to an artist working on new media, focusing on exploring the mixed relationship between real and virtual, involves the fields of self-identity, internet and technology, data and personal data. There is a more open and broad world for me to explore and experiment.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chenwenjun.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wwenjunii/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chenwenjun/

Image Credits

Wenjun Chen