We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Xu Han a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Xu, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I did a duration 21 days performance, which name is “Cocooned”.

I have worn a “cocoon” that I knitted by myself for 21 Days, including eating, transportation, traveling, attending class, and sleeping. I forbid speaking during these days; instead, I wrote or use devices’ system voice instead. I need to write in my diary every day about how my perception of myself changes, how my communication with others changes, and events in my immediate experience. The performance began on Apr.16 2019 12:00 pm and continues until May 7, 2019, 12:00 pm.

I want to explore: How could it change the limit and shape my body? How could this form alter my perception of this world? How could this form alter the communication between me and others? What will I learn from 21 Days about the way of “living”?

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a New Media Artist, Graphic Designer, and Educator who graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, and from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a major in Visual Communication. Her MFA degree was from Parsons School of Design majoring in Design and Technology.

I have been engaged in art & technology and am interested in finding different perspectives of language in the communication methods of humans, including reading, listening, body language, and also emotion. My projects involved performance art, art installations, generative texts, artist book design, etc. I am an adjunct professor at California College of Art and Pratt Institute.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have been engaged in art and technology and also in explorations of the imagery and implications of a process-based transformation of the signs of language. I’m looking for new perspectives on language in communication methods for humans, humans and nature, and humans and AI. Almost all of my works are about redefining the human body, human perceptions, or human emotions. My projects involved performance art, experimental generative fonts, data visualizations, artist books, generative art, and art installations.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I started getting interested in topics related to language about 13 years ago. In order to understand and convey the essence of language from a broader perspective, I tried many ways, from redesigning visual language to exploring possibilities in body language and emotions, in order to expand the way humans communicate and perception. In general, humans live or exist unconsciously in such a way that everything else follows. The way we live, our body’s biological arrangement, hands’ structure, mouth and voice, etc. determine the way we write, talk, and live.

Contact Info:

• Website: xuhanart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xuhanart/