In her series of inquiries on the genetic myth of personhood and community, Xin Liu visualizes her sequenced genetic code by assigning colors to the letters, AaCcGgTt. The digital sculpture in this exhibition is both a flower and a root system, signifying fertility in a hostile environment, the desert, where she grew up. It shares forms and thematic resonance with When we were flowers, a collaboration with local Uygur artisans in Hotan, Xinjiang, in which carpets were created using the Senna knot weaving method, with the color-coded background of the artist's genetic sequence and the traditional pattern of pomegranate flowers in its foreground. This sculpture is brought to life above the “Fog Desert” biome of Biosphere 2. Viewers can stroll the network of walkways above the sand, cacti, and other desert plants, to view this gorgeous, complex, and coded body via different angles and elevations.

Xin Liu (b. 1991, Xinjiang/China) is an artist and engineer.
In her practice, Xin 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 tear, gene sequencing and astrology. She examine the discourse-power nexus as an active practitioner, an experimenter and a performer. Her recent research and interest center around the verticality of space, extraterrestrial explorations and cosmic metabolism.
Xin is the Arts Curator in the Space Exploration Initiative in MIT Media Lab, a member of the inaugural ONX studio program founded by New Museum and Onassis NY and Silver Arts Project in the World Trade Center. She is also an artist-in-residence in SETI Institute. Her recent solo exhibitions including Seedings and Offspring at Pioneer Works, New York and At the End of Everything at ARTPACE, San Antonio.

She is recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including Porches Chinese Young Artist of the Year 2021, 30 under 30 Asia, X Museum Triennial Award, the Van Lier Fellowship from Museum of Arts and Design, Sundance New Frontier Story Lab, Huayu Youth Award Finalist, Creative Capital On Our Radar, inaugural Europe ARTificial Intelligence Lab residency with Ars Electronica, Queens Museum Artist Studio program, New INC incubator and Pioneer Works Tech Residency. She has been commissioned by institutions including M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Ars Electronica (Austria), Rhizome (USA), Media Art Xploration Festival (USA), Onassis Foundation Enter Program (US) and Abandon Normal Devices Festival (UK). She is an advisor for LACMA Art+Tech Lab and a faculty member at The Terraforming, a new research program at Strelka Institute in 2020. Xin graduated from MIT Media Lab with a master degree in Media Arts and Sciences after her M.F.A from Rhode Island School of Design and B.E from Tsinghua University in Beijing (Measurement, Control Technology, and Instrument).

Nan Zhao, is a media artist and scientist, currently based in Berlin, Germany. For Nan, technology is an opportunity to expand the human sensory network and to connect with our surroundings in new ways. She started her educational journey as an electrical engineer at RWTH Aachen University. Driven by her enthusiasm for combining diverse fields of study and expressing herself through art, she earned her Doctorate at MIT Media Lab. As part of her research, she created augmented spaces that respond to people’s physiological signals through biofeedback, shaping an interactive closed-loop between the adaptive space and its visitors. She uses algorithms, machine learning, and data to generate compositions of lighting, imagery, animations, and sound. Nan is particularly interested in exploring experiences of nature and the nature of our perception through digital media.