Xingyu HuangInformation

Xingyu Huang



Sensing the More-than-Human: Emotional Landscapes of Symbiosis2024-Ongoing

“Sensing the more-than-human: emotional landscapes of symbiosis” is an interdisciplinary exploration of human/non-human relationships under climate change. Rising ocean temperatures impact ecosystem health, which includes unseen interactions with microbial communities. This project integrates artistic approaches with laboratory experiments, examining the relationship between anemones and their microbial symbionts as temperature increases.

By translating biological data across sensory modalities into sound, light, and motion, we aim to raise awareness of human impacts on ecological phenomena, and describe these impacts in the language of sensation and emotional experience. All collected data will be incorporated into an interactive website, freely accessible to the public, allowing a broader range of viewers to access these sensations.

Artist: Xingyu Huang
Scientist: Daniela Pierro (Ecology and Evolution Department, University of Chicago)

This project is funded by the University of Chicago, Office of the Provost, the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is managed by the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative.


Decay Circulation2024
124 years ago, a heavy rain washed waste from the Chicago River into Lake Michigan, the city’s primary drinking source. Combined with the cholera epidemic—a deadly waterborne disease spreading from Europe to the U.S.—fears over water safety grew, leading to the decision to reverse the Chicago River’s flow. This feat, celebrated as an engineering marvel, only temporarily addressed water hygiene issues, later causing bigger problems like flooding, invasive species, and Great Lakes contamination, with new algae emitting liver-damaging toxins. This projection will appear at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge, where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan. Spots resembling cholera’s skin lesions will gradually spread over the bridge facade, changing color with the cholera cycle, finally turning gray-blue in the stage of death. Headlines from 124 years of Chicago River-related news will appear in sequence, encouraging public awareness of ongoing water issues. I am planning a series of public projections with local communities and am in discussions with Urban River; the next Chicago River projection will take place at Wild Mile.


Public Projection
1'58"


Air Flows Between Us2024
Anxiety somatization translates psychological distress—worry, apprehension, and panic—into physical symptoms like dizziness, rapid heartbeat, and headaches, forming a complex body language beyond verbal expression. Emotions accumulate, transform, and manifest physically, lacking outlets for release. When words fail, communication becomes a challenge. This installation visualizes somatization through sound and scent in a participatory space, capturing the rhythms of trembling hands, fluctuating heartbeats, and mental voices shared by those experiencing somatization. A gravitational field within the space disperses two forms of woad powder—unstable blue dye and medicinal powder—according to biorhythm patterns, accumulating and fading slowly as intimate soundscapes evolve and repeat.


woad powder, wood, Sound, Teensy microcontroller, Arduino board, electronic circuits, speaker, acrylic sheets, metal brackets, wires, soldered components, vinyl film 8'x8'x14"


Livingroom Courtyard2022
 People could deeply felt the unreachability of outdoor space when the window became the only exit to personal space. This inspiration came during the four months of home isolation. This is a room that can only be viewed from the windows on all four walls, looking inwards at the plants and brick walls. Through changing the relationship between our body and the space, I explored whether the reason why we have lost control of our living spaces is because of the epidemic or because of unreasonable isolation policies and management. 


Livingroom Courtyard
Plaster, Steel, Paper, Wood, Plants
8’x8’x8’
Insomniac Bear
2022
Isolation induces emotions to hover on the edge of tension. When we depart from home and become dispersed individuals, physical distance obstructs interaction with familiar groups. How do our bodies cope with these emotional needs? I systematically investigated the ramifications of isolation on affective states. 

Starting from the symptoms of insomnia, I looked at inanimate dolls as a way to deal with consciousness repeatedly hovering on the edge of wakefulness and sleep. There is no doubt that it is a kind of emotional compensation, a physical mapping of one's untouchable virtual communication, so that one can live alone and feel at ease with a physical entity in the real world after having communicated with a person on a cold electronic device. 


Insomniac Bear
Canon760D

Touch Starvation2022
This object in a response to the vague symptomatic descriptions of skin hunger prevalent online. This sculpture served as a commodified solution to skin hunger, accompanied by an associated advertisement video. Through addressing this self-validated event outcome, I sought to challenge the subtle manipulation of our psyche by societal and media forces through the lens of communication studies. This endeavor illuminated the contemporary societal phenomenon wherein subjective judgments about ourselves are perpetuated and amplified. 


Touch Starvation
Plastic, Silicone
15cm x 20cm


The Greatest Apple2022

We are always be educated by some classic stories in our life and asked to follow a certain truth, but sometimes it is not suitable for the reality. People always tend to form a fixed mind- set, not willing to analyze the changes and developments of things, or study the special con- tradictions of things. This makes me realize the importance of stepping out of the stereotypes in our mind. If we don't question the old concepts, we would never look at the problem from a new perspective. This kind of dogmatic behavior will Numbs our senses and our mind.

The Greatest Apple
Video, 2’31’’ 2022

Beyond Reach2021
There is a ring that I lost physically and emotionally. My ex-lover bought it for me before I left China in my 19. He bought it because this ring can only be purchased once in a lifetime with his ID, he wanted it to be a commitment. And later, time difference and distance made us struggle, I was crushed a lot and uncertain. He didn’t travel to me, I didn't call him. Before I returned,  the two thousand days of relationship we had turned to zero, the ring I wear every day was lost by accident. At that time, the ring had long been out of production, which meant that not only could it not be bought by him again, but it would never be bought again in this world. When a stage of life suddenly disappears, you have no evidence that it ever happened. I’m still holding that absence in my memory, fulfilled yet empty.

The work explores memory concretization by expressing diverse memories through a consistent form. Memories fade daily, blur in our minds, and require retracing. They only resurface through senses and objects—tear-stained tissues, gifts, familiar scents, or melodies. This piece encapsulates the ephemeral nature of memories, making it a poignant exploration of the passage of time and emotional connections.



Beyond Reach
Multiple Materials
Xingyu Huang