Urban research & interactive multimedia installation
Goethe Institute in Beijing
Research: July 2020 - June 2021
Exhibition: June 2021 - September 2021

Concept, project lead, tech & installation lead
In collaboration with Jenny Wang (filmmaker) and Haoxi Sun (tech maverick)

“Houchang Village: A Bubble City” focuses on the newly planned "silicon valley" in Beijing that raised concerns of displaced local communities; and institutionally unethical labor practices of the tech giants. The work deconstructs the physical and virtual space of Houchang Village from three levels, the urban physical space, the organizational structure of “Dachang” (IT giants), and the information cocoons or filter bubbles existed here and beyond.

The 7 bubbles suspended in mid-air are not only metamorphoses of the seven “Dachang” buildings , but also signifiers of their second identity, “algorithm-generated filter bubble creators”. The data of daily population movement, visualized physically in 3D space with 700 red lines connecting the bubble with the map of Beijing above symbolize the cyclical life trajectory of the employees and workers. Situated in an enclosed bubble structure, the viewer can roam, engage, and interact with multiple sensory experiences, and start to imagine or reinterpret Houchang Village through sounds, scenes, and over 30 interviews collected in nearly a year's fieldwork.

This work was realized with funding from the “Beijing 22” 2020 research project.