Christine Xia

Christine Xia:

—main works:

Thank you for reminding me (2019, Ongoing),
Defunkt (Work in progress),
Grave Eternity (2019),
Monday Night Seminars (2019),
大哥 (2019),
Essentially Anonymous (2020),
A Hundred Flowers Bloom (2018),

—other/extra/fun stuff:

Rave in Berlin 1100 (2019),
Human Artifacts (2019),
Welcome to the Me-Wide-Web (2019),
SATURATION III (2019),
The Death of Stalin (2018),
Downtown (2018),

I’m Christine Xia and I am currently studying graphic design at OCAD University. I enjoy type design, the web, creating systems and placing things into them, interactive and generative media, book binding, making things that look cool, performance and installations, and typesetting very large lengths of text.

To know more about me, please refer to my CV which can be downloaded here.

// 42 min 9 sec video, 5 × 7 in book, interactive installation (oscilloscope, microphone, script).

// 42 min 9 sec on-location performance of We have only just met (Scene 1).

// 183-page book of recorded speech-to-text and video stills from We have only just met (Scene 1).

// Interactive installation: the microphone and script sit on one side of the door while viewers can watch the text on the oscilloscope from the other side, out of range of the speaker’s voice.

// Typeface (regular and italic), 16 × 36 in specimen poster.

// Performance, monitor, computer mouse, staple gun, and participants’ illustrations.

// The installation before the performance began—in front of the portrait of Francis Galton are a pile of previous audience contributions, a staple gun, and a computer mouse.

// The audience’s contributions to the performance.

// Single-page website.

View the full website here (best experienced in Chrome).

// The background colour is tied to user’s mouse speed, making the page glow and flash with any fast movement.

// Details on the speakers are hidden until the user hovers over them and the large titles that say ‘Monday Night Seminars’ expand and deteriorate, revealing how the letterforms were made.

// Framed installation, digital images, sound.

// Digital images, prints, interactive installation, writing.

// Reconstructed Virginia Slims cigarette advertisements (13 × 19 in posters).

// 大哥, an interactive installation. More information on this work here.

// A collection of “macho” eyes from vintage cigarette advertisements (animated GIF).

// A set of “macho” eyes half-constructed of cropped Virginia Slims advertisements.

// A pair of 5 × 7 in hardcover books.

// The untouchable book filled with portraits of anonymous individuals. Their portraits only barely peak out through slivers between each page.

// The touchable book filled with portraits of expeditioners and researchers funded by the American Museum of Natural History. Due to some of these photos including the faces of local guides or other individuals not affiliated with the museum there are black circles throughout the book that censor these people’s faces.

Below is the poem that is woven between the portraits within each book:

You do not know me and I can never know you.

I want to be seen but I do not want to be watched.
I do not want to be watched but I want to be visible.
I want to be visible but I do not want to be surveilled.
I do not want to be surveilled but I want to be present.
I want to be present but I do not want to leave my past.
I do not want to leave my past but I want to grow.
I want to grow but I do not want to leave.
I do not want to leave but I want to explore.
I want to explore but I do not want to overstep.
I do not want to overstep but I want to understand.
I want to understand but I do not want to judge.
I do not want to judge but I want to make connections.
I want to make connections but I do not want to be vulnerable.
I do not want to be vulnerable but I want to be receptive.
I want to be receptive but I do not want to be naive.
I do not want to be naive but I want to admire.
I want to admire but I do not want to stare.
I do not want to stare but I want to be curious.
I want to be curious but I want to be respectful.
I want to be respectful but I do not want to be governed.
I do not want to be governed but I want to belong.
I want to belong but I do not want to lose myself.
I do not want to lose myself but I want to participate.
I want to participate but I do not want to perpetuate.
I do not want to perpetuate but I want to create momentum.
I want to create momentum but I do not want to be misguided.
I do not want to be misguided but I want to demystify.
I want to demystify but I do not want to expose.
I do not want to expose but I want to speculate.
I want to speculate but I do not want to exploit.
I do not want to exploit but I want to wonder.
I want to wonder but I do not want to misinform.
I do not want to misinform but I want to educate.
I want to educate but I do not want to overshare.
I do not want to overshare but I want to be vocal.
I want to be vocal but I do not want to silence.
I do not want to silence but I want to be represented.
I want to be represented but I do not want to be captured.
I do not want to be captured but I want to be remembered.
I want to be remembered but I do not want to live forever.
I do not want to live forever but I want to live forever.
I want to live forever but I do not want to live forever.
I do not want to live forever but I want to live forever.

May your image rest peacefully.

// 5 × 7 in handwriting practice books.

// Multimedia installation exhibit.

// Exhibition poster and brochures.

// Web-based typeface.

View the full website here.

// 4 × 5 in books.

Below is the afterword of the book:

None of these images were meant to include human figures. At the very least, they do not include any genes that might hint at their anthropormorphic origins. Barbershop, running shoe, tree frog, flamingo, Schipperke, fire engine are all things that these images proclaim themselves to be. But, there’s something more to this, isn’t there? There must be, or how else am I able to see a child grow up or watch two lovers drift apart?

Of course, such a feat is unachievable without some level of human intervention that shapes and manipulates these uncanny forms into something that feels a bit more familiar. These images were selected, sequenced, and titled by myself, but their actual creation was dictated by something beyond our shared understanding of image-making. In other words, each image was made using machine-learning algorithms that bred one shadowy frame with another to form each of these almost-humans.

Does it surprise you to know that the neural network that produced these portraits does not even know what a human is? These networks do not learn in the same way we learn. While they were modelled after the human brain, in reality these algorithms were made to read and identify pixels and make relationships between them without the need to understand what meaning was held within these 512 × 512 grids. Images, along with their assigned tags and labels, were fed to them by people—people with their own complex lives, partialities, and preferences. A machine-learning algorithm can only learn and produce from what its been given. Yet, 81.1% tub, 12.3% angora, 3.5% monastery, and 3.1% lumbermill produces something so powerful and tactile that you end up forgetting about all of that.

This isn’t to say that the making of these images are immune to human influence. Rather, it is this bias in its very nature that has subconsciously guided the selection of training images to allow scatterings of people to appear in the backgrounds or sidelines of the targetted subjects. It is these peripheral figures that reemerge into the ghostly entities that fill these pages.

The making of Human Artifacts was possible thanks to Joel Simon’s Artbreeder project.

// Single-page website.

View the full website here.

// Series of 15 digital album tiles.

View the process and ideas for this project here.