Media：Mixed media, Video installation 

Time length: 2'8'' now (work still in progress) 

Exhibition: Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, 2021-2022. XieZilongPhotography Museum, Changsha, 2022.

This is the first still-frame animation work to be shot in outer space using a satellite in orbit past its service life. Using images transmitted from the ground and a self-directed camera on the satellite, man-made pictures interact with images taken from the satellite while orbiting the earth and are incorporated into the animation. Imagine the “Standard Person” interacting with outer space, carrying a bundle as he/she run about in outer space with words spilling out from his baggage. The satellite orbits around the earth 15 times a day, and when it is located above different geographical locations, the language of the spilled words in the animation changes with it as well. This work represents far-reaching concepts shaping the existence of humanity such as human civilization, language, and time, reminding us to look back at our blue earth in the context of the zero-gravity conditions of space, and also to cherish the only home we know – the one single small blue dot. At the same time that you are viewing the work in the gallery, the work is still continuously created in outer space.

2020-

The project lead team: Xu Bing, Feng Yan, Zhang Wenchao, Sun Shining

Medium: Artificial intelligence generated film with variable duration

Time length：variable duration

Exhibition：The 5th Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival, 2021. Museum of Art Pudong, 2021-2022. 

This project works closely with artificial intelligence scientists to develop a real-time feature film production artificial intelligence system with no human production personnel (directors, screenwriters, photographers, or actors, etc.). The audience can input the movie type (such as science fiction, crime, love, etc.) according to their needs. The audience can also change the narrative plot or style of the movie by entering keywords or sentences and making a never-repeated movie produced by AI. This project aims to pursue an element that natural persons cannot create but is also in demand and not found in traditional film. Its concept is based on the shortcomings of natural persons, such as prejudice in the judgment of problems due to a narrow sense of emotions, greed and evil thoughts driven by political and economic interests, restrictions because of the limitation of knowledge and vision. AI suggests the “internal structure” of human life by accumulating various human image materials from a calm standpoint. This project is an experiment of the future possibility of AI film.

2017

Video, surveillance camera footage taken from public live-streaming websites

81'

trailer

I’ve wanted to make a film from surveillance footage since 2013, but I had no access to the necessary resources. Since 2015, surveillance cameras in China have been linked to the cloud database: countless surveillance recordings have been streamed online. So I took up the project again. I collected a huge amount of footage and tried to use these fragments of reality to tell a story.

With no human agency operating them, surveillance cameras produce fascinating footage round the clock. Ineffably silent, these cameras record incessantly. Sometimes they record images that are beyond logical understanding, captured in one mad, fleeting instant. When these seemingly random yet intricately connected clips are assembled, what's the distance between the video fragments of real life and 'reality'?

—Xu Bing