Xin Liu's Inward Expeditions | Art21 "New York Close Up"

(airy music)

- I believe artworks are self-portraits.

It is really difficult not to
carry yourself in the works.

As artists, we tear ourselves
apart and reassemble it

in every piece that we are
creating and recreating.

(airy music continues)

I started as an engineer
basically because I was a student

who was good at math and physics.

Art later came into my life

because the pure pleasure of creating

got me quite addicted.

I grew up in the northwest part of China

in the city that is called Karamay.

It means black oil in Uyghur
language, our local language.

My grandparents' generation
immigrated to that area

under the state order to
develop a city digging oils.

I have this memory of
celebrating oil in my hometown.

All the families working on oil

will get this souvenirs from the city.

It looks like a pyramid,

and in the middle of it,

there is a drop of actual crude oil.

I want to kind of create like
a magnified version of that,

but then at the same time, the bottom

of the entire work would
be a fountain of oil.

(motor humming)

I kind of like the air bubble one.

I feel it's more lively, or
if I really want a lot of air,

I just let the tube expose to the air.

(liquid gurgling)

I want it to have this
motion inside the oil pan,

giving this sentient existence.

It's not just a passive
material to be extracted.

It's a living being
beneath the earth's crust

and transforming the world above it

with terror and lots of violence.

(airy music)
(liquid dripping)

Growing up in a town that
essentially was built

by immigrants within China,
I felt very much connected

to the idea of going to
a place for its resource,

creating generations and
prosperity in that sense.

That entire idea is parallel
to space exploration,

which is a big part of my practice,

the idea of people traveling
so far going to another planet

felt like what my
grandparents' generation did,

when they were in their 20s.

(rocket humming)

I started working on space exploration

when I was a grad
student in MIT Media Lab.

I submitted the proposal and made a robot

that carried my tooth and went to space.

It was launched as a research project,

but for me, it is really
a performance piece.

I want a part of me to go to space.

I wanted to create an avatar
that enabled that journey.

- We count down, the rocket
blazes, engines pulse.

Now we sing like birds
breathing cedar air.

We are made of dust and light.

(ethereal music)

- There's something about expedition.

It's very beautiful, very glorious,

but at the same time, it's
a very lonely journey often.

Going to Beijing for college

and going to the United
States for grad school,

I was trying to arrive at
somewhere for a better life,

but then that journey is just pulling me

further away from my home.

And I think as humanity,

we are imagining all
this version of futures

of living on another
planet, or living with AI.

But I feel like as you're
leaving your current place,

some part of yourself died and shed away.

There is this inevitable death

that happens along with the
growth that we so desire for.

that happens along with the
growth that we so desire for.

I am thinking a lot about
my own reproduction.

Nowadays, I'm at that age,

people are just telling me,

"Oh, you should freeze your eggs.

Don't even think too much about it."

I have a level of alienation
and fear over that process.

(gentle music)

Reproduction technologies claim
to solve all the problems,

but in fact dramatically change our body.

We freeze time in this biological machine

because we need to get a better
career, we need to go study,

we haven't found a good partner yet.

I felt like it's all about productivity,

whether time is useful or not useful.

I'm making this collection
of objects and sculptures

about this fear, referencing
lots of bone structures,

but they're all warped and twisted

as I imagine how our body would change

through these experiences.

And I'm cooling down the
sculpture to a low temperature,

so they're gonna freeze,

kind of having frost
growing on the sculpture.

(dark ethereal music)

I do believe in science and technology,

in lots of its methods,

and its ability to transform the world.

But at the same time, I'm
hoping there is a limit,

that we can never reach,

because it also strips away
this kind of fundamental idea

of what it means to be human.

In this calibrated and measured world,

art allows beauty and emotions
to be part of the process.

art allows beauty and emotions
to be part of the process

(dark ethereal music continues)