Hi! I am a new media artist based in Shenzhen,
working with 3D, game design, creative coding,
and other emerging technologies.
I am currently a committee member and creative director of 2021 Glow Shenzhen; I also co-founded Key Elements Studio, a non-profit art and publisher organization.
If you want to know more about my practice, read my artist statement below! or you can always chat with me at wantongyao.art@gmail.com
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a new media artist, I create interactive experiences for viewers to enter. To sabotage. To play. To obtain ownership by being surveilled. To feel vulnerable and at the same time protected. To reconnect with reality. Within these experiences, relationships are investigated, be it interpersonal, human-computer, human-nature, or the work itself with its audience.
Influenced by the philosophy of cyberfeminism, digital cultures, and object-oriented ontology, I am interested in exploring a variety of topics, including gender role, biometric surveillance, affective computing, human microbiota, and coral reef ecosystems. Central to my work is the examination of power dynamics within social, cultural, and technological systems – “who is included in dominant ways of producing knowledge and whose perspective is marginalized.”
While I mostly work with code, software, games, and the web for creative expression, many of the technologies originate from government and military research that was militaristic and misogynistic in the first place. Even today, the lack of diversity and representation of the tech industry still persists, and the digital divide caused by unequal access to technologies remains a problem. As a result, I seek to confuse, disrupt, and dismantle the status quo of the tech world from within by producing media arts that are self-referential and self-reflective. Combining technology and art, my work proposes a creative, liberatory, and empowering possibility of the use of emerging technologies.
Outside the studio, I am also a curator and arts administrator who organizes new media art festivals and virtual exhibitions, working to foster inclusive and diverse environments for the media art community.