Tag: Interactive Art

🌊 My Exhibition Is Not a “Finished Product,” But a Flowing Relationship

This week, I finally gathered the courage to sort through the curatorial ideas that had been drifting in my head for a long time.
From questioning whether curators should hold total control, to writing down the full framework for my project “Fluid Curating,” I feel like I’ve found a direction that is both gentle and powerful.

This exhibition doesn’t present an outcome. Instead, it invites everyone to co-create the process itself.

📍Project Title: Fluid Curating

Subtitle: A Decentralised Ecosystem of Co-Creation

Keywords: Decentralisation, Co-Creation, Participatory Curation, Audience Agency, Interactive Installation, Non-linear Space, Dynamic Display, Collective Text-Making, Art + Data Feedback

📌 Venue: Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) Main Building Lobby

Online Open Curatorial Platform (for voting and text interaction)

The online and offline components will be fully integrated. The exhibition is no longer limited to one location, but becomes a continually evolving space of shared creation.

🧭 Curatorial concept: How to embody “decentralization”?

1.🎨 Artists / Artworks

Participatory works by ECA CAP students
Community-sourced participatory artworks

All works require audience interaction to be completed. Here, the audience is not just a viewer, but a co-creator.

2.🗓 Duration

On-site exhibition: 7 days (updated daily based on audience contributions)
Online platform: Open for 14 days (for ongoing discussion, artwork submission, text gathering, feedback, and data collection)

We hope this mechanism of “daily change” encourages ongoing participation and allows the exhibition to breathe and grow.

3.🧭 Layout Without a Map

The exhibition will take place in the ECA main building lobby. We’ll abandon linear routes and create a rhizomatic layout—

Everyone navigates based on their own steps and emotions.

Coloured lines will be arranged on the floor. Audiences can name areas and pathways: some might call it the “Hallway of Tenderness,” while others rename it the “Unfinished Memory.”

Every name changes daily. Every line might mean something new tomorrow.

4.🎧 Sound as Resonance, Not Just Ambience

I imagined a corner called the “Sound Bazaar.”
You can put on headphones and hear stories left by others,
or press a button and record your feelings about a piece.

You can stay anonymous, or speak your name. It’s not a statement. It’s a connection.

These recordings will rotate daily, like a slowly growing radio programme,
curated by all of us, together.

5.🖋 Curatorial Text, Written by Everyone

There are no fixed labels or curator-written statements. Instead, each artwork will be paired with a QR code. Audience members can scan and use Woolclap, a free platform, to write their interpretation.

These words will be projected onto the wall in real-time, forming a flowing audience-generated language wall.

Some write stories, others memories, some just leave a single word.
All of it becomes the curatorial text—not the explanation, but the emotion.

6.🌀 The Audience as Installer and Meaning-Maker

Every three days, we’ll rearrange displays based on audience votes
Visitors can vote, comment, name sections, and actively participate in the works
The whole exhibition is a living system that evolves with interaction

I want to show that an exhibition is not a fixed space, but a network of ongoing relationships.

7.🧭 Curatorial Ethics

All audience contributions (voice/text) can be submitted anonymously or with credit
All content will go through moderation to avoid bias or harm
Data is used only for analysis and remains open-access, not for commercial use

While we decentralise curatorial power, we also build gentle and trustworthy boundaries.

🎤 Public Lecture: Who Gets to Define Curatorial Discourse?

We’ll host an open conversation titled “The Shift of Curatorial Power”, inviting lecturers, students, and visitors to join.

Our aim is to show:
Curatorial discourse can be redistributed. Audiences, participants, and creators all have the right to be producers of meaning.

♿Accessibility

Audio guides and bilingual (Chinese/English) interface
Quiet hours and low-sensory zones
Navigation and access co-designed with ECA students with disabilities
Multi-sensory experiences (sound and touch as alternatives to visuals)

We want everyone to enter the exhibition in their own way.

💹 Post-Exhibition Outputs

A collaboratively written Zine featuring audience-created curatorial texts, sold as a takeaway souvenir
A “Decentralised Art Market Trend Report” summarising voting results, feedback, and interaction data—offered as insight for artists and local institutions

Every vote, every comment, every interaction will be recorded, respected, and allowed to shine beyond the exhibition.

🗺 Timeline

Week	Activity
W1–W2	Concept development, artist open call, communication with CAP students and venue coordination
W3–W4	Platform building, tool testing, material preparation
W5	Installation and soft launch testing audience flow
W6	Full exhibition launch: daily interactions + data collection + co-creation processes
W7	Final wrap-up, Zine editing, and trend report compilation

💰 Budget

Item	Amount
Multimedia equipment	£400
Exhibition materials (fabric, lighting, etc.)	£300
Promotional materials	£150
Zine printing	£300
Artist transport + volunteer support	£200
Contingency fund	£200

📌 Tutorial Feedback & Next Steps

During this week’s tutorial, I received clear and constructive feedback from my tutor:

The venue has officially changed from FACT Liverpool to the ECA Main Building Lobby, which suits the participatory nature of my project better.
I need to list the names of participating artists, especially those from the CAP course.
Given the production demands and artist involvement, it was suggested that I slightly increase the budget to allow for artist fees and support.
My public programme should be expanded, with more detailed planning around outcomes and visitor experience.
I was also reminded to further develop the section on EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) and Ethics, especially considering audience co-creation and content moderation.
And finally, I must ensure that everything clearly aligns with the Learning Outcomes of the course.

These reminders helped me see the gaps in my current plan. I’m now revisiting the structure of my public events, adding clearer frameworks for things like the sound radio rotation, collaborative zine editing, and how the audience’s voice will be projected and documented across the space.

In the next blog, I’ll begin filling in those details—step by step～

Mar 30, 2025

🎡 W9 (2) – Speed Curating at CAT × CAP: Conversations that Sparked Something Real

By Hanyun Xue

On 16 March 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating, 💬 Peer Exchange & Curatorial Dialogue, 🧭 Field Notes & Exhibition Visits

Hi everyone,

This week I participated in a special joint event between CAT (Contemporary Art Theory) and CAP (Contemporary Art Practice) students. We met not on Teams, but face-to-face in the West Court, and I have to say—it was more inspiring than I imagined.

The format was based on Speed Curating, a method adapted from the UK Arts Council. CAP students introduced their art practices in quick 2-minute bursts, while us CAT students shared five key curatorial interests. It was fast, a little chaotic, but filled with energy and curiosity.

🎨 Meeting Artists, Meeting Possibilities

As a CAT student working on my Fluid Curating project, this event was a goldmine. I heard so many artist presentations that aligned with what I’ve been thinking about—audience interaction, sensory engagement, performative gestures, and curating as a living process.

Some CAP students showed deeply personal work about memory, others presented interactive installations. I had some great chats about how audiences can intervene, not just observe; how we might co-create exhibitions where the boundaries between artist, curator, and viewer start to dissolve.

✨ My Five Curatorial Keywords

To help introduce my ideas during the event, I shared five key themes that define my practice. I’ll share them here too:

Decentralised Curation
I want to challenge top-down models. Can the audience’s decisions, movements, and emotions shape the exhibition just as much as the curators’?
Audience Intervention
I’m interested in how viewers might not just observe, but alter—touching, rearranging, or reshaping the work as part of the exhibition itself.
Co-Creation
Rather than presenting finished works, I want to collaborate with artists to create open structures where outcomes remain fluid and evolving.
Curation as Process
I see curating as something unfolding in time. Not a fixed result, but a process that’s shaped by those who enter the space and what they bring.
Shifting Curatorial Authority
What happens when curators give up control, and artists invite intervention? Can letting go create something more alive, more real?

These ideas became beautiful conversation starters. Some CAP students lit up when I described exhibitions as perception practice fields, or when I said, “What if we don’t design the message, but design a mood and let the rest happen?”

One of the artists, Sijia Chen, shared a tree with us—though not just any tree. This one was an installation made of welded steel branches, fuzzy pink yarn, and sparkling hanging ornaments. Right in the center stood a solid metal trunk, something she built herself.
She said it represents those immovable forces in our world—systems, structures, or maybe even fate. But what caught my attention were the branches. Around the steel frame, she invited us to add colorful bendable sticks (they had wires inside, so we could twist them into shapes).
People made spirals, loops, even strange little symbols. This wasn’t just decoration. She called it “an editable tree.”

And honestly, I loved that phrase.

The idea behind it was so powerful. Sure, the trunk—the core—is fixed. But everything around it? Open to change.
It’s a metaphor for participation within structure, for how individuals can intervene, re-shape, and re-narrate even within rigid systems. It reminded me so much of what I’m trying to do with Fluid Curating. Not to destroy the framework of exhibitions, but to invite others into it. To say, “Come, add your branch.” The editable tree became, in that moment, a perfect symbol of co-creation. It was poetic, but also quietly radical.

I walked away thinking: maybe my own curatorial space could offer this same gesture. A framework that’s solid, but soft around the edges. A space where people don’t just observe, but gently re-edit what’s there.

Another work that really stuck with me came from artist Xudong Jia. He showed us a digital interactive piece—on screen, it looked like pink flowers exploding outward, or maybe colorful ink swirling in water. It was beautiful at first glance, almost hypnotic.
Then he told us the title: The Evil Flower.

The screen was equipped with facial recognition. Every time someone approached, the image would shift. The flower would grow bigger, darker, more aggressive.
Jia explained that the piece was about the butterfly effect, about online violence—how no single snowflake in an avalanche is innocent. The more people watched, the more the flower “blamed” them.

It hit me hard. The interactivity wasn’t playful, it was accusatory. You weren’t in control of the work—it was confronting you. That twist in perspective really stayed with me. It wasn’t interaction for interaction’s sake; it was interaction as responsibility.
I kept thinking about how this could fit into my own idea of Fluid Curating—where audience behavior doesn’t just “complete” the exhibition, it actually shapes its emotional direction. What if interactivity could be unsettling? What if being seen by the artwork is part of the artwork?

This piece challenged me. And that’s exactly what I want my exhibitions to do.

🧠 Reflections and Next Steps

This session wasn’t just useful—it was moving. I left with several artists I’d love to follow up with. Some of them are exploring clay as a soft resistance. Others are working with sound, text, or ephemeral materials.
I can already imagine co-curating something gentle, open, and audience-responsive together.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be deepening my readings on participatory art and affective curating. I’ve already started noting quotes from Curating and the Educational Turn that feel like they’re speaking directly to what I’m trying to do:

“They seem to seek not the masterful production of expertise… but the co-production of question, ambiguity and enquiry.” (O’Neill and Wilson, 2013)

Yes. That’s exactly it.

This was more than a networking session. It was a seed-planting moment. And I’m already looking forward to what might grow.

Mar 16, 2025

W7-Reflections on CORPSE FLOWER & New Directions for Fluid Curating 🌿🔍

By Hanyun Xue

On 4 March 2025

In ✨ Individual Curatorial Project: Fluid Curating, 💬 Peer Exchange & Curatorial Dialogue, 📚 Curatorial Theory & Literature Reflection, 🧭 Field Notes & Exhibition Visits

This week, I visited CORPSE FLOWER, an exhibition curated by MA Contemporary Art Practice students at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. The show examined the delicate balance between fragility and resilience in plant ecosystems, mirroring the fleeting bloom of the Titan Arum (the “Corpse Flower”)—which flowers for just a day before decaying. 🌺💫

This exhibition deeply resonated with me, not just for its ecological themes but for the way it embraced temporality, audience engagement, and archival thinking—all of which directly relate to my Fluid Curating project. This blog will reflect on key aspects of the exhibition and how they inform my curatorial framework.

🌱 Experiencing CORPSE FLOWER: A Meditation on Impermanence

As I walked through the exhibition, I was struck by how each work invited contemplation of the life cycles of nature, the passage of time, and the act of preservation. The curators used the spatial setting of the Royal Botanic Gardens effectively, situating art within an environment where organic life itself is in a constant state of change.

Curatorial Highlights That Stood Out:

Interactive Art & Audience Participation: Touch-Responsive Installation

One installation featured a digital projection of Mimosa Pudica (sensitive plants) that reacted to touch, folding its leaves when engaged.

The instructions guided visitors to interact carefully, mimicking the natural responses of living plants.

This created a haptic, embodied experience that was both scientific and poetic.

Interactive video：Touch-Responsive Installation

🔍 Relevance to Fluid Curating:

This installation demonstrated how simple, intuitive interactions can create a sense of immersion and engagement—something I aim to integrate into my AI-driven curatorial interfaces.

The delicate balance between control and unpredictability in the piece (the plant reacts in real-time, but only within predetermined parameters) reflects my challenge in Fluid Curating:

- How much agency should an audience have in shaping an exhibition?
- Where does the curator’s role shift from author to facilitator?
- Could AI-generated curatorial statements behave like these plants—reacting, adapting, yet following certain structural constraints?

Archival Curation: Layla Knox’s “Rounding Up the Aliens” (2025)

This mixed-media installation reinterpreted Ida Margaret Hayward’s herbarium, a historical collection documenting non-native plant species in the UK.

The artist used vintage textiles, lace, and wool to reconstruct botanical forms, evoking themes of colonial botany, migration, and ecological displacement.

A poem from Hayward’s 1918 scrapbook was displayed, reinforcing the interplay between personal memory, scientific taxonomy, and artistic interpretation.

🔍 Relevance to Fluid Curating:

This piece prompted me to reconsider how curatorial practice can function as an evolving archive. Much like how Hayward’s herbarium was continually expanded, my project envisions an exhibition that accumulates audience contributions over time, rather than being fixed.

Additionally, the use of alternative materials to represent botanical specimens aligns with the way I want to explore the intersection of digital and physical archives—how do digital objects (such as NFTs) function as archival markers of artistic practice?

Bridging These Insights with My Curatorial Approach

The exhibition left me reflecting on how natural systems provide a compelling model for digital, decentralized curation. Some key takeaways for my project:

1. The Archive as a Growing Organism

Hayward’s herbarium was a dynamic archival practice—it documented, categorized, and evolved.
This is precisely what blockchain technology enables in Fluid Curating: an exhibition that records curatorial decisions over time, allowing for an expanding, decentralized archive.
I plan to further explore “Living Archives” (Färber, 2007) and how new media artists are using dynamic data-driven archives to rethink preservation and authorship.

2. Intuitive, Tactile Participation in Digital Curating

The touch-responsive plants in CORPSE FLOWER reminded me that interactivity should feel natural and rewarding.
Instead of making audience engagement a purely gamified voting process, I want to design AI-curated elements that respond meaningfully to audience actions—perhaps an exhibition layout that shifts in real time based on interaction metrics.
Exploring Claire Bishop’s (2012) work on participatory art can help clarify the power dynamics at play in audience-driven curation.

3. Temporality as a Curatorial Strategy

The Corpse Flower’s one-day bloom and the fleeting nature of the exhibition resonated with digital culture—where NFTs, algorithmic art, and blockchain transactions create moments of scarcity and ephemerality.
How might I introduce time-sensitive elements into my exhibition? Could digital works evolve, decay, or disappear over time based on market trends or audience interactions?
I plan to research Hito Steyerl’s (2017) writings on the “duty-free art” economy—how digital art exists in flux, between presence and absence.

Next Steps: Integrating These Learnings into Fluid Curating

1. Refining the “Living Archive” Framework

Reviewing case studies of AI-driven curation, particularly in NFT and digital museum settings.
Mapping how blockchain could structure a decentralized exhibition history—should audience votes be permanent, or should the system allow for reversible decisions?

2. Experimenting with Interaction & Participation

Developing an interface that reacts dynamically—perhaps using algorithmic clustering to visualize shifting audience preferences over time.
Researching the balance between curator-led vision and decentralized audience influence.

3. Implementing Temporality & Scarcity into the Exhibition Model

Exploring whether certain exhibition phases could be time-sensitive, requiring participation within specific windows.
Investigating how NFTs could function as time-based contracts, altering their appearance or metadata as the exhibition progresses.

Final Reflections: Curating as an Evolving Ecosystem

Experiencing CORPSE FLOWER reinforced my belief that curating should be an ongoing, adaptive process rather than a static event. The show’s reflection on impermanence, ecological cycles, and audience interaction pushed me to think deeper about how my own exhibition should:

Evolve dynamically over time—shaped by audiences, AI, and external forces.
Encourage intuitive participation—making audience engagement feel organic rather than imposed.
Challenge the limits of authorship—exploring how power, control, and decision-making shift in decentralized curatorial models.

Fluid Curating is becoming clearer in my mind—not just as an exhibition format, but as a way of rethinking how art is displayed, archived, and experienced in an ever-changing digital world. 🌊💡

📚 References & Further Reading

Bishop, Claire. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. Verso, 2012.
Färber, Alexa. Exhibition Experiments. Blackwell, 2007.
Martinon, Jean-Paul. The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating. Bloomsbury, 2013.
Rugg, Judith & Sedgwick, Michele. Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. Intellect, 2007.
Steyerl, Hito. Duty-Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War. Verso, 2017.

💬 What do you think about shifting authorship in curation? Should exhibitions be fixed, or fluid? Let’s discuss in the comments! 💭

Mar 4, 2025