https://xinyi.li XINYI LI Tue, 12 Mar 2024 02:05:00 +0000 https://xinyi.li en https://xinyi.li/AI-generated-Speculative-Futures Tue, 12 Mar 2024 01:15:24 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/AI-generated-Speculative-Futures Reading AI-generated Speculative Futures in a Digital Visual Age &nbsp; <img width="4142" height="2100" width_o="4142" height_o="2100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f6bde8094311a77cba629aa8965f584e684f1fab645cfb090c2a1687e2ab98c0/ai-futures-clean.jpg" data-mid="206549770" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f6bde8094311a77cba629aa8965f584e684f1fab645cfb090c2a1687e2ab98c0/ai-futures-clean.jpg" /> <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/53b2de593ae9f75b1545f0d15cb63846a2222ae86ba43bba515ef6441e730396/AI-gen-future-slides-images-Artboard-11.png" data-mid="206549834" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/53b2de593ae9f75b1545f0d15cb63846a2222ae86ba43bba515ef6441e730396/AI-gen-future-slides-images-Artboard-11.png" /> <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ac2e0e58f0f9e9ec1de40f3db2246fc7d306c34e6ca8cc23e833b4f09051f603/AI-gen-future-slides-images-Artboard-14.png" data-mid="206549835" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ac2e0e58f0f9e9ec1de40f3db2246fc7d306c34e6ca8cc23e833b4f09051f603/AI-gen-future-slides-images-Artboard-14.png" /> <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5b7997a98480ad88c5b9ffe51fa6d28d31fbd191dac44adb3acf7bffa8f0c6c4/AI-gen-future-slides-images-Artboard-21.png" data-mid="206549836" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5b7997a98480ad88c5b9ffe51fa6d28d31fbd191dac44adb3acf7bffa8f0c6c4/AI-gen-future-slides-images-Artboard-21.png" /> By reading three types of AI-generated projects as speculative design, this study shifts the focus from the generative model itself to the production and reception of the images. AI-generated images are often praised for their mere existence, their aesthetic, and technical processes. Overshadowed by concerns of copyright and algorithmic bias, they tend to evade scrutiny regarding the underlying concept and human interventions. Existing literature within art and design fields often places AI as either the central subject or a tool serving creative goals. This paper approaches cases from three categories of speculative futures with varying degrees of plausibility that circulate on Instagram, a popular platform among AI content creators that has evolved from a persona-driven to a curation-driven one. I compare the intention of transparent or anonymous authorship, and the affective engagement they evoke, and ethical implications of generating a racial other(@the_brigadoon_dispatch). I examine their relationship with reality, and how they concern past, present, and future. I question whether speculative design, amid ongoing criticisms, is at an “image turn”, flattening literary imagination to visual stimuli for consumption, furthering the ocular-centrism of contemporary media cultures, and aestheticizing the sufferings of the remote other(@snapshots_from_a_near_future). I exemplify image anarchism with how the Great Wall covered by soft and pink inflatables by @aiforarchitects gained radical meanings through reposts on dissident pages. While narratives are not explicit, symbols of patriarchal power and mandate nationalism clashed with imaginative interpretation and connected to sites of history and precedent artistic creations as soft resistance. When the alternative worlds are by no means journalistic but still sensitive to times and responsive to reality, the images forge discourse and deep affective connections. I conclude by connecting to mnemonic imagination’s synthesis of imagining and remembering, speculating how fiction can be used as a method to connect to others’ pasts to seed reciprocal future actions, while letting meaning to emerge through image anarchist circulation, and allowing space for imagination stemming from the tension of reality and fiction.Li, Xinyi. “Reading AI-generated Speculative Futures in a Digital Visual Age” in Amanda Wasielewski (Chair), Panel “Ekphrasis and Artificial Intelligence: Text-to-Image Generation in Theory and Practice.” Paper presented at&nbsp; the College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference, Chicago and Online, February 17, 2024. https://xinyi.li/AI-generated-Speculative-Futures-copy Tue, 12 Mar 2024 02:05:00 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/AI-generated-Speculative-Futures-copy Seeing Through Languages&nbsp; Pedagogical Interventions in Transcultural and Translingual Contexts Using language as a lens to complicate pedagogical practice, my talk questions neutrality and implicit biases in teaching and examines the sometimes unconscious submission to the hegemony of English and the enduring legacies of colonial powers. Language is entangled with the practice of design and teaching as both an instructional medium and material to create with, but it is also burdened with various forms of supremacies. Rey Chow, in her discussion of languaging as a postcolonial experience, describes it as a “double disfigurement,” where language tone, akin to skin tone, is “a defective correction of something already deemed defective”. Speaking the language of whiteness becomes an unattainable proxy to the unattainable whiteness. I will share observations and pedagogical interventions that utilize language as a lens to decenter colonial episteme, and ways of attending to polyphony and dissonance in classrooms as sites of generative learning.Li, Xinyi. “Seeing Through Languages: Pedagogical Interventions in Transcultural and Translingual Contexts” &nbsp;Paper presented at the AIGA National Conference, Design Educators Community Symposium Lens, New York, October 12th, 2023 https://xinyi.li/Mapping-Critique-in-Digital-Space Sat, 25 Feb 2023 00:43:26 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Mapping-Critique-in-Digital-Space Mapping Critique in Digital Space &nbsp; 2020–2022 <img width="2144" height="1200" width_o="2144" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d02ce60f16d73a087cc8c605f8d52b9c9142b5776e743e500a9f41a2f034ea7e/Screen-Shot-2023-02-24-at-7.55.21-PM.png" data-mid="169615872" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d02ce60f16d73a087cc8c605f8d52b9c9142b5776e743e500a9f41a2f034ea7e/Screen-Shot-2023-02-24-at-7.55.21-PM.png" /> <img width="1816" height="1028" width_o="1816" height_o="1028" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9371c41a6603123e430ab8da474da3fbd658d244c49cef971e739229dddab1cc/Screen-Shot-2023-02-24-at-7.55.02-PM.png" data-mid="169615873" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9371c41a6603123e430ab8da474da3fbd658d244c49cef971e739229dddab1cc/Screen-Shot-2023-02-24-at-7.55.02-PM.png" /> tools for questioning the implications of digital tools in the re-turned hybrid design education spaces Derived from autoethnographic observations, this paper reflects on the possibilities, limitations, and implications of digital tools present in between digital, physical, and hybrid teaching. The mapping initiated from a period of fully remote learning and immense reliance on technological structures to share and discuss creative work. Serving not as how-tos but as tools for questioning, the map deconstructs the virtual learning environment prescribed, strategies employed, and conventions formed in digital classrooms. The project asks what conditions the choreography of teaching and learning: When the digital classroom function simultaneously as a space of simulation, space of access and communication, and documentation and representation, what are inherited from the tools and platforms, such as the idea of professionalism? How to frame critique as a social process, when educators and students are navigating the spectrum of private and public, various senses of temporalities and ownership, and issues of accommodation and consent? After returning to in-person learning for one academic year, digital space is still used as an extension of physical classrooms. Digital tools stay in pedagogical practice, and many questions remain relevant. What and how are we making visible or invisible for pedagogical and administrative assessment? What additional learning opportunities does the inclusion of digital platform creates, such as integrating platform literacy, consciousness about viewing condition and representation of work, and creative and subversive use of technology? This paper presents questions and provocations to chart a discussion on how to continue negotiating and situating pedagogical practice in relation to digital tools. Li, Xinyi, Gaia Scagnetti. “Mapping the Critique in Digital Space” in Mid-America College Art Association panel “Digital Tools in Classroom.”Paper presented at the College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference, Online, February 16, 2023 https://xinyi.li/Wall-Table-Lexicon Sat, 25 Feb 2023 01:07:45 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Wall-Table-Lexicon Wall, Table, Lexicon: Publishing as Rehearsal &nbsp; Post-radical Pedagogy at 2022 New York Art Book Fair <img width="1776" height="1184" width_o="1776" height_o="1184" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2511760eac594e62be1e207223aab51b21056e0e5e450fcd943641e1bb067509/2022-10-16-13.53.14.jpg" data-mid="169616252" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2511760eac594e62be1e207223aab51b21056e0e5e450fcd943641e1bb067509/2022-10-16-13.53.14.jpg" /> Post-Radical Pedagogy questions the design of curricular apparatus and explores alternatives to syllabi, grading rubrics, classroom conventions, and presence of authority. Reflecting on the wall with exemplification of the hostile and colonial aspects of administration in education, invited guests and passersby will generate content, which will thicken the walls as an act of on-site publishing and exhibition.Participants can make customized publications printed and bound onsite by photographing sections/pages of the wall. This project sapce is a collaboration between Post-Radical Pedagogy and Thick Press https://xinyi.li/Teaching-Design-in-the-Age-of-Platforms Fri, 16 Jul 2021 04:31:21 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Teaching-Design-in-the-Age-of-Platforms Teaching Design in the Age of Platforms&nbsp; A Framework for Platform Education &nbsp;2020 Situateing a platform education within and beyond communication design to help develop understandings of the mechanisms of platforms, values influenced by platformization, and design implications.&nbsp; ︎ Read More Li, Xinyi. “Teaching Design in the Age of Platforms: A Framework for Platform Education.” &nbsp;Paper presented at Cumulus Conference Design Culture(s), Sapienza University, Rome, June 9–11, 2021 https://xinyi.li/Post-Radical-Pedagogy Mon, 30 May 2022 04:33:04 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Post-Radical-Pedagogy Post-Radical Pedagogy 2020– <img width="5120" height="2880" width_o="5120" height_o="2880" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f31b7a2482443c7b3b6e7d2641f29adefa424d19874f2e4ce13033e5255df99e/Post-RadicalPedagogy_03.jpg" data-mid="144012269" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f31b7a2482443c7b3b6e7d2641f29adefa424d19874f2e4ce13033e5255df99e/Post-RadicalPedagogy_03.jpg" /> Post-Radical Pedagogy was convened as a space to explore, antagonize, challenge, and interrogate institutional values and legacies. “Post” prompts a reflection on what happened, where we are because of, or in spite of an inherited (institutional) pedagogical situation that limits radical potentials, and where we go from here. “Post” is implicitly an acknowledgment of struggle in search of language for articulating what a radical pedagogy in design might entail, where its boundaries are, and where it stakes a position in relation to the many limiting forms of institutional inertia. ︎︎︎Website Co-PI with Nida Abdullah and Chris Lee, 2020– Funded by the Strategic Initiative Grant, Provost’s Office and the Strategic Plan Oversight Committee, Pratt Institute, 2020–2021 https://xinyi.li/Tactic-as-Art Fri, 16 Jul 2021 03:03:04 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Tactic-as-Art Tactic as Art&nbsp; Everyday Digital Resistance and Covid-19 in China &nbsp;2021 <img width="2572" height="1561" width_o="2572" height_o="1561" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/16ecf762efbab748c0c1bfb74e46603d77f8fc6fe8349e12d6247e8653822c7a/image1.png" data-mid="113954548" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/16ecf762efbab748c0c1bfb74e46603d77f8fc6fe8349e12d6247e8653822c7a/image1.png" /> <img width="2605" height="1564" width_o="2605" height_o="1564" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a78652abb20ed98023c1c9c9ae8fda565822700596322cc27afe761f70e26829/image2.png" data-mid="113954550" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a78652abb20ed98023c1c9c9ae8fda565822700596322cc27afe761f70e26829/image2.png" /> <img width="2841" height="1598" width_o="2841" height_o="1598" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ed7d002b821df844512e21efc72cdf040220b9bba9ea0aee1561e257013b16d0/Screen-Shot-2021-07-15-at-11.10.34-PM-copy.png" data-mid="113954638" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ed7d002b821df844512e21efc72cdf040220b9bba9ea0aee1561e257013b16d0/Screen-Shot-2021-07-15-at-11.10.34-PM-copy.png" /> This project uses cases from the early days of the pandemic to frame the concept of everyday digital resistance, unpacking the factors that contributed to its domination.&nbsp;While capitalism prioritizes digital platforms’ marketing values, online platforms are also venues for activism across borders.&nbsp;Everyday digital resistance is characterized as tactics of micro-interventions integrated into life, standing opposite from radical confrontations on the continuum of activism. Often spontaneous and unorganized, the actions collectively create impact and the potential to undermine power, while individuals can remain relatively disguised and unnoticed, which is especially valuable for actors in high-risk contexts. Li, Xinyi. “Framing Everyday Digital Resistance” Message Journal: Covid-19 Special Edition, edited by Colm, Dunne, Åse Huus, Dóra Ísleifsdóttir, Lynda Cooper, Mark James, Peter Jones, and Victoria Squire (2021). University of Plymouth Press, https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/handle/10026.1/18929, February&nbsp; 2022.&nbsp; Li, Xinyi. “Tactic as art: everyday digital resistance and COVID-19 in China.” in Jilly Traganou (Chair), Panel “Affective and Generative Dimensions in Covid 19 Activism.” presented at the College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference, Online, February 10–13, 2021. https://xinyi.li/Emergency-Remote-Teaching Fri, 16 Jul 2021 04:08:14 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Emergency-Remote-Teaching Emergency Remote Teaching&nbsp; Diagrammatic Field Notes &nbsp;2020 <img width="8000" height="4501" width_o="8000" height_o="4501" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/055a796ba00f4bebe646e35301cb106eeef58d1f7f4497cef8e37cbcb0bf8637/diagrams-5-outlined-title_1.jpg" data-mid="113956870" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/055a796ba00f4bebe646e35301cb106eeef58d1f7f4497cef8e37cbcb0bf8637/diagrams-5-outlined-title_1.jpg" /> <img width="8001" height="4500" width_o="8001" height_o="4500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d7ada7b2ad6a7daa610b06b9d6a41a27b872dc766f2d0646117ae58fcc915f12/diagrams-5-outlined-title_2.jpg" data-mid="113956871" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d7ada7b2ad6a7daa610b06b9d6a41a27b872dc766f2d0646117ae58fcc915f12/diagrams-5-outlined-title_2.jpg" /> <img width="8000" height="4500" width_o="8000" height_o="4500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a8918a3ffc2babaa607eb6bf5188f3521a6178da2339027305eb426c8a3bd291/diagrams-5-outlined-title_3.jpg" data-mid="113956872" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a8918a3ffc2babaa607eb6bf5188f3521a6178da2339027305eb426c8a3bd291/diagrams-5-outlined-title_3.jpg" /> <img width="8000" height="4501" width_o="8000" height_o="4501" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ae89571871f2054b46a6d0fff05eb951e25f18f949f39468921e42fb19357ce5/diagrams-5-outlined-title_4.jpg" data-mid="113956873" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ae89571871f2054b46a6d0fff05eb951e25f18f949f39468921e42fb19357ce5/diagrams-5-outlined-title_4.jpg" /> <img width="8000" height="4501" width_o="8000" height_o="4501" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8a4ce94ceb32ad10493ee66655b5568c0c9d8cdbc893718c25827e745ebf5733/diagrams-5-outlined-title_6.jpg" data-mid="113956875" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8a4ce94ceb32ad10493ee66655b5568c0c9d8cdbc893718c25827e745ebf5733/diagrams-5-outlined-title_6.jpg" /> <img width="2732" height="1778" width_o="2732" height_o="1778" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/31b8f8db259616a6533f021cb512fb9d32a7be4522c19f5b3ffe641636aaabc7/2021-02-27-17.02.30-copy.jpg" data-mid="113957439" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/31b8f8db259616a6533f021cb512fb9d32a7be4522c19f5b3ffe641636aaabc7/2021-02-27-17.02.30-copy.jpg" /> Through a practice of diagramming and drawing on techniques of annotation, concept mapping, causal loop mapping, this project attempts to document, contextualize, and unravel the dynamics and spaces of emergency remote teaching and implicit values embedded in the platforms used. Published by The Teachers Project, Criticisms on Design Pedagogy Issue 01 Summer 2020 ︎︎︎Read it https://xinyi.li/Data-Beyond-Vision Mon, 30 May 2022 04:18:28 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Data-Beyond-Vision Data Beyond Vision&nbsp; 2019–2020 <img width="2592" height="1728" width_o="2592" height_o="1728" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/394142bf1f74ffdb03d24fca9becafaa03cd00db15ad44f9b5fa12428465a0ef/dataphys_dh19_poster-003small.jpg" data-mid="144011821" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/394142bf1f74ffdb03d24fca9becafaa03cd00db15ad44f9b5fa12428465a0ef/dataphys_dh19_poster-003small.jpg" /> <img width="3068" height="2070" width_o="3068" height_o="2070" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/057b881b9d472b4bf8cb862ac7eaafbd4fa34f77cf2560fca6dbbb71c0d69c1f/Screen-Shot-2022-05-30-at-12.29.58-AM.png" data-mid="144011832" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/057b881b9d472b4bf8cb862ac7eaafbd4fa34f77cf2560fca6dbbb71c0d69c1f/Screen-Shot-2022-05-30-at-12.29.58-AM.png" /> Published by Startwords, Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton, issue 1&nbsp;October 2020 ︎︎︎Read it Koeser, Rebecca Sutton, Nick Budak, Xinyi Li, and Gissoo Doroudian. “Data Beyond Vision.” Startwords 1, no.1 (2020): https://startwords.cdh.princeton.edu/issues/1/data-beyond-vision Koeser, Rebecca Sutton, Nick Budak, Xinyi Li, and Gissoo Doroudian. &nbsp;“Data Beyond Vision.” Installation presented at the Association for Computers and the Humanities Conference (ACH2019), Pittsburgh, July 23–26, 2019. Koeser, Rebecca Sutton, Nick Budak, Xinyi Li, and Gissoo Doroudian. “Data Beyond Vision.” Poster presented at the Digital Humanities Conference 2019 (DH2019), Utrecht, July 9–12, 2019. https://doi.org/10.34894/LXZFF5 https://xinyi.li/Bio Mon, 02 Mar 2015 15:44:23 +0000 XINYI LI https://xinyi.li/Bio Xinyi Li (she/her) is an educator and designer trespassing and dwelling on multiple thresholds. Her practice includes pedagogical expression, scholarship performance, diagrammatic media, and visual opacity. Her recent work concerns digital resistance and creative subversions, and language and pedagogy in transnational and transcultural contexts.&nbsp; She is an Associate Professor in the Undergraduate Communications Design Department at Pratt Institute.&nbsp;With the group post-radical pedagogy, she questions the values and legacies that shape design pedagogical practice. Previously, she collaborated on Digital Humanities scholarly projects, explored issues of interdisciplinary collaborative research, and taught workshops providing design and thinking tools to facilitate meaningful visual production for humanistic knowledge at the Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton University. Through her practice, she has engaged in design research for healthcare experience and interaction design. ︎ Get in touch