Shinka（Qinhua Yang）
Ph.D media artist

Shanghai(CN)Tokyo(JP)

Fields:
Media Art;Digital Art;Public Art;

EDUCATION:
BA-Shanghai University(Shanghai,CN)
MFA-Tama Art University（Tokyo,JP）,Media Art；
Ph.D-Tama Art University（Tokyo,JP), Fine Art Study

^{Current status:}
Shanghai University,Shanghai Fine Art Academy(CN)
--Research Fellow
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About
Born in 1992, China. The artist focuses on capturing the fictionality hidden within reality through the use of digital technology. In recent years, the research has centered on image generation through machine vision and the underlying mechanisms of capital operation and labor, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence and neoliberal economics. By intentionally intervening in machines and systems, the artist explores issues related to image generation, labor exhaustion, and women's identity from the perspective of machines. The work aims to reconstruct the relationship between human reality and fiction within non-human visual landscapes.

Work has been showed in YCC Yokohama(JP), 3331 Chiyoda Art Centre(JP), Honggah Museum(Taiwan), Time Museum (Chengdu), Power Station of Art (Shanghai), and other galleries and institutions;

Full Info

Recent ProJECTS

Taming the Vista (2023-)

photo credit by DAC

Video Installation
dimension variable, 2023

Single-channel video presenting version
<Taming the Vistas: Futile Outlines>(09’36)

Taming the Vista is an artistic experiment based on computer vision technology. This project uses data labeling software to assign subjective "emotional labels" to everyday landscapes, attempting to challenge the mission of machines to "deliver justice." By generating visual reports, it aims to provide an opportunity for the audience to contemplate whether the "eye of the machine" truly discerns reality or is merely an illusion. In this way, the project seeks to provoke a dialogue about the limitations and subjectivity of machine perception.

exhibition history:
‘Runoff：Art and Education Arena’ Yuan Museum, Chongqing ,2023;
‘Artificial Reality- The Real Deals of Lies’，WATOWA GALLERY/THE BOX TOKYO，Tokyo,Japan ,2023;
‘A-Real Engine’-18th Digital Art Festival Taipei, Digital Art Centre, Taiwan,2023;
‘Atami Art Grant’- Voyage Atami, Article Atelier & Gallery, Atami-shi, Japan ,2023;

screening history:
ARTS COUNCIL KOREA -DAFTxARKO screening project,2023
Shanghai Film Art Center -FLARE2023

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Face to Face-Controlnet (2023)

Digitalprint
dimension variable, 2023

Video Installation
dimension variable, 2023

In this data-driven initiative where ‘correctness’ is the sole objective, a deceptive capability has emerged. Using the Stable Diffusion ControlNet workflow, groups of women are generated based on the same facial contours of an Asian woman, each striving to display her smile in everyday scenarios. This project begins with an exploration of the multiple meanings of recognizing a face from both technical and cultural perspectives, hinting at an industrialized mechanism operating between aesthetics, technology, and reality: here, there are no individuals, only images.

exhibition history:
‘rising field karuizawa’ Epochs-music&art collective, karuizawa,2023
‘Face toface.controlnet’,Llab,lNlanli, xiamen,china,2023

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Convert Operation (2022.2023)

Video Installation
dimension variable, 2023

Single-channel video presenting version
<The black hole: a story of a man and an eye>(2022，04’56)

Vision is the act of inflicting violence, but it is also the bearer of violence. -- More often than we "see", it is the thing that is “exhibited" to us. Because of this natural connection between the eye and objects, when an eye that does not exist is generated, its sight and the reality space are pulled out of the black hole of emptiness. And in this work. These irregularly shaped "black holes" also become the clearest clue to identify these AI generated eyes which are so real at the first glance.
For the dataset used for AI training, I collected a large number of photos of eyes from the Internet (same technique as in the previous work). These close-up images of the eyes used for commercial purposes are all extremely similar. The final generated eyes contain four layers of sight: the first, the sight of the model her/him self when the model is photographed; the second, the sight made up with the product/text when the photo is used in advertising or news; the third, the sight between the screen and me when I use the internet to search for these images; and the fourth, the AI generated infinite sight, which is generated by the machine and looks out into the universe, and never blink.

The text of the video is based on openai/GTP-2 technology. Except for the opening line "I saw a man", the rest of the line is all generated by AI. The contents are illogical but extremely poetic, and most interestingly, The are mostly related to a crime scene. The author has not changed anything of the generated text (except for obvious grammatical mistakes), but only re-orgonized the sequence to create a story- a man who was born at the end of the world, a man who was lost in the murder of others and in his own death, a man who was a man. And all these scenes are watched and spoke out by constantly distorted eyes., which makes it not only a story of a man, but also a story of an eye —— and all the storie are just a meaningless and time-killing play.

exhibition history:
‘EXPERIMENTAL FILM AND VIDEO 2023’CICA MUSEUM，Korea,2023
‘Face toface.controlnet’,Llab,lNlanli, xiamen,china,2023

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Soft Revolution(2019/2024)

mix media
dimension variable, 2024

Exercise equipment symbolizes the emphasis and shaping of the body and health,while this emphasis is often external, artificial, and may even be a departure from nature. This work explores the relationship between the body's natural attributes and its artificial shaping, while also offering a reflection on the commodification of health.

exhibition history:
‘Safety Training’ ,Blockhouse, Tokyo.2019
‘TERRITORY’, Online Exhibition by SlimeEngine, Shanghai,2020
‘INDEFINITE’, Kiyoshi Art Space, Tokyo,2021

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Forms and Models of Training (2020-2021)

mix media
dimension variable, 2020/2021

Forms and Models of Training uses AI StyleGAN, an artificial intelligence technology, to analyze thousands of released photographs of Olympic medalists from the Internet Archive, which have a very high degree of anti-duplication in their screen composition, and ultimately generates an infinite number of non-existent medalists.

The generated fictional medalists maintain a similar screen composition, posture and facial expression to the original images, and can be said to be models that embody the intangible concept of "victory.

This process of repeating the same thing in an unhurried manner can be called "training" for machine learning, just as athletes repeat their daily practice to win medals.

Compared to the cost of producing a real medalist, a medalist generated by AI technology could be more efficient, more reliable, and more useful. Isn't this the kind of rule that should be paramount in today's production activities?

exhibition history:
‘Triangular Relationships’ 3331 Art Chiyoda, Tokyo,2020
‘PANACEA’, Calm&Punk Gallery, Tokyo,2021
‘Guerrillas in Flatland―Emerging Curator Project’ Shanghai Modern Art Museum, Shangai,2021
‘Man-made Landscape ― Hotel Asia Project ’Chengdu Time Art Museum, Chengdu,2022

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The Burrow(2019)

single-channel video
04’56,2019

Kafka's novel "The Burrow" begins with the statement, "I have completed the construction of my burrow and it seems to be successful." The novel explores the fragmented thoughts of an unknown creature, revealing its self-satisfaction and scrutiny of its burrow, a seemingly perfect hidden system. Driven by anxiety about external threats, the creature continuously reinforces its burrow, seeking reassurance and identity through constant vigilance.

In the artwork, the author uses an AI face-swapping app to replace faces of female models in commercial videos with their own. These models, embodying idealized roles, blur individual differences. The protagonist hides behind these artificial doppelgängers, where identity becomes ambiguous. The doppelgängers perfectly respond to the external gaze, yet the only escape from this gaze is to become it.

exhibition history:
“Alternative Kyoto―Imagination as a Form of ‘Capital’”, Art Festival in Kyoto，2022
IMAGINARY LINE” Shibuya CONTACT, Tokyo,2023
‘Face toface.controlnet’,Llab,lNlanli, xiamen,china,2023

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Past Projects(2017-2019)

Review: Metamorphosis Divide

2017-2019

Related Solo Exhibition: Metamorphosis Divede(2018)

Orgahaus Art Space（Chongqing,China）

work list:

Asagaya-Gunkanjima Transport Project(2017,2018)
Only Black Sees Me(2018)
World-Wide Shrine(2018)
Masashiro Yamamoto(2018)

Introductuon

This exhibition features four work completed during 2017-2019: "World-wide Shrine," "Asagaya - Gunkanjima Tranport Project," and "Mashiro YAMASHITA," as well as the ongoing project "Only Black Sees Me ." The content of these works addresses themes such as artificially created and commodified history, consumer landscapes, portions of reality uploaded and preserved on the internet as "layers," and traces of existence suspended between systems and version discrepancies. In these video works, such content is reduced to more entertaining, single-layered images, with the volume of reality/actuality extracted and separated from its context, history, and intent. This results in a flattened reality suspended above the real.

The so-called "post-human era" precisely hinges on a shift where reality as a form of existence and human agency yield to a different paradigm. In other words, it is now possible to imagine a presence based on the abandonment of inherent presence. Meanwhile, if we attribute the ambiguous and distorted visual language to "loss of detail," entering this world implies the necessity to abandon detail, or the reality of detail itself. This creates a more efficient worldview—where the loss of detail signifies lightness, and lightness requires much less memory space than "reality," potentially serving as a survival strategy in the future. As for 3D models, the loss of detail is simply due to insufficient scanning, reflecting the contemporary way people view the world: rapidly, indifferently, in bulk, and with low focus. The result of mass production is a functional suspension, and the consequence of this suspension is replacement by spectacle—the content of some of these works subtly mirrors this mechanism.

In summary: “This society will eventually be erased from computer memory.” This quote from Guy Debord's 1992 French edition preface to "The Society of the Spectacle" encapsulates the overt worldview that runs through these scattered works.

by artist

Related Work

Asagaya-Gunkanjima Delivery Project (2017,2018)

mix media
dimension varieble,2017

Hashima, also known as Gunkan-jima, which means the Warship Island in Japanese. As the coal production base in the early 19th century, it was once an island with a population density 9 times of that in Tokyo, before the island was deserted due to the decline of coal-mining industry in the mid-20th century. In 2009, Gunkanjima was developed as a tourist destination by the local government, launching a tourist trip called “Gunkanjima Tour”, including stops such as sea cruise, souvenir sale, and a tour into the ruins. Although Gunkanjima is a history, it is not of the past. Rather, it is a fast-forwarded sketch of the future.

On Google Earth, this commercialized history becomes an even more enter- taining image. In this artwork, the artist transformed the real streets he walks on into a model with 3D scanning software, so as to realize a massive transfer and elimination of real life on the computer. As a realistic prophecy of fast produc- tion leading to fast die-out, Gunkanjima becomes the end point of daily life in this work. Meanwhile, if we attribute the ambiguous, distorted visual language of Google Earth to “the loss of detail”, to enter this world means to discard details (i.e. the reality as detail) and thus shape a more effective world view. The loss of detail means lightweight, and lightweight means it needs a smaller storage space compared to “the reality”, which will no doubt be seen as a survival strategy in the future world. The lightweight for reality is a attened cube in the end, a sus- pension after an object loses functional volume. The oating streets and the com- mercialized Gunkanjima in this work are the vivid re ection of such mechanism.

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Only Black Sees Me(2018)

mix media
dimension varieble,2018

Importing your own face into the game character creation software and generating your own avatar is not a difficult task nowadays. Just give yourself full control to the software, it can generate various emotions for you just by clicking the mouse. And those emotions which can not be generated, for example, the sadness, they can only be seen by black.

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World-wide Shrine(2018)

mix media
dimension varieble,2018

The process of this video is :
Step1 : search ‘ buddha manufacture’ in search engine
Step2 : find a reachable buddha statues factory and go there to 3D-scan the Buddha statues;
Step3 : put the 3D data on the surface of its original picture and let it float above its image, and thus we can see the inside of a ‘buddha statue’ —— it’s just as empty as it should to be.

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Masashiro Yamamoto(2018)

digital print,led display
dimension varieble,2018

This work was inspired by a game the artist occasionally plays when bored. One day, while "traveling" using Google Street View, the artist stumbled upon the trace of someone named Masahiro Yamamoto, who had uploaded the Street View they were exploring. In this Street View, Masahiro Yamamoto is seen standing in a corner, holding his smartphone and taking 360-degree photos. During the few seconds he was rotating, the reality of that moment was compressed into a panoramic photo by his smartphone camera and uploaded to a cloud server.

In the folded panoramic photo, two bulging spots appear in the middle of the sky and the ground, marking where Masahiro Yamamoto was standing. His shadow is sometimes folded into the photo's seams. Upon visiting his personal website, the artist discovered that Masahiro Yamamoto loves touring Japanese temples and actively uploads photos. His real name and identity remain unknown, but the fact that he uploaded those photos to the Street View cloud server is certain.

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DEAR(2019)

mix media
dimension varieble,2019

In many places, whenever a purchase is made, customers are asked to provide their email address for membership sign-up. By the time this project began, the artist had accumulated over 4,000 emails from various brands and shops in their junk mail folder, all starting with 'Dear Ms. Yang.' This inspired the artist to create an avatar named 'Dear,' using their own body as a model, and let her inhabit an abandoned city constructed entirely from those junk emails. The screen device is programmed with a robotic hand that writes the name on a piece of paper each time an email falls to the ground.

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Next life Centre(2019)

interactive installation
dimension varieble,2019

The Next Life Centre is a five-story building designed to provide for all your needs in the next life. The ground floor features a meeting hall (spectacle), while the other floors include a next-life transmission center (sacrifice), a museum (protocol), a spectacle theater (game), a rooftop cemetery (reality), and an underground supermarket.

Visitors can explore this architecture through the website, watch performances, and even chat with the AI staff.

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lastupdate 2024—07/23