CV
LIN CUIXI 林翠西
Artist and Director
Los Angeles, California
cuixi.portal@gmail.com · Instagram @lin.nil.lin
Artist and director working across participatory performance, speculative enterprises, games, and social and technological systems. Her practice creates situations in which people inhabit, negotiate, and sometimes disrupt existing structures.
Cofounder and codirector of _ao_ao_ing, a Shanghai based performance collective whose regular activities ran from 2018 to 2024. Long term projects initiated within the collective continue alongside her independent practice.
EDUCATION
2018 · MFA Theatre Directing, East 15 Acting School, University of Essex, with Merit
2016 · BS Computational Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), minor in Theatre
SELECTED ARTISTIC WORKS
Linzi's Party
Relational Practice · Supply Chains · Creative Coding
2022 to present · Initiated and led by Cuixi, with _ao_ao_ing
An ongoing collaboration with Linzi, a party supply wholesaler in Shanghai, that evolved from a real trading relationship into a shared artistic practice. The project moves goods between wholesale markets, livestream platforms, and art spaces. Cuixi designed and programmed a custom point of sale system that prints receipts as artworks.
Selected iterations
2026 · de Appel Kiosk, Albert Cuypmarkt, Amsterdam. A market stall with goods from Yiwu, labeled with their wholesale and European retail prices.
2022 · ¥2.50, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. Self service shop, auction, and street vending.
2022 · 618 Livestream Supersale, Taobao Live. A live shopping broadcast during China's midyear shopping festival, following the Shanghai lockdown.
WeaverGirl Project
Speculative Enterprise · Emotional Labor · Computer Vision
2019 to 2022 · Initiator and programmer, with _ao_ao_ing
A speculative situation staged through WeaverGirl™, a fictional emotion AI company marketing smile detection and chatbot products to workers whose jobs demand emotional labor. Cuixi programmed the facial expression and emotion monitoring systems and chatbots used alongside fictional corporate narratives, product demonstrations, and performances.
Selected iterations
2022 · Master, Please Weave Your Maid. Chatbot temple and eight hour livestream, Raiden INST, Cryptovoxels.
2021 · Consul General's Wife. Live emotion monitoring and fictional product launch, Project Terrasse, Residence of the Consul General of France, Shanghai.
2020 · WeaverGirl. Performance installation, InFLESH, Shanghai.
Mission Must Be Done
Alternate Reality Game · Logistics · Collective Resistance
2022 · Cocreator and game codesigner, with Xie Yi and _ao_ao_ing
An alternate reality game modeled on the logic of platform delivery work and its systems of assignment, tracking, and control. Recruited by a fictional AI delivery company, participants transported parcels between more than ten art spaces in Hangzhou, following instructions through a custom web application. Staged under China's 2022 pandemic restrictions and surveillance, the game ended with couriers turning against the system that directed them and gathering in secret in an underground dance hall.
Launched on Singles' Day (November 11, China's largest online shopping festival) for City Run 2022, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou.
Violent West Lake
Card Game · Collectives · Political Ecology
2024 · Cocurator and game designer, with _ao_ao_ing
A participatory card game for fourteen artist collectives around West Lake, Hangzhou. Found elements of the lake's ecological frictions became guiding characters, leading each group to confront tensions within its own coexistence and with the lake's nonhuman inhabitants.
Part of Is Shanshui Useful Today?, a yearlong program engaging with the Chinese landscape tradition, Positive Art Research Center, Hangzhou. Game, exhibition, and publication.
SELECTED PERFORMANCES AND EXHIBITIONS
2026 · Monsoon. Handmade lanterns and public lantern making workshops staged as live art. PLOT, Chinatown, Los Angeles.
2024 · DANCE ME! CHINA. Codirector and performer with She She Pop, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Shanghai International Dance Center.
2023 to 2024 · Songs of the Feetless Fish. Cocreator and performer, _ao_ao_ing, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai.
2023 · Underground Fairies. Codirector and performer, text by Satoko Ichihara, Theatre YOUNG, Shanghai.
2020 · Hi! Hi! Hi! Codirector and performer, Power Station of Art, Shanghai.
2019 · Shanghai Biennale City Projects: Our Places, Power Station of Art, Shanghai.
RESIDENCIES, AWARDS AND GRANTS
2022 · Artist residency, Humanities Research Center, Duke Kunshan University, with _ao_ao_ing.
2022 · UK China Collaboration Funding, You Are Deviated. Research and development on remote connection through sensors carried over long distances.
2022 · Sanya Youth Art Award, nominee, WeaverGirl Project.
2019 · Ibsen Scholarship, Norway. First Chinese recipient.
2019 · Performing Arts and Technology Visiting Program, Goethe Institut, Munich and Weimar.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND TALKS
2025 · “You Can't See What a Fish Sees.” Interview by Georgia Petersen, Theater, Yale School of Drama / Duke University Press.
2024 · Is Shanshui Useful Today? A Year of Questions in Hangzhou. Feature on Violent West Lake, The Art Journal (艺术新闻).
2023 · KeDhangKhek Newspaper. Three special editions, Rockbund Art Museum.
2022 · Project Terrasse @ 1431 Huaihai Middle Road. Art book, Positive Art Research Center.
2022 · China Now Dialogues: Emerging Talents, British Council.
2020 · Talk on TikTok templates and virality, Gob Squad Digital Residency.
CURATORIAL AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS
2026 · te editions, New York / Online. Cocurator of Spinal Memory, an eight session online lecture series on how humans control, domesticate, and use animal bodies, and what other relationships with them might become possible.
2026 · PLOT, Los Angeles. Cohost, gathering of Sinophone art book publishers during LA Art Book Fair.
2019 to present · Independent workshops. Facilitator of more than fifty workshops in devising, walking performance, and collaborative creation.
2020 · Nanjing University. Course leader, Collaborative Creation, Department of Art.
TECHNICAL PRACTICE AND LANGUAGES
Creative coding: Python, JavaScript, p5.js, HTML/CSS, C++, Arduino
Computer vision: YOLOv8
Interactive and real time media: Unreal Engine, TouchDesigner, OBS, QLab
Media production: Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator
Languages: Mandarin (native), English (fluent)