Artist Xin Liu Gives Voice To Aging Satellites In Orbit

Navigating art, science and technology, Xin Liu explores themes of memory, intimacy and the human condition in an age of machines and outer space. With a background in mechanical engineering, interaction design and media arts, her practice often involves poetic experiments that span disciplines, from wearable devices and performances to biotechnology and cosmic probes. Her latest digital artwork, “NOAA: A Fall Towards Home”, commissioned by South Korea’s Hyundai Artlab, invites online viewers on a clickable journey from the point of view of three anthropomorphized satellites – NOAA-15, 18 and 19 – each imbued with their own histories, technical quirks and emotional temperaments. Influenced by the final transmissions of real decommissioned NOAA weather satellites, Liu crafted stories shaped by their actual history, flight paths and malfunctions, as they watch “home” from afar.

The first to launch and to fade, “NOAA-15: The Quiet Elder” drifts through space like a contemplative stargazer, its aging sensors tinted with wonder as it lovingly observes earth from afar, content simply to bear witness. “NOAA-18: The Devoted Idealist” orbits with purpose and hope, tirelessly chronicling the planet’s rhythms as if each data point could prove its worth and preserve a legacy born from loss. “NOAA-19: The Loving Custodian” is the satellite that fell and rose again, transforming fragility into devotion as it tenderly double-checks its siblings’ work, watching over earth with quiet care. With this new creation, Liu turns our gaze back to earth, exploring the existential solitude and quiet observation of these aging machines as metaphors for diasporic longing, technological obsolescence and the search for connection and purpose. In this conversation, she reflects on her origins and becoming an artist.

You were born in 1991 in Karamay, Xinjiang. Tell me about your background and how you became interested in art.

I grew up in Karamay, Xinjiang, which is a small, remote city in northwestern China. My parents are both surgeons. When I was a kid, I really loved math, physics, chemistry. No one I knew was remotely working in the creative industry; everyone was a doctor or working on the oil fields or for the government. I never thought of the possibility of becoming an artist until very much later in life. I think it’s common for children who did not grow up in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing to think that art is a luxury. I only had access to art when I went to college, and for the first time entered an art museum of any sort. I decided to study art after my undergrad. During college, I took a second degree in digital art, mostly because I was interested in gaming. And that was also when social media started to appear in China. I wanted to understand this new industry and the way self-expression was enabled through the Internet. After a couple of years learning game design and interaction design, I just got really hooked with all the possibilities in the arts and ended up applying for grad school.

What did you learn from your time at Rhode Island School of Design and MIT? Why did you decide to study both art and engineering, why do you view yourself not only as an artist but also as an engineer, and what role do research and experimentation play in your artworks?

At Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), I had to start from scratch. I had to 100 % learn art history myself because all of my classmates and professors were way ahead of me. I spent most of my first year in the library just reading books on art history and modern and contemporary art. I remember I had this “wow” moment with Duchamp’s work. After RISD, I ended up going back to the tech field because I never saw myself going to grad school to become a professional artist; it was rather a desire to have a comprehensive education for myself. I think it’s a pity nowadays that we have all these disciplines that are polishing one’s knowledge and ability, but diminishing the potential of individuals to understand the world through various aspects, including technology, art, philosophy, science and even fiction. Education is the soil for my mind, for the construction of my world. I’ve never felt like there was a distinct separation between art and engineering. They are asking the same questions about what it means to be human in the 21st century. And how do we reconcile all the varieties of practices that take risks, make guesses, act on the edge, iterate and, ultimately, take a leap of faith to create an experiment to propose a theory and to create a piece of art?

Describe to me your artistic language and philosophy. What is the most important consideration when you first start creating an artwork? Do you know exactly how it will look like when you start, or are you surprised by the end result?

When I first start creating artwork, I often start with a moment that I want to achieve. I think film might be a big influence for me, as storytelling and a moment in a story that we reach is something I seek in my art: a concentration of energy and time you can capture in a sculpture, painting or installation, and slowly you sense it going through you even after you have left the exhibition. That’s really what I’m looking for. I don’t really know how the work will end up visually or the format of the entire work until much later on, in most cases. However, the sensation that I talked about and the moment that I tried to create do stay truthful to themselves, from the beginning to the end.

Why do you choose to live and work in London?

I work on probably two or three projects actively at any given moment, and probably two or three group shows every month. I moved to London because my partner’s new job relocated us, but I’m also very excited to live in Europe for the first time. I grew up in China and I’ve studied and worked in the US for almost a decade. Europe is a new, exciting change, and I’ve been learning a lot already.

Tell me about your work with decommissioned NOAA weather satellites.

This work actually started in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. Living in New York City, I climbed to the rooftop of my Brooklyn apartment. I used a self-made antenna out of broomsticks to receive data from remote satellites. For me, in many ways, technology and innovation are like the satellites that orbit earth really far away, but that are continuously watching and taking care of us and providing access and connectivity. When I talked with the team at BMW about the IPA system and the iDrive system, I learned that the intelligence and technology are really about companionship. I immediately thought about what I did during the pandemic with the satellites because that was my only activity and entertainment during the lockdown, when I climbed to the roof and tried to connect to remote things, which were satellites that had been decommissioned for already 20 years, but that kept orbiting the earth to bring data back. Barely anyone could hear them except for amateur artists like myself. I thought how I could push further on that and how perhaps my attempt to connect could bring some emotions to them or allow for creativity. That’s why I imagined a wild dance for them and the video is actually a live simulation that I wrote for the algorithm. The little squares represent vehicles that are being pushed and pulled by the planets that are represented by circles. They give these trajectories that I imagined, where they’re hopefully having their own dance while watching us.

What were the biggest challenges in the process of making “NOAA”, a commission by BMW first presented in Shanghai, where you were asked to propose a view on the future of AI and automobiles?

There is a sound piece in the background and there’s noise that is actually data from satellites in space. In the meantime, I think people see technology as providing really exciting opportunities for the future, but also as something a bit intimidating if they don’t have the background or knowledge themselves. So for this piece, I tried to make an emotional connection and help people to go to a place that is a little bit farther away from this really exciting metropolitan city. The way I hope that I’ve managed to do that was to invite my husband to whistle a song that I really like and that’s going around in this space.