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Vivian Xu

Assistant Professor of Media and Arts at Duke Kunshan University
DKU Faculty

Selected Presentations & Appearances


Traces, Imprints, and Ghostly Presence: Excavating Spaces In-Between · November 16, 2025 Keynote/Named Lecture ArtNow Magazine, Westbund Art Fair Main Venue
Ecologies - SuperNature · 2022 Invited Talk IDEAT Magazine
Research-Based Practice / Practice-Driven Research · 2021 Invited Talk Experimental Arts, Central Academy of Fine Art
Trigger: Artistic Methodology · 2021 Instructional Course, Workshop, or Symposium Power Station of Art
Inside Dogma Lab · 2021 Invited Talk ArtSci Salon and Leonardo Laser Talks, University of Toronto
Skin Series · 2021 Invited Talk Art Laboratory Berlin
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Creative Industries · 2021 Invited Talk Luca School of the Arts (Belgium)
Co-Evolution of 2 AI's - Inter-World-View (World Young Scientist Summit) · 2020 Keynote/Named Lecture China Academy of Art and Zhejiang Association of Science and Technology, Wenzhou, China
The Silkworm Project and Other Works - On the Nature of Nature, Making Nature: Talks on Design and the Wondrous · 2020 Invited Talk Sino-French Design Week, Ponidou and West Bund Museum
Education + Media - 6th Annual Intermedia Festival: International Academic Seminars · 2020 Keynote/Named Lecture China Academy of Art, Ningbo, China
The Silkworm Project and Other Works · 2019 Invited Talk Matters of Activity, Cluster of Excellence, Humboldt University
The Artist-Silkworm Interface: The Agricultural Treatise as Source and Scrutiny for Creating an Artist Book · 2019 Invited Talk Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Art x Tech - Australia-China Youth Dialogue · 2019 Invited Talk Australian Embassy, Shanghai
Future Materials and Bio Design · 2018 Invited Talk BioFiction, Chronus Art Center
The Silkworm Project - Nonhuman Subjectivities · 2017 International Meeting or Conference Art Laboratory Berlin, Art Laboratory Berlin
The Silkworm Project - NeoLife · 2015 International Meeting or Conference SymbioticA, University of Western Australia
Biological Variation and Art Practice · 2014 Invited Talk Rockbund Museum, Rockbund Museum

Service to the Profession


Reviewer - Art Papers · 2025 Editorial Activities SIGGRAPH
Co-Lead - Art, Media & Cybernetics Working Group · November 2024 Other American Society of Cybernetics

Co-Initiator and co-lead of the Art, Media, and Cybernetics Working Group at the American Society of Cybernetics with Benjamin Bacon.

Reviewer · 2024 Editorial Activities Technoetic Arts Journal
Research Member - Ambient Intelligence Research Cluster · 2024 Other V2_Lab for the Unstable Media
Research Member - XResearch Cluster · 2022 Other V2 Lab for the Unstable Media

The XResearch Cluster is led by Associate Prof. Benjamin Bacon (DKU) and Director of Lab Boris Debackere (V2). It is a collaboration between the Design, Technology, and Radical Media Labs and V2_Lab for the Unstable Media. The cluster's research focuses in investigations at the intersection between Extended Reality and art.

Juror - Hyundai Blue Prize: Art + Tech · 2022 Other Hyundai Motorstudios, Hyundai Motorstudios (Beijing)
Juror - Hyundai Blue Prize: Art+Tech · 2021 Other Hyunday Motorstudios, Beijing

Theme: Disruptive Futures