Computation rehearsal
Ruiqi Zhang
2025 JUNE 18 - 29 | Wednesday - Friday ,1PM - 7PM. Saturday - Sunday, 1PM - 6PM.
39 Keppel Rd, #03-10 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065
brief
Computation Rehearsal presents Ruiqi Zhang’s recent artistic practice, including a simulation project in collaboration with artist Weitong Sun, alongside an animation clip generated by algorithms. These works explore the layered meanings of computational language, unfolding in the form of improvisational theater that envisions an alternative animistic future shaped by technological acceleration.
In the exhibition, the twelve principles of animation are restructured, liberated from the constraints of human precision editing, and returned to a primordial state of behavioral and environmental exploration. Unpredictable movements are executed by code and simple brains in Unity. Spirit-channeling ravens, sentient mining machines, ceaselessly hovering drones, and the corpse of a deer are conceived as autonomous characters; each with their own backstory, personality, and behavior state. They operate through unique internal logics and are treated as independent agents. This theatrical structure serves as an epistemology, a way of seeing and understanding that opens new possibilities for imagining post-human sociopolitical, cultural, and speculative modes within computational environments.
Artist statement
My art believes in the importance of building connections between unrelated things and helps us understand more complex realities, beyond the intelligence of ChatGPT. As a first-generation immigrant, I was born and raised in China and later relocated to the United States. The experience of cross-cultural migration deeply influenced my sense of identity, behavior, and worldview. At the same time, as part of the screen generation, I grew up alongside short videos, social media, and video games, placing greater emphasis on how to define online identity and tell stories through emerging technology and media strategies. As a media artist, my story represents a younger generation of internet-active, diasporic Chinese—more broadly, it reflects how a player, a user, and a resident of the post-globalized world navigate their surroundings. My practice addresses new thinking, controversies, and phenomena around emerging technologies, particularly focusing on people's ability to read complex information and how to use this mechanism to tell more compelling contemporary stories—immigrant, cross-cultural, or mythical narratives.
My practice has become increasingly drawn to exploring the intersection of art and coding, translating language and research into visual forms of screen-based reading. I see game engines evolving into compelling narrative containers that naturally connect to visual culture and critical thinking. My workflow embraces research-based and interdisciplinary methodologies, combining dystopian awareness, reflections on the literati spirits, post-internet cultural studies, game development, and computer science into something experimental and open-ended.
BIO of Artist
Ruiqi Zhang
Ruiqi Zhang (b. Liaoyang, China) is a multimedia artist who works with moving images, video installations, and game engines to explore the complexity of emerging technology and computation as an alternative narrative container. His work highlights the ability of people today to read complex information and its impact on our daily lives while forming new modes of politics, aesthetics, and consciousness. He earned an MFA in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is an Assistant Professor of Digital Storytelling at the University of Missouri.
Website: https://zhang-ruiqi.com/ | Instagram: @zhangr6_
Weitong Sun (Collaborated Artist)
Weitong “ShanMu” Sun was born in Jinan City, Shandong province, China. She is an experimental artist specializing in Human-computer interaction, game development, Brain-computer interface, and Installation art. ShanMu has experience as a lab assistant at the Human-Computer Interactive Laboratory of the University of Delaware. Her work explores the methodology of programming languages, deep learning algorithms, and potential ways of communication between humans and machines. She earned an MFA in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Arts and holds a BS in computer science with minors in Mathematics and Arts from the University of Delaware.
Website: https://sensenoteverything.zip | Instagram: @weitong_sun
