Murmurs of the Invisible: Reconnecting the Physique and the Surroundings
WHYIXD is a Taiwan-based media artwork set up collective that fuses technological sophistication with poetic sensibility to discover the fragile interplay between people and their ecological environment. Established in Taipei in 2011 by Fancy Yeh, Zih Jing Wei, and Jay Chuang, the collective has grown right into a multifaceted crew of round twelve members. Their observe attracts closely on Taiwan’s plentiful ecological textures, translating fleeting, often-overlooked pure indicators—like wind currents, mild variations, or water rhythms—into sensory artworks that problem and increase standard notion. By the mixing of real-time environmental information and digital programming, they develop immersive installations that perform not solely as artwork items, however as experiential conduits linking digital abstraction with lived bodily expertise.
The founders’ backgrounds in artwork, structure, design, and engineering type the structural spine of WHYIXD’s cross-disciplinary strategy. For them, creation is just not a linear act rooted in aesthetic repetition or technical refinement; it’s a continuous means of redefining mediums and conceptual instruments by means of fixed dialogue. Fairly than fixating on a singular creative signature, WHYIXD views every challenge as a possibility to barter the boundaries between totally different vocabularies—supplies, spatial logic, viewer engagement, and even the elemental assumptions about what artwork can or must be. This leads to works that always defy strict categorization, working concurrently as installations, devices, and metaphysical inquiries into how individuals relate to the world round them.
The crew’s evolution traces again to their time as graduate college students at Taipei Nationwide College of the Arts. Immersed in an period marked by an explosion of digital photographs and knowledge, they discovered themselves drawn as an alternative to the tactile, the bodily, and the bodily. Earlier than forming a collective, every member explored various creative languages—from interactive efficiency to chemically reactive supplies. Exhibiting their work internationally, they honed their capability to adapt and iterate installations on-site. These early experiences fostered a shared ambition—not merely to provide particular person items, however to construct an everlasting construction able to supporting formidable, collaborative, and evolving initiatives. Registering formally in 2011, WHYIXD grew to become each a inventive engine and a container for long-term experimentation.
WHYIXD: Between Wind and Mild, Knowledge and Emotion
WHYIXD’s work is usually described by audiences and curators as imbued with a quiet, lyrical high quality—what some have known as “poetry in movement.” However this poetic dimension isn’t a stylistic purpose; it’s a pure end result of their intuitive engagement with the imperceptible dynamics of the world. Their course of usually begins with faint, simply missed cues: the trembling fringe of dusk, a fleeting gust, or the best way mild dances throughout surfaces. These refined influences aren’t essentially seen however are emotionally resonant. WHYIXD channels such indicators into multi-sensory experiences that invite the viewer to maneuver past passive statement and into participatory notion—the place house isn’t just seen however felt.
The collective refers to this overarching ethos as “Future–Nature Synergy.” Removed from being a mere theme or aesthetic motif, it’s a working precept that orients their initiatives towards reestablishing intuitive, bodily relationships with the atmosphere. In a world the place know-how more and more distances individuals from direct contact with nature, WHYIXD’s installations search to reverse that trajectory. Through the use of bodily types powered by digital information, they create areas the place summary technological info turns into tangible, and the place pure processes are reintroduced into on a regular basis notion by means of immersive engagement. The installations function mediating our bodies—areas the place fiction and actuality, emotion and mechanism, coalesce.
Two works exemplify this strategy with readability and depth. Tender Soul of Ocean transforms dwell wind information into luminous waves, inviting viewers to step inside and bodily sense the unseen forces shaping the atmosphere. This piece can’t be captured in static imagery; it have to be walked by means of, breathed in, and skilled as a choreography of sunshine and air. In #outline Moon_, a kinetic construction simulates the moon’s drifting edge within the evening sky—not as a literal illustration however as an invocation of inside stillness. The piece evokes a quiet, meditative presence, asking not for interpretation however for immersion. These works converse much less to decision and extra to resonance, providing the viewers a momentary pause inside the overwhelming rhythm of recent life.
An Structure of Collaboration: Constructing Area for Thought and Experimentation
WHYIXD’s studio is as intentional as their installations, functioning as an architectural extension of their inventive philosophy. Occupying a whole city flooring in Taipei, their open-plan workspace is full of huge communal tables, a compact materials lab for speedy prototyping, and a clear assembly room that anchors the house visually. Each space is interconnected—bodily and conceptually—facilitating a relentless move of dialog, iteration, and shared discovery. This spatial design displays their perception that creativity prospers not in isolation, however by means of sustained interplay, spontaneous trade, and collective presence.
Distraction, an inevitable byproduct of such openness, is just not seen as an issue to eradicate however as a rhythm to barter. Fairly than imposing strict guidelines or spatial separations, WHYIXD depends on an evolving sense of group consciousness. Over years of working collectively, crew members have developed refined, unstated cues—migrating towards quiet corners when focus is required, adjusting quantity or motion organically in response to others. This adaptive rhythm is born from belief and familiarity, not protocol. It underscores the group’s conviction that creation is just not merely activity execution however a residing dialogue formed by empathy, timing, and attunement to at least one one other’s wants.
Materials is one other important collaborator in WHYIXD’s course of. Their initiatives hardly ever middle on a set medium; as an alternative, supplies are chosen in response to the particular conceptual calls for of every work. Steel typically types the structural body, however the expressive content material comes from a continuously shifting vary of textures and surfaces—optical movies, light-responsive plastics, or experimental composites. Taiwan’s vibrant industrial ecosystem performs an important function on this course of. Collaborations with firms like CHENG MEI MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY CORP. and LIQUIDLEDS have allowed the group to discover the narrative potential of supplies usually utilized in manufacturing or know-how. For WHYIXD, these supplies aren’t impartial helps; they’re energetic parts, shaping and being formed by the works they inhabit.
WHYIXD: The Moon as Methodology, the Ocean as Reminiscence
The work that marked a profound inflection level for the collective is #outline Moon_, first created in response to a college fee. Initially supposed as a festive mild piece, the crew as an alternative proposed a totally authentic kinetic set up, and have been granted full inventive freedom. What emerged was a haunting, silent sculpture of movement and light-weight—a suspended type that simulates the moon’s blurred edge utilizing exactly calibrated mechanics and timed illumination. It was a second when WHYIXD moved from responsive design to generative authorship, crafting an art work that embodied their rising creative id. The piece was later acquired by Bauhaus Plaza in Beijing’s 798 Artwork District and has since toured extensively, anchoring their inventive journey in each important and emotional phrases.
From that second onward, the crew dedicated to producing a minimum of one new main work yearly that interrogates the evolving dynamic between human techniques and ecological forces. That self-imposed cadence has change into the heartbeat of their observe, giving rise to a physique of labor that’s as philosophically constant as it’s formally various. Their ongoing investigation into what they name “sensorial reminiscence” finds expression within the evolving sequence Tender Soul of Ocean. First offered in Keelung in 2022, the challenge makes use of wind information to generate shifting mild formations, making a meditative expertise that hyperlinks local weather, reminiscence, and bodily house.
The most recent iteration, Tender Soul of Ocean: Recall, deepens this strategy by integrating generative soundscapes and audience-responsive parts. Developed in collaboration with German sound collective Kling Klang Klong, the piece will premiere on the Ars Electronica Competition in Linz and the Taiwan Sound Artwork Competition. In contrast to earlier variations, this one responds to each environmental information and viewers motion, remodeling viewers into co-creators. The challenge has transcended the boundaries of a single set up to change into an ongoing platform—half local weather elegy, half digital ritual, and half speculative design. For WHYIXD, it’s not merely about creating artworks, however about establishing sensorial frameworks the place reminiscence, matter, and movement merge to counsel new methods of being on this planet.
