Hanran Ma

2021

Result Fairy

结果仙

Result Deity

type: interactive installation / AR application / video essay
medium: computer program, smartphone-based AR application, interactive installation, video essay
tools: Unity, Arduino, Max/MSP, 3D printing, AR, C++
keywords: computational folk belief, programmed deity, interactive ritual, technical shrine, random result, AR charm
external video link: watch video documentation

description

Result Fairy is a multimedia work composed of a computer program, a smartphone-based augmented reality application, an interactive installation, and a video essay. The project asks whether contemporary digital technologies can be used to construct a deity derived from the logic of traditional folk belief.

artistic relevance

In the installation, the computer program functions like a small shrine. When the viewer activates the interface, the deity performs a simple game of chance and produces a result that may be used to decide an uncertain situation.

research relevance

This work reflects an early stage of my practice in which technical systems were not treated as neutral tools, but as structures capable of producing ritual, uncertainty, decision, and symbolic meaning.

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2023-2024

The Scriptures for the Soul's Journey

指路经

Yi Soul-Summoning Ritual for a Broken Computer

type: short film / interactive video / student-collaborative project
medium: video, ritual performance, TouchDesigner-based interactive visuals, urban technological fiction
tools: TouchDesigner, video production, interactive visual system, audio-reactive graphics, gesture-triggered particles
keywords: Yi ritual, Nisu soul-summoning, Bimo, technological failure, computer repair, ritual interface, TouchDesigner, urban technology, symbolic healing
external video link: watch video documentation

description

The Scriptures for the Soul's Journey is a short film and interactive media project developed around a symbolic repair ritual for a malfunctioning computer. The work draws from the soul-summoning ritual of the Yi / Nisu tradition and places it within a contemporary urban technological context. In the project, a computer failure is treated not only as a technical problem, but as a state of symbolic "soul loss," opening a space where ritual, repair, and digital media overlap.

artistic relevance

The work repositions a traditional religious ritual within the everyday experience of technological breakdown. Through performance, video, and TouchDesigner-based interactive visuals, the project transforms the act of repairing a computer into a ritualized process of calling, guiding, and restoring. It reflects on the anxiety and helplessness that emerge when humans face technologies they cannot fully control.

research relevance

Although this project is not part of my main PhD research proposal, it is closely connected to my broader practice in interactive media and technical ritual systems. It extends my long-term interest in how symbolic structures, procedural actions, visual systems, and interactive technologies can reorganize belief, uncertainty, and human-machine relations.

credit

Created in collaboration with / under the guidance of Hanran Ma and Ji Yuxin.

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2021

The Sound of the Waves Still Remains

涛声依旧

type: video / multimedia urban study
medium: video, field recording, urban image, spatial observation
tools: Final Cut Pro, Ableton Live, Blender
keywords: urban slice, Chongqing, situationism, vertical city, field recording, urban ecology, multimedia geography
external video link: watch video documentation

description

The Sound of the Waves Still Remains is a video-based multimedia project that examines a vertical section of Chongqing's urban environment. Drawing from Situationist theory and from the geological method of reading cross-sections, the work treats the city not as a flat map, but as a layered spatial volume.

artistic relevance

The project follows the coexistence of riverbanks, slopes, residential buildings, farmland, parks, infrastructure, and older historical traces within a single urban section. Rather than presenting the city as a continuous urban surface, it observes how different temporalities and spatial orders are compressed into one vertical rhythm.

research relevance

This work is important to my broader practice because it shows an early method of treating place as a structured media system. Its attention to urban layers, spatial perception, and media-based reconstruction anticipates my later work with game engines, virtual environments, and modular spatial systems.

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2023

In 2001, I Came to the Internet for the First Time

2001年我第一次来到互联网上

type: shader painting / Unity-based real-time image system
medium: Unity shader painting, real-time generated image, video documentation
tools: Unity, Shader, C#, real-time graphics
keywords: early internet aesthetics, shader painting, real-time image, procedural landscape, Windows XP, computer graphics nostalgia
external video link: watch video documentation

description

In 2001, I Came to the Internet for the First Time is a Unity-based shader painting project. In this work, shader language is treated as a painting medium rather than only a technical rendering tool.

artistic relevance

The image is generated and transformed in real time: a large yellow face moves through a computer-generated world, evoking the visual memory of early internet icons, chat interfaces, and Windows XP-like digital landscapes.

research relevance

The project explores game engines as image-making systems and anticipates my later concern with real-time visual orchestration, shader-based media, and Unity as artistic infrastructure.

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2022

Wandering in Taixu

云游太虚

Illusory Realm

type: digital interactive work / game-engine environment
medium: game engine, sound, virtual environment, video documentation
tools: Unity, C#, Blender, sound design
keywords: game engine, Chinese mysticism, Dream of the Red Chamber, Taixu Huanjing, psychoanalysis, symbolic space, dream logic, virtual environment
external video link: watch video documentation

description

Wandering in Taixu is a game-engine-based digital interactive work built around the idea of Taixu Huanjing, the "Illusory Realm" from Dream of the Red Chamber, while also drawing from older Taoist cosmological imagination.

artistic relevance

Rather than treating this source as a decorative reference, the work uses the game engine to construct a symbolic environment in which dream, image, sound, and spatial navigation become intertwined.

research relevance

This project shows an early attempt to use game engines as artistic environments rather than only interactive tools. It anticipates my later interest in how virtual spaces, symbolic structures, sound, and navigation can be organized into experiential systems.

These images include student works I supervised during my teaching practice, as well as other exercises and experimental works developed in related contexts.