zzyw (founded in 2017, based in New York) is an art and research collective formed by Yang Wang and Zhenzhen Qi in New York in 2017. It produces software applications, simulations and text as instruments to examine the cultural, political and educational imprints of computation. Its work Other Paradise (2023) is a multifaceted project that critically investigates the societal implications of computational mediation, automation and AI. Inspired by the ancient Chinese fable Peach Blossom Spring and drawing from zzyw’s research paper “Computational Haze,” the project comprises a virtual world and a short film exploring the potential of ‘heretical computing’ (based on a lecture by Alexander R. Galloway, 2020) to challenge the monolithic idea of efficiency and precision that characterizes our contemporary information society.
About the Collaborators:
WANG Yang (汪洋) is an independent designer, a media artist, and a software engineer. Throughout Wang’s practice, computation is a tool for art-making and the subject of study. His work utilizes simulation to recreate conditions for critical examination.
Besides his independent art and research practice. He is an alum of New Museum-led art & tech. incubator NEW INC for the year 2019 to 2020, an alum of the Technology Residency at the New York-based art institution Pioneer Works. He was the former Technical Director of Shanghai-based new media art agency OUTPUT Lab, a former Senior Creative Technologist at New York-based architectural design firm Rockwell Group and the former Interaction Designer at New York-based interaction design firm Potion. He is a Fall 2022 resident of Eyebeam in Brooklyn, New York.
Yang holds a BA from the University of Science & Technology, Beijing (USTB) in Artistic Design and graduated from the Interactive Telecommunication Program (ITP), New York University, with a MPS in 2014.
QI Zhenzhen (漆贞贞) is an educator, researcher, and technologist from China, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2014, she has taught courses on interactive media, web, and game development at New York University, Teachers College, Columbia University, City University of New York(CUNY), and Guangzhou Academy of Art (GAFA) as an adjunct professor.
She has given talks and led workshops at Power Station of Art, New Museum, New York Creative Tech Week, Museum 2050, Asia Art Archive in America, etc. She is the recipient of the Creative Technology Fellowship and Macy Fellowship at Columbia University. She was a member of NEW INC, a culture and technology incubator at the New Museum in New York. She is a Fall 2022 resident of Eyebeam in Brooklyn, New York.
Zhenzhen holds a BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and a MPS from New York University, the Interactive Telecommunication Program (ITP). Zhenzhen is a candidate for Doctor of Education(EdD) at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. She is currently researching software simulation as a mode of collective re-making and un-looping.
