Anna Borou Yu & Jiajian Min & Qingyun Liu
Interdependent Visibility, 2025
Interdependent Visibility is an interactive installation that reframes telepresence not as a problem of connectivity or simulation, but as a condition of conditional self-representation. Two participants stand on opposite sides of a telephone booth with displays, cameras, and a mirror. They cannot see one another directly, nor can they access a complete reflection of themselves. Instead, each participant becomes visible only when their live image is computationally mapped into the silhouette of the other, producing a relational image that is partial, unstable, and continuously negotiated. We articulate interdependent visibility as a design construct emerging from this artwork: a mode of computational mediation in which visibility is neither autonomous nor guaranteed, but contingent on another embodied agent and a legible algorithmic translation pipeline.
Conceptually, the project is informed by Buddhist reflections on emptiness, appearance, and interdependence. It translates them into an embodied situation in which the self cannot appear as a stable essence. What becomes visible is contingent: shaped by the other, by the apparatus, and by the conditions of encounter.
The work combines an experiential installation with a real-time system developed in TouchDesigner using MediaPipe-based segmentation. It approaches interaction as a form of negotiation, situates itself within broader genealogies of electronic mirroring, telepresence, silhouette-based interaction, and computational translation, and reflects on the implications of these systems for contemporary computational art.
Installed as a sculptural object, Interdependent Visibility bridges installation, media archaeology, performance, and computational imaging. It transforms the phone booth, once a public infrastructure of voice, privacy, and distance, into an apparatus for examining mediated selfhood, reciprocity, and the politics of appearing before others.
Anna Borou Yu is a new media artist, interdisciplinary researcher, and performer whose work bridges cultural heritage, media arts, performance, technology, and cognitive science. She is currently a Guest Lecturer at the MIT Media Lab, a Visiting Artist and PhD Researcher with MIT Music and Theater Arts, Co-Chair of the MIT AI Film Hack, and the Cofounder and Creative Director of MYStudio. She is pursuing her PhD in Media Arts and Technology with an Emphasis in Cognitive Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Yu’s artistic and scholarly practice investigates embodied cognition, multisensory dramaturgy, and technologically mediated cultural expression. Her works have been recognized internationally with honors such as the Lumen Prize Longlist, Arte Laguna Prize, and the ACM Multimedia Best Interactive Art Award. Her installations and performances have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Ars Electronica Art Gallery, ACM SIGGRAPH Asia, CVPR Art Gallery, IEEE AIART Gallery, MIT Artfinity Art Festival, Common Senses Festival, and numerous international art and film festivals.
Jiajian Min is an award-winning new media artist, curator, researcher, educator and creative entrepreneur. He is the Co-founder of MYStudio, a collaborative researcher and guest lecturer affiliated with Harvard University and MIT, and an alumni mentor at Yale University. He serves as Chair of the MIT AI Film Hack and Festival, Committee Member and Jury of the Seattle AI Film Festival, and Ambassador of the World AI Film Festival. He is also a cofounder of the Harvard XR Conference, member of NEW INC in New York. He was selected as one of the Forbes China Top 100 Most Influential Chinese. His work spans AI-generated film, spatial interactive installations, extended reality experiences and multimedia performance. His works have received multiple international awards. He has served as a guest lecturer at Tsinghua University, Central Academy of Fine Arts, the China Academy of Art, and the Communication University of China. He has also delivered lectures at leading institutions and festivals including Harvard, MIT, Yale, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Chicago, SXSW, Cinequest Film Festival and more.
Qingyun Liu is a creative technologist currently pursuing a Master in Design Studies (Technology) at Harvard University. With experience at Microsoft Research Asia and the MIT Media Lab, her work lies at the intersection of human perception, AI, and embodied interaction. Synthesizing her background in human-computer interaction and urban design, she investigates how multimodal embodied AI can interpret human memory, culture and environments. Her goal is to augment sensory experiences, creating new forms of connection that bridge physical and digital realities.