ziwenliu.com

Ziwen Liu
experimenter/filmmaker/director/observer/composer

PROFILE
ziwenliu.com
ziwen.liu@duke.edu

Ziwen Liu is a multimedia artist working as a filmmaker, digital artist, and installation artist. She is engaged in the research and creation of digital art and generative media. By embracing randomness and disorder, she seeks to eliminate and replace the presence of the 'self' as the author. This approach challenges conventional artistic logic, exploring the aesthetics of disordered relationships among fragments and images.

CONTACT

CV/简历

Education

Duke University
MFA|Experimental & Documentary Arts

2025

Southwest Minzu University,
Radio and Television Studies

2021

Teaching

2025.11-2025.12

TA|Shenzhen University
Course: Art Technology: Creative Management and Industrial Practice

2024.8-2024.12

TA|Duke University
Course: Experimental Filmmaking

2024.1-2024.5

TA|Duke University
Course: Introduction of Film Studies

Research

2025
Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Duke University
“Human-Inspired AI”, Independent Study, Professor Bill Seaman
• Research Paper: Creativity in AI-Generated Art: Inspiration from Human High-Order Emotional Consciousness Creativity.
• Based on the high-order theory of emotional awareness, it compares the creativity of artists and authors with the creativity of AI-generated art.
• Generate artistic context and genealogy. 1956, Electronic oscilloscopes and plotters; 1987, Discussion of Images; AI art after 2020, deconstructing art.
• Systematic generation of art research, brainwave control, and image selection works.

2024
John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University
“Mountain and Sound Studies” Graduate Working Group at Duke University.
• Grounded in mountain and global sound studies, explored how sonic practices—such as oral histories, field recordings, and ethnographic listening—can illuminate the entangled relationships between place, identity, and power.
• Established a cross-regional field recording archive network spanning the U.S., Taiwan, China, and Japan, which opened new pathways for collaborative listening-based scholarship.

2020
Sichuan University
"Dong 28 Music Pixel World - Sichuan-Chongqing Music Video Cultural Interaction Platform" won the Silver Award in the 2020 Challenge Cup Sichuan College Students Business Plan Competition.
• pre-project planning, data and sample search, collection, and analysis.

Projects

• “Earth Organ” VR headset, virtual exploration world roaming game, art concept game, in creation. Fusion of Taoist Art and Medical Sciences with the Fusion of the Virtual World - Artist Author (2025)
• MFAEDA Experimental Film Salon Screening Exhibition - Co-Curator (2025)
• Headset EEG Data Generation Control Video Playback Device - Author (2025)
• “A Time-bound Pact, A Shared Future”, Documentary on the 75th Anniversary of the establishment between China and Pakistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Executive Director (2025)
• A Kind of Performance: Graduation Exhibition - Artist & Curator (2024-2025)
• State Council, Documentary Production for the International Development of a Series of Media Products - Executive Director (2021)
• “To you who are beautiful”, Short Film, Women's Voice of the All-China Women's Federation – Assistant Director (2023)
• China Association for Science and Technology Youth Science and Technology Center "Tomorrow's Little Scientists" 100 Interviews - Executive Director of Single Episode (2020)
• " Harmonious and Beautiful Songpan", Chinese historical and cultural city documentary - Episode Director (2022)
• "Dream to the Future", National Challenge Cup Finals theme song MV - Planner and Director (2022)
• "Shu Embroidery", The intangible cultural heritage of the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture - documentary and promotional film. - Planner and Director (2019)
• "Spicy Jianghu", CCTV (CCTV10) - Assistant Editor in single-episode (2019)

Paper

• Ziwen Liu. (2025). Comparative Analysis of Documentaries on Chinese Miners-"Behemoth" and "Miners, Horsekeeper, and Pneumoconiosis" as Examples. Education Reform and Social Sciences (ERSS 2025)
• Ziwen Liu. (2026). Creativity in AI-Generated Art: Inspiration from Human High-Order Emotional Consciousness. Acta Psychologica.

Awards

• “Earth Organs” VR World, National Copyright for Game Story & Concept Design (2025) .
• "A Kind of Performance" documentary, Graduation Thesis project.
Melbourne Lift-Off Film Festival, Official Selection (2025)
25’ Tianjin International Academic Film Festival, Official Selection (2025)
LEEDSflix International Film & Screenplay Competition, Official Selection Finalist (2025)
• “Movable Music Healing Box”, Dean's Research Award for Master's Students at Duke University. (2024)
• "Tax of Love", released at the Foshan Grand Theater. (2021)
• "Devil's Redemption", The Organizing Committee of the Sichuan Division of the National College Student Advertising Art Competition. (2020)
• "Honor Master", The Organizing Committee of the Sichuan Division of the National College Student Advertising Art Competition. (2020)
• "Miss Right", Gaia 48 Film Festival. (2019)
• "The Sun", The 7th International College Student Microfilm Ceremony, Capital Normal University. (2019)
• "Pattern", NEW ERA Youth Film Season - New Studio and Chaoyang District Cultural Center. (2018)
• "No matter where you are, don't miss it", The National Organizing Committee of the National College Student Advertising Art Competition. (2018)

Skills

Filmmaking: Script writing, Storyboard design, Editing, Sound production.

Computer Skills: Adobe Premiere, Adobe Audition, Adobe InDesign, p5.js, Maya, Unreal, AIGC, MQTT, Touch Designer, Sensors & Actuators.

Paper media art: Handmade book content creation, format, and art design, work binding.

Music: Piano, Drums, Ukulele.

Last Updated 24.10.31

WORK
Film Digital Photograph Book
Explore more...

1. A KIND OF PERFORMANCE - multimedia
（Film & Digital & installation）

The music slowly drifted through the cold. The story unfolds through the music of Tao, an elderly band leader, portraying the lives of the elderly in northeastern China. It all takes place in Ziwen's hometown, Jinzhou. This place has been forgotten amidst China's rapid development and even abandoned by the younger generation. What is life like for these elderly people in their cold hometown?

The work includes two parts. The first part is a photography exhibition, displaying portraits of elderly people and the landscape in the northeast. The second part uses collected moving images to create an experimental installation with various media expressions. The same footage is presented through three mediums: the artist, the system, and the audience's emotions. Different media allow the audience to move through the space...

2. Inner Landscape-Earth Organs
An Immersive VR work

This work uses this painting as a base, turning the inside of the human body into an enterable microcosm. The heart is used as a mountain, the lungs are used as bubbles, and there is water flowing in the stomach. Players can follow the path along the stream and walk forward to explore the world. The Landscape, as a visual symbol representing one giving birth to two, two giving birth to three, and three giving birth to all things, carries this creative inspiration.

3. Headset EEG Data Generation

——critique of the author's identity

The intervention and influence of different media on communication and expression.

It explores the relationship between technology and art and communication, but also affects the complexity of subjectivity.

“Interestingly, the work presents an effect at the end. When the audience looks at something seriously. The image can be played normally, and if the audience's attention is not still, the video will always change clips very quickly.”

4. Trash Travel

This work is inspired by the helplessness of the real world. Human survival demands lead to the use, consumption, and recycling of materials and resources worldwide. Thus, I conceived of using generative media to complement this inspiration. The essence of generative media is that the author sets rules or systems, and the materials within these systems continuously generate and output works under the system's influence.

This mirrors our human and social systems, where thousands of years of civilizational evolution and scientific research have generated the logic of the human world. Like human society, this generative apparatus, once started, never stops producing. Authors or viewers can add more video, sound, text, and other materials, expanding the content of the work.

5. The 15th National Winter Games
（第十五届全国冬季运动会官方宣传片）

An AIGC Short Film

6. Memory of Trees

The idea came to me on the morning of the weekend as I stood on the balcony smoking a cigarette.

It seemed like yesterday's rain hadn't finished, and there was a puddle of standing water left on the grass on the first floor. The water dripped down in ripples...

7. Gaze

When I look at a beautiful girl, I realize that I am gazing at others.

Why are there always some meanings when we look at others? ‘Gaze’ can also be called a sort of research object. We look at and think about this world through our eyes. So, I try to discuss eyes and gaze with this video.

8. ShuXiu

There is no narration, and the beauty of an ancient technique is conveyed through sight and hearing.

This film was selected as the official international platform of "Beautiful China".

9. Her Life was Full of Misfortunes

" The story was inspired by the fact that there were several times when I saw deer while driving.

Some of them looked at me,
Some ran away immediately,
Some walked slowly in front of my car,
and some lay quietly on the ground...."