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C430 AI STUDIO

Interactive installation / Art hackathon · 2026

Reconstructing Humanity

Asked to rebuild humans from fragments of the internet, AI produced a large-scale silicon version of blind men and an elephant.
The Reconstructing Humanity cover: a white specimen spreading wings made of hands beneath the exhibition title and a short line describing an AI rebuilding the last civilisation from fragments of the internet.

THE WORLD

Asked to rebuild humans from fragments of the internet, AI produced a large-scale silicon version of blind men and an elephant.

The work is set long after humans have disappeared. Digging through a sealed archive database, an AI research group called C430 uncovers a fragment of residual data from the Chinese internet of 2026 and builds a Human Simulation Room, hoping to infer from those few traces what a human actually is. Players get 90 seconds to explore; the AI asks no questions and only watches behaviour — approaching, lingering, leaving, triggering an interaction or never triggering it — tagging the human sample as it goes. When the 90 seconds end, the system produces a human sample report and a restoration image: a strange creature with no relation to the player, presented as fact. The method is part of the work. We handed Codex 53 reference images and had them broken into 8 dimensions and 594 independently callable visual entries, mapped one-to-one onto 98 behaviour nodes in the game; at runtime the model translates a player's behaviour into those entries, assembles them into a life that holds together, and generates a bespoke frame matched to each body. Humans set the frame of observation; AI decides the stereotypes inside it.

Discipline
Concept / Worldbuilding / Behaviour system / Visual language / Interactive installation
Format
Interactive installation (explorable 3D scene) / 24-hour art hackathon / 90-second session
MOTION 01 / A white specimen with long antennae and pink wings on pale ground
MOTION 02 / A white specimen with arms raised, teal drapery falling at its sides
MOTION 03 / A white wing membrane spread wide above a standing body
MOTION 04 / A slender white specimen with black pointed wings
MOTION 05 / A white specimen with red veins woven through its feathered wings
MOTION 06 / A white swan-like specimen inside an oval feather frame
MOTION 07 / A specimen of gold filaments radiating on a blue-grey field
MOTION 08 / A flowering tree-shaped body above gold ornament
MOTION 09 / An elongated specimen with long falling hair on a moon-white ground
MOTION 10 / A white specimen opening wide blue wings
MOTION 11 / A pink-winged specimen with an eye above it inside a red frame
MOTION 12 / A white specimen with a radiating blue crown
MOTION 13 / A white specimen inside a blue scrollwork border
MOTION 14 / A crystal specimen radiating gold spikes
MOTION 15 / A small dark specimen with open arms in a wide pale frame
MOTION 16 / A slender specimen with a dark cavity in its chest and a white crown
MOTION 17 / A white specimen whose hands become feathers, arms open in a blue-white frame
MOTION 18 / A specimen with pink butterfly wings and deep blue borders circling the frame
MOTION 19 / An oval-headed specimen in a silver frame over green marble
MOTION 20 / A walking specimen stacked from transparent cubes in a white geometric frame
A restored specimen with a halo above a translucent body, framed in gold circuit patterns and numbered C430.
SPECIMEN 01 / A halo, a translucent body and a gold circuit frame
A translucent specimen with a hollow torso, plants growing from within and a pink grid across the chest, surrounded by drifting documents and blossoms.
SPECIMEN 02 / A transparent body, organs and plants growing inside
An elongated specimen assembled from bone, flowering branches, red vessels and green arthropod limbs, blossoms opening along the spine.
SPECIMEN 03 / Bone, blossom and green arthropod limbs
A specimen wrapped in white fabric under a floating disc with an eye, framed by bones and eyes.
SPECIMEN 04 / White cloth beneath an eye wheel
A specimen broken into horizontally displaced scan lines, many arms unfolding at once, in a cream feather-relief frame marked C430.
SPECIMEN 05 / Scan-line displacement and a cream feather frame
A specimen whose torso becomes a flowering tree, with glass bottles of shells, seeds and gold fragments hanging from its branches.
SPECIMEN 06 / A flowering torso with glass specimen bottles
A specimen opening its arms on a plinth, the wings built from rows of human hands with fruit and flowers hanging beneath.
SPECIMEN 07 / Wings assembled from human hands
A specimen stacked from transparent blocks, its head a wireframe sphere, small coloured cubes drifting at its side.
SPECIMEN 08 / Stacked glass blocks and a wireframe sphere head
A specimen built from transparent crystal cubes, walking with coloured fragments scattered around it.
SPECIMEN 09 / A crystal body caught mid-stride
A specimen with pale gold moth wings, golden antennae and chains, blue blossoms clustered at its shoulders.
SPECIMEN 10 / Moth wings and gold antennae
A white specimen spreading its wings inside a frame of gold leaves, blue flowers and lapis stones gathered at shoulder and waist.
SPECIMEN 11 / Blue blossoms in a frame of gold leaves
A specimen opening pink-blue butterfly wings edged with rows of gold spikes.
SPECIMEN 12 / Pink-blue butterfly wings edged with gold spikes
A specimen of feathers, gold chains, pendants and lapis stones, hanging mid-dance.
SPECIMEN 13 / Feathers, gold chains and lapis stones
A specimen spreading translucent wings against black, in a bottle-shaped frame marked C430.
SPECIMEN 14 / Translucent white wings on black
A specimen with pink moth wings and red scythe-like forelimbs, framed above and below with eyes.
SPECIMEN 15 / Pink moth wings and red scythe blades
A specimen made of small transparent cubes, caught walking with fragments trailing behind.
SPECIMEN 16 / A walking body of small transparent cubes
A specimen inside a silver Art Nouveau frame, its head an oval, flanked by green marble.
SPECIMEN 17 / A silver mirror frame over green marble
A specimen spreading its wings under blue light, its silver frame casting a hard shadow.
SPECIMEN 18 / A silver frame under blue light
A specimen whose diamond head is built from eye motifs, its chest a birdcage and its legs covered in straw.
SPECIMEN 19 / An eye-built head, a birdcage chest and straw legs
A specimen crowned with a tower of skulls and a gold chandelier, its head a bronze bell, coins and prayer beads across its chest.
SPECIMEN 20 / A skull tower, a bronze bell head and a chandelier

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Shanye Youxian