TaikaBox met with Dan Xu in Bucharest in Spring 2025, where she was part of the Dance Hack.
Tanja: Tell us a bit about yourself and your creative process?.
I think I would say I’m just a creative person. If I have to put a label on that, I think I would say myself as a researcher, artist, and a little bit of a technologist. I’m from China, and I’ve been living in the Netherlands for 10 years now. What else can I say? I like to play around with computers, technology, electronics.
I like to create systems that people can use for expression and maybe communicate with each other in different ways.
So where did your journey start, or what has it entailed to become a researcher, become a creator?
It’s interesting because when I was growing up, I never really had a clear idea of what I want to do, or have a very strong aspiration. I also grew up in an environment where art and creative practise is a little bit undervalued. And I think that it was when I decided to study abroad in the Netherlands, and I found a Masters programme which is a mix of science, art and philosophy – it’s very interdisciplinary and a very exciting space for me, especially as a person originally coming from a more scientific background where things are usually more rigid.
I’m generalising a bit, but it is in this kind of interdisciplinary space where I find I’m really excited about things. Let’s say we can take things that I know before, these scientific principles and tools, to make something different, to misuse them or appropriate them, and I find it makes me very excited in that way. It was a big leap to go and study abroad in a very different field.
What gave you the courage to believe that this is the kind of direction in which you wanted to go?
I wouldn’t say courage. Maybe I’m just a bit… How can you say this? Naive or just… I didn’t think so much, to be honest. I remember very clearly when I was finishing my bachelor’s studies in Beijing: I don’t know what I want to do.
There’s a few options. I could, I don’t know, go work in a bank. That’s some kind of normal choice that most people do.
And I remember I went to this workshop, also a bit random, out of nowhere, and it’s a musician giving a very introductory workshop about synthesisers. So he was explaining sine waves and how to make sounds with layering sine waves and manipulating the frequency and things like that. I was there, I was like, huh, I think I understand what is going on.
I had no musical training. I know nothing about music. But in that workshop, I was like, oh, actually, there’s something interesting there.
And I started to look around what are the options for studying. And then I found out this programme in the Netherlands, I got a little bit of a scholarship. So it’s kind of becomes like, yeah, why not? So I just went and didn’t turn back.
So how would you actually describe your practise, what it is now?
I have a sentence that also comes out from a really random conversation and I think it captures my practise pretty well: I like to make stupid things with computers.
In other words, I like to play around with technology, with especially digital tools now, because it’s the main thing around us.
I like to know how they work, understand them a little bit, maybe not completely, because a lot of times they have very complex systems. But somehow I just poke them around, see how they work, and then think about what other contexts I can put them in. For instance, with performers or in an installation context.
When you talk about systems, what do you actually mean?
It can be very simple. In general, I would think maybe a system to me is: we have inputs that can be anything, keyboard or mouse, or more fancy sensors that can capture something about people, about the environment, and also has a central processing unit. So it has its own logic and ways of dealing with the information from the outside and has a way of producing an output.
It can be sound, visual, tactile, to also have a way to impact the environment or to communicate. Sometimes I also think of a human as a system, like it’s very dynamic, fluid, complex. But sometimes I think about it in this a bit more scientific and simplistic way.
I think it’s kind of interesting. So we have humans and machines, computers, combining into something I would call a system.
So what about your connection with audience? How does the audience fit in your work or research?
I think it’s an interesting question for me because I don’t see audience, I just see people. I think maybe also because I’m probably not coming from an artistic context. I work with artists a lot, and I do feel like when they talk about audience, they have this very specific idea or profile in mind.
But to me, I kind of just like to invite people, let’s say. I like to create situations or system where they could play around with it. So there are some maybe basic things about the design, like how I can make things easy for people to understand, and inviting as well, so it won’t be daunting for people to participate.
Sometimes I also work with more hybrid contexts, with people physically present or remotely present, and how to create opportunities for them to also participate in the same system.
In one of the research papers that you have written you mention co-located audience interaction.
Yeah, it’s part of my PhD work where I was interested in interactive art in general, and specifically an interactive situation where there’s multiple people involved. Because a lot of discussions or development in the understanding of interactive art tends to consider interaction as a dialogue, as a one-to-one scenario, so it’s like one person, a lot of times with a computer, so human-computer interaction. But I also noticed in a lot of contexts where there are multiple people involved and a lot of interactive contexts where they have to work together.
And then this becomes a more complex scenario, and I was interested in how can we understand interaction, for instance, in this more complex space. So usually the interaction does not only happen between a human and a machine, but also between human and human, and there’s more opportunities for mediation. For instance, we usually, in this kind of artwork or situation, a lot of times the audience or the humans can communicate with each other via the artwork or via the system, but maybe it can also be the other way around.
Maybe the system can communicate with us via another human being, or we can communicate with the system via each other. I feel like there’s a lot of opportunities in this space, and I was also interested in understanding a bit and thinking about the creative space in there.
So how about then in terms of moving body? Now you are in Bucharest Dance Hack, so how did this dance or moving body come into your practise?
For me, I’m always interested in movement. I mean, not just in a dance context, but in general as a form of nonverbal communication, as a way of being, occupying space. To me, being here and participating, working together with all the dancers, it’s a big learning space for me because I really see how we play around with computers, with technology in very different ways.
I feel with dancers or movement practitioners, they have a more intuitive way to just play around without really needing to understand or think in a very analytical way. So to me, it’s interesting also to observe and having conversation with them, how they conceptualise what is happening, comparing that with my own understanding and finding a common ground.
If you talk about the body as a system. And in everyday life, your body kind of functions in an instinctive way, a natural way. Whereas if you put that body in a dance studio or on a stage, then the dance is about functioning in a different way, in an artistic way, so it’s quite interesting thinking about the two systems coexisting within a body.
And to me, it’s also very interesting to see how technology can facilitate or somehow brings out a little bit of difference, performativity relating with maybe just the body. So how these two systems can actually… Sometimes I see a clash, and it’s very interesting.
What do you think you’re actually taking with you from this experience?
Actually, the first thing comes to my mind is also just me doing all these exercises together, I think I have developed a different relationship with my own body throughout the week. And also how to relate to other bodies.
I really see this week as a very big learning experience for me in terms of how to use, for instance, the artistic approach or choreography, the methodology or methods you have in this space to work with technology.
The first two days was very chaotic. We were just trying things out, and then I remember on the third day when we started having a more in-depth exploration. I remember we were moving around and then you guys were observing and starting to thinking about different scenarios and possibilities. By looking at the body in space and from there to, to evolve, to develop ideas, even without technology. And I find this kind of process inspiring because even though I do try things out and see how they work when I’m working on my own, I feel you have a little bit of more systematic but not very rigid way of working.
Yeah, I think there probably are some choreographic things that we apply in dance, for example. Whether it’s relating to the use of space, how you relate to another person.
Exactly. Things like that, timing, dynamics. Yeah, like these kind of concepts.
For me, it’s very interesting to experience and to observe the way you guys are thinking and developing things choreographically. And then applying those concepts to the technology at the same time.
What are your aspirations for the future? Are you developing something specific right now?
I’m just approaching the end of my PhD I think that right now I’m in a very exciting place in my life because I just finished my thesis! Six years! And now I have a lot of space in my life, so I really want to just dive into the artistic space because I also realised I like doing research, working in academia, but after six years, and sometimes there’s also a lot of pressure, like there’s stupid things with publication, this and that. And now I just feel like I want to explore more and also in a more performative context.
I think it’s very exciting. I’m happy to be here, and I think… No… I know that we will work together in the future with the group, like there’s no doubt.
Yeah. And I’m also going to do some other residencies here and there and also focus a little bit more on the movement and sound relationship and a little bit of telepresence. How can we communicate the presence or liveness of another body, another human, using movement and sound? That’s something I will be working on over the next months.
I’m also very interested in quantum computing these days, and I’m thinking about also learning a bit more about that kind of system and what are the creative possibilities for expression, for communication. I’m just curious about everything.
Dan Xu was talking with Tanja and John. We have recently heard that she is now Dr. Dan Xu!