User — Many Projects

User(2026)

Plaster, greyboard, metal stand, conductive tip, smartphone, motorized mechanism, and battery

19 × 21 × 21 cm (7.5 × 8.3 × 8.3 in.)

00 min. 05 sec. automated motion cycle

2026 / Helix Art Space (Stockholm)

Through a collision between traditional sculpture and robotic actuation, User serves to expose the contradictions betraying our conventional notions of beauty, humanity, and human agency when in friction against the accelerating landscape of technology. The human sculpture is a millenia-old celebration of the person, but has been tragically hijacked within this work and forced into the digital affordances of contemporary life.

Made to scroll

The kinetic mechanism of User relies on a modified Jansen linkage attached to Xin’s plaster-cast hand, broken at the thumb base, actuated by a battery-powered 6V N20 reduction gear motor, and tuned to simulate a natural scrolling cadence. Conductive materials are embedded within the thumb-tip to allow the hand to manipulate the capacitive touch screen surfaces of most smart phones.

Interactive projection-mapped installation

Multichannel video sculpture

Xin-1.0.36(2026)

Video

Solo Exhibition·5m

Personhood: Iteration 4: A new iteration of the projection-mapped interactive installation exploring the boundaries of presence and identity.

Solo Exhibition·2026

Self—ish: Our first multi-work solo exhibition, featuring old and new works across kinetic sculpture, video art, and projection-mapped installations.

Exhibition·2025

Silent Interference: Our new video artwork, Non-moment (2025), was exhibited on an outdoor LED screen in Taiwan as a part of Silent Interference (靜噪).

Talk·2025

AI as an Art Material: We shared our perspective on the deliberate usage of AI as an art "material" in the context of our creative practice on the first Creative Breakfast series at Helix Art Space.

Exhibition·2025

Alternative Roots Festival: A rough-cut screening of our new projection-mapped short film, 2025PCM, for the day-long festival at Hoxton Hall.

Talk·2025

An Act of Homemaking: We presented a first cut of 2025PCM and shared our experiences as migrant creatives in London at Bow Arts.

Exhibition·2025

Speculum Artium: A video version of Personhood (2024) was exhibited at the Speculum Artium Festival.

Solo Exhibition·2024

Proof of Personhood: The first iteration of Personhood (2024) was developed for RAD space of Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

Exhibition·2024

Into the Future: Premiere of You.zip (2024), a video artwork exploring digital identity.

Talk·2024

Technarte Conference: An artist talk at Palacio Euskalduna, Bilbao.

Exhibition·2023

Royal Society of Sculptors: A first prototype of BEAM (2023) was exhibited at the Royal Society of Sculptors as one of the finalists of the Interplay Kinetic Design Competition.

Award·2023

CIRCA2023 Public Vote Prize: EMERGE:NCY (2023) received the CIRCA2023 Public Vote Prize, announced by Michèle Lamy.

Screening·2023

Screening at Piccadilly Lights: As a CIRCA2023 Prize finalist, EMERGE:NCY (2023) was screened on the Piccadilly Lights.

Exhibition·2023

Ars Electronica Festival: An adaptation of the site-specific installation Box Body (2023) for indoor exhibition.

Exhibition·2023

ART-ACT Festival: The premiere of Box Body (2023) as part of Singapore Art Week 2023.

Xin Wen and JJ Agcaoili operate as XJ: a Chinese-American and Filipino artistic duo grown out of London, now working internationally. Their award-winning practice reckons with the human subject in collision with the material and digital structures that determine contemporary life. This focus is embodied in their expansive body of work across experimental video, kinetic sculpture, and immersive installation, which has been exhibited in Stockholm, San Francisco, Taiwan, Linz, Singapore, London, and more.