Conceptual nominee

The World Co-Witnessed with Machines reflects on a future of shared perception between humans and artificial intelligence. The work began with my own photographic study of plants, observing their fragile presence. I then collaborated with AI to generate 200 variations of the image, from which I selected one. This AI-produced vision was projected back onto the original photograph, creating a layered dialogue between human vision and machine imagination.

The process is both experimental and conceptual: it expands photography beyond documentation into an act of co-creation. Rather than presenting AI as a threat, the work embodies a positive attitude toward technological collaboration, suggesting that human and machine can together shape new ways of seeing.

Visually, the image integrates elements of traditional Chinese ink aesthetics with low-saturation black-and-white photography. This hybrid language blurs distinctions between past and future, nature and technology, the handmade and the algorithmic.

As part of my ongoing series Human Coordinates, this work explores how images persist and transform when mediated through both organic and artificial lenses. It asks: what does it mean to see with machines, and how might such co-witnessing redefine the role of photography in the contemporary world?

Yilin Evan Zhu (b. 1994, Shanghai) is a filmmaker, media artist, and photographer exploring the perceptual and ontological life of images. He holds a BA in Broadcasting and Television Directing from the Shanghai Theatre Academy and an MFA in Film and Media Arts from the University of Windsor. His practice spans experimental cinema, photography, and installation, often blending Chinese ink traditions with contemporary media technologies.

His works have been recognized internationally: Nostalgia and Loss at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival (2025) and Windsor International Film Festival (2025); A Manifesto in Code at Ibrida Festival, Italy (2025); and ANLIAN at the Toronto Alternative Film Festival, where it won the Super Short (Canada) award (2024). Additional selections include the Canada China International Film Festival and the Kitchener-Waterloo Film Festival.

In 2025, Zhu presented A Practice-Based Inquiry into the Perceptual Life of Media at the SoCA Shop Series, organized by the Humanities Research Group. He is currently artist-in-residence at the Shanghai Art Century Museum, developing projection-based installations and limited-edition photographic works within his ongoing series Human Coordinates.