Having trained as an architect at the University of Liverpool and the University of Greenwich, Mingxuan Xie now works together with Pete Jiadong Qiang as the interdisciplinary artist duo Hyperbation where they remix, recreate and rediscover the relationship between the human body and digital technology. They create alternative mixed reality architectural experiments aimed at erasing the boundaries between virtual and physical spaces, while expanding the notions of gamification, hyperization and hyperlocalization. As a duo, Pete and Mingxuan exhibited at Paradise Air, Matsudo (2018), Zero to One, London (2018) and the Architectural Association School of Architecture during the London Festival of Architecture (2018).
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During the fellowship, Hyperbation has been investigating three specific geographic locations in China that each present a specific type of excess: the Hyper-Religious Body in the Dunhuang Caves, Gansu, the Hyper-Gastronomical Body in Chongqing, and the Hypersexual Body in Beijing. Each offers an expansion of the Maximalism research approach they explore within their practice, based on visual excess. By conducting field work at these sites, they hope to redefine the spaces around the human body in order to ultimately lead them to the ‘#HyperBody’ – a multi-reality space that mediates between the physical and virtual spheres.