Online Catalogue

Legislation of Dust

Artist: Zhang Meichun
Edited by: Ines Huizhong Song, Anna Vittoria Magagna, Benjamin Rosen-Cappellazzo, Yao Xiao

Legislation of Dust develops an artistic framework based on Anti-Mapping, shifting coordinates away from Earth-centered systems of orientation and perception. This approach departs from Earth-centered systems of orientation, perception, and meaning. The project shifts its coordinates toward orbital infrastructures, where human knowledge becomes contingent rather than central.

Developed within the Xu Bing Space Art Residency Program and supported by the first Chinese art satellite, SCA-3, the project positions the satellite as a medium of production rather than an instrument of observation. Orbit functions as an operative field in which time, signal, and data are generated and redistributed outside terrestrial frameworks.

The exhibition unfolds across four conceptual chapters and twelve interconnected works. Within this system, the human body is repositioned as an interface, forming an unstable threshold between biological sensitivity and planetary infrastructures. Neural activity, breath, movement, and memory are translated into distributed processes that extend into orbital space.

Gesture is redefined as a transmissible event that exceeds the scale of the body. It propagates through algorithmic systems, satellite networks, and physical processes governed by cosmic laws. Action is inseparable from mediation and is shaped by delay, distortion, and transformation.

Artist Biography

Zhang Meichun (b. 1994, China) is an interdisciplinary artist whose research is situated at the intersection of contemporary art, technology, and cosmic systems. Her practice integrates installation, algorithmic processes, technological infrastructures, and speculative devices to investigate the relationships between the human body, data, and the perception of the universe. Her work centers on the concept of Anti-Mapping, an approach that challenges anthropocentric perspectives and reconsiders the relationship between civilization, technology, and the cosmos.

Through the combination of sculptural materiality, computational logic, and speculative archives, Zhang examines the fractures of contemporaneity in the age of data, questioning the limits of knowledge and the frameworks through which meaning is constructed. Within this context, her research moves from the microcosm of chemical bonds toward a broader engagement with physical and cosmological thinking, redefining the relationship between perception, matter, and systems. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Design from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and a Master's degree in Contemporary Ink Painting. She is currently a faculty member at the College of Sculpture and Public Art at the Hebei Academy of Fine Arts and is pursuing a PhD at the University of Malaya.

Her recent solo exhibitions include The Unpredictability of (Chongqing, 2024) and The Evidence Field of Chemical Translation: Zhang Meichun's Material Narrative Experiment (Foshan / Guangzhou, 2025). Selected group exhibitions and projects include Algorithmic Bodies (Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2024); Post-Human Narratives (Power Station of Art, Shanghai, 2024); Data and Ritual (OCAT Shenzhen, 2023); Speculative Infrastructures (Times Art Center, Berlin, 2023); and the Artist Residency Program at Chongqing Living Art Museum.

Chapter I

Flesh Antenna

This chapter explores the body as a receptive site, a human antenna attuned to its surroundings. The human body emerges as a sensing structure, continuously interacting with, registering, and transmitting signals beyond conscious awareness. Neural activity, biological response, and sensory fluctuation are understood as material processes through which the body engages with external systems. Perception is no longer contained within the individual subject. It emerges through the interaction between biological sensitivity and distributed infrastructures. The body operates as an interface that receives, translates, and transmits signals across different scales, extending its presence into a broader field of entanglements.
Embodied Anti-Mapping: Decentralizing the Perceptual Subject and Transforming the Body into a Trembling Antenna Receiving Deep-Space Signals.

Shoreless River

The Shoreless River constructs a closed loop of perception and energy exchange between the human body and deep space. Drawing from the residual radiation of the Big Bang (CMB), the work translates cosmic signals into sensory forms that are reintroduced into the neural structure of the body. Human physiological responses, particularly the subtle tremors induced by confronting the vastness of space are captured and transformed into visual structures that echo classical landscape painting. This translation produces what may be understood as a compensatory illusion: a projection through which human cognition attempts to stabilize the incomprehensible scale of the universe. Rather than observing the cosmos, the body becomes a reflective surface through which cosmic energy is refracted. In this recursive system, perception does not lead to knowledge, but to a continuous cycle of projection, distortion, and return, where the absence of an ultimate "shore" reveals the impossibility of epistemic closure.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, TouchDesigner, EEG brain-computer interaction technology, Brainwave device, Installation

Details2 min 42 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Dust of Breath

Dust of Breath operates through an extremely minimal interaction: the contact between a human body and a sensitive plant. This seemingly insignificant gesture generates a micro-electrical signal that is transmitted to an orbiting satellite, transforming a biological reaction into a distributed cosmic event. The work engages with the "dark forest" hypothesis, suggesting that every signal emitted into the universe is simultaneously an act of existence and a form of exposure. In this context, presence becomes inseparable from risk. By tracing the transformation of biological movement into technological signal and then into orbital transmission, the work constructs a system in which life is defined not by its autonomy, but by its capacity to be detected, recorded, and potentially consumed within larger cosmic structures.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, TouchDesigner, Touch interaction technology, Arduino, Installation

Details2 min 08 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Quantum Stride

Quantum stride establishes a distributed system linking human movement on Earth with material processes in orbit. Each step taken by a participant triggers a corresponding action on a satellite, where an apple undergoes physical transformation through oxidation and displacement. This system draws on the metaphor of quantum entanglement, suggesting that causality may operate beyond linear logic. Human movement becomes a variable within a larger system of interactions that extend across space and time. Through the gradual decay of the apple, the work introduces a non-standard measurement of time, which is rooted in material transformation and entropy.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, TouchDesigner, Video interaction technology, Arduino, Installation

Details2 min 58 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Chapter II

Metabolism of Entropy

This chapter examines the transformation of time, energy, and meaning through processes of entropy. Physical change is understood as a fundamental condition that governs both material systems and cultural constructs. Temporal structures are no longer stable or linear. They are reconfigured through processes of compression, dissipation, and conversion. Meaning is treated as a form of energy that can be transformed, degraded, or redistributed. Within this framework, cultural symbols are no longer fixed references but dynamic formations shaped by physical processes.

Fossil of Light

Fossil of Light interrogates the ontology of time through the transformation of a dynamic chemical process into a static digital artifact. By intercepting combustion, a process intrinsically bound to temporal flow, the work applies spatiotemporal voxelization to collapse the progression of entropy into a single coordinate. Flame, ash, and light are no longer sequential states, but coexist as a compressed structure, forming what the artist terms a "digital amber." This gesture challenges the linear perception of time, aligning instead with the notion of a block universe in which past, present, and future are simultaneous. In freezing the irreversible, the work produces speculative "evidence" of a world in which time does not exist, only states of energy distribution suspended within an abstract, timeless continuum.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, TouchDesigner, Video interaction technology, Arduino, Installation

Details3 min 06 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Metabolism of Meaning

The Metabolism of Meaning reduces cultural symbols to their energetic equivalent. By destroying digital representations of iconic images, the work releases measurable heat, which is then used to activate biological organisms within a satellite system. This conversion reframes meaning as a form of energy, subject to thermodynamic laws. Cultural value is no longer symbolic, but material—its significance measured in joules rather than interpretation. The work confronts the viewer with a decision: to preserve cultural memory or to convert it into energy for sustaining life, exposing the tension between symbolic and biological value systems.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, TouchDesigner, Sensor interaction technology, Arduino, Installation

Details1 min 16 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Handmade Illusion

Manual Illusion exposes the dependency of artificial intelligence on human labor and the instability of algorithmic facts truth. By manually labeling thousands of empty images with non-existent satellite coordinates, participants generate a dataset that trains a neural network to recognize what does not exist. Through repetition, the system internalizes this fiction, producing false detections that reveal the constructed nature of machine perception. The work reveals that algorithmic perception is dependent on the conditions of its training. Truth within this system is not discovered but produced through repetition and input.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, Web interaction, AI interaction, Installation

Details1 min 59 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Chapter III

Planetary Diagnosis

This chapter shifts the point of view from observing the world from Earth to examining Earth itself as an object of analysis. Planetary data is approached as a field of interpretation rather than a source of objective truth. Observation becomes inseparable from the systems that produce it. Images, data, and signals are translated through technological processes that shape how the planet is perceived. The Earth is reconfigured as a surface of inscription, where meaning is continuously constructed and transformed through systems of mediation.
Spatial Anti-Mapping: Inverting the established structure of the power of vision, and transforming orbiting satellites into a "cosmic scalpel" that examines the Earth.

Culture Medium: Pathological Section No. 3

Culture Medium reconfigures Earth as a biological sample observed through a satellite functioning as an extra-terrestrial microscope. By framing the planet as a "pathological slice," the work examines the relationship between life, data, and environmental transformation. Bacteria become indicators of planetary conditions, their activity reflecting the impact of war, pollution, and systemic change. Through the synchronization of biological processes and sound frequencies, the work constructs a feedback loop between data, life, and perception. The piece ultimately critiques the reduction of life into data within the logic of technological systems, exposing the tension between biological autonomy and computational abstraction.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, TouchDesigner, Sound interaction technology, Installation

Details2 min 15 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Acoustic Sarcophagus

Acoustic Sarcophagus collects the accumulated noise of human civilization and subjects it to destructive interference. Through the generation of inverse sound waves, these signals are neutralized, producing a state of enforced silence. The energy resulting from this cancellation is not released but contained, forming a compressed field of latent intensity. The work proposes silence not as absence, but as a constructed condition-one that reflects both the excess of human expression and the possibility of its physical negation.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, Noctiluca interaction, Sound wave control, Installation

Details1 min 09 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Pseudo-Canonical Texts on Orbits

Pseudo-Canonical Texts on Orbits transforms satellite observations of Earth into symbolic inscriptions that resemble fragments of sacred or apocryphal texts. Through algorithmic processing, planetary data is stripped of its empirical clarity and reconstituted as a system of signs. This translation reveals the extent to which observation is inseparable from interpretation. The Earth, when viewed from orbit, does not present itself as objective truth, but as a surface onto which meaning is continuously projected. By staging a dialogue between terrestrial imagery and orbital residue, the work constructs a speculative archive in which civilization is encoded as a set of unstable, translatable symbols.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, Installation

Details2 min 13 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Chapter IV

Void Legislation

This chapter addresses the collapse of meaning and the emergence of new symbolic orders. Language, signal, and representation are no longer stable carriers of meaning. They operate as structures that can dissolve, reorganize, and reconfigure themselves. Within this condition, systems of control and interpretation lose their authority. New forms of order emerge from the absence of fixed reference points. Meaning is no longer assigned but generated through processes that exceed human intention.
Symbolic Anti-Mapping: Achieving the Ultimate Escape from Disciplinary Systems, and Establishing an Undefined New Order in Absolute Vacuum.

Relativity Arbitrage Protocol

Relativity Arbitrage Protocol extracts the temporal discrepancy generated by relativistic effects in orbit and reframes it as a tradable asset. By refusing to synchronize with terrestrial time systems, the satellite produces a surplus of 38 microseconds per day. This excess is converted into a unit of exchange, requiring participants to sacrifice personal digital memory in return. The work constructs a speculative economy in which time, memory, and identity are entangled, exposing the underlying mechanisms through which value is produced, exchanged, and extracted.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, Web interaction, Mobile interaction, Installation

Details1 min 08 sec, 1920×1080, 2026

Vacuum No. 0

Vacuum No.0 explores the dissolution of language into pure signal. Through algorithmic processes, structured text is gradually stripped of semantic meaning, collapsing into abstract patterns of pixels and noise. Drawing from systems such as Conway's Game of Life, the work constructs a layered visual logic in which order and chaos coexist. In this space, communication no longer depends on interpretation but operates as a self-sustaining system of signals, pointing toward a condition in which meaning is no longer human-centered, but emergent from computational structures.

MediaVideo MP4, Satellite upload technology, Mobile interaction technology, Installation

Details1 min 25 sec, 1920×1080, 2026