TONG NIU
DEEP LISTENINGS
No.0 PI
No.0-PI, as an organic intelligence and co-creation system, heralds the arrival of a decentralized society in the future. It emerges from the random, free, chaotic, and poetic natural soundscape.

Originating from the sounds of natural plants, it embodies the energy of the future. Through underground roots and networks, it exchanges information and nutrients, representing an invisible wisdom of mutual assistance and symbiosis, omnipresent in transmitting and filtering information, embedding itself into spaces through iteration and integration. At every moment, nature feeds frequencies back to the network, transforming into a neural grid field. Intelligent learning, generation, and construction lead to a rational intelligent system. Exploring conditions for collective coexistence and life co-creation, it advocates for equality and harmonious connections.

PI aims to explore different combinations of collective participation, balancing and synthesising future soundscapes, realising and reorganising them, and reflecting on natural ethics and future societal changes. Most importantly, it draws strength from nature and life. Visual design @Iris Zhang
Sound design @Tong Niu

Performance on Wednesday 13 Dec
IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard,
20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG
Moving images,
Soundscapes,
AV programming,
live performance,
Digital storytelling,
Synthesizer
2’ 40，
(12, 2023)


Using polyphonic twelve-tone equal temperament, I compose samples of plant sounds, adjusting frequencies to create layered iterative sequences. These sequences electrify natural soundscapes through random recombination and iteration, composing a digital symbiotic concerto.

Based on this concept, Visual artist Iris Zhang began her visual creation,“ To depict the informatization and communicability of plants, internal plant information transmission is achieved through cellular vibrations, with the transmitted electrical signals promoting changes in cytoplasmic calcium concentration. Signal transmission between plants occurs through VOCs (volatile organic compounds like MeJA) and underground mycorrhizal networks. Using these findings, I extracted primary colors from the calcium spectrum, simulating the internal information transmission process within plants. This serves as a foundation to speculate and envision the interactive relationship between human and plant intelligence in the decomposition and symbiosis of information.”
Roaming- 
“Listening! Rosemary is glowing in 
bodliless lamp.”
 "Waking up from our hallucination,
attuning to a moment, transcending the reality of
the resonance in the phantom neurovein" - Manifesto of the PLB Association-

 A Collection of the Spectral Voices,
It is based on Bakhtin’s polyphony theory, creating equal dialogue value through simultaneous singing, these continuous micro internal language dialogues, external dialogues, searching for communication links, creating variation structures and multiple perspectives, deconstructing and breaking down scene images in the form of dynamic images, collage and reassemble. These covered traumatic sounds come from when they are at a loss, not just from the resonance of their inner voices; At the same time, it is a response and feedback to the external world, resonating with the environment.
Field-recording,
Moving images,
AV programming,
2’ 40

July 2024: Research Journeys, Battersea Hangar Space, London.

April 2024: Fragments for the Future, RCA
Battersea Hangar Space, London.



Figure- Screenshot, Created by the author, Tong Niu 2024
Figure- Screenshot, Created by the author, Tong Niu 2024
Figure- Screenshot, Created by the author, Tong Niu 2024
Figure- Screenshot, Created by the author, Tong Niu 2024



Roaming 2

Comet TailMeticulously tracing the myths and prejudices of ghosts, this work explores alternating shifts that map traumatic memory and external relationships. The nature of polyphony evokes the effect of unpredictable memories in the context of trauma as a potent symbol of strength, connection and healing. Using sound art as a medium, I am seeking to reveal the disconnection and alienation prevalent in modern life, mapping attention to the profound effects of spiritual ripples.

Indeed, the interaction between female and male ghosts, especially when it results in rebirth or resurrection, inevitably suggests wider cosmic decay and regeneration processes. From a particular perspective, the term "female ghost" is even a tautology. In the complementary opposition of yin and yang, ghosts are "super-yin," an intensification of qualities or phases associated with yin rather than with yang. The voices that echo through the tapes, narrating the tale, are those of the female ghosts of Ai, their ethereal tones carrying the weight of astronomical teachings. In stark contrast, the narrator's voice remains unaltered, a deliberate choice that hints at contemporary processing in sonic space, possibly through electroacoustic technology. This unprocessed voice, seemingly transcendent, as if traversing infinite fragments of memory, is a testament to the cosmos, a fleeting moment in time, merging seamlessly with the past, present, and future.Moving images,
Graphic design
sound installation
soundscape

AV programming, 
6’ 15

Collaborator：
Visual artist, Iris Zhang
 The comet's tail retraces and reconstructs memories into prophetic symbols. Using uncaptured, hidden, fragments of memory in the environment, we explore the potential destinies predetermined by astrological images moulded from immediate trajectories of movement. We symbolise the Flânerie archive from a female perspective through the methodology of archiving in the later years of Warburg. Using them to reinterpret the Huainanzi's Astronomical Disciplines and to critique the taboos and regrets of women in the margins of history. We use image manipulation techniques and latent space to recode images and sounds and amplify the fragments that lurk in the trajectory. soundscape becomes a guide for our resonance with the universe, aligning with the pace of our Flânerie as consciousness continues to move forward. It derives a multidimensional insight into who we are as women, exploring with the audience the mysteries hidden in the comet's trajectory. Hanger Gallery,
Royal College of Art, 
Battersea
Roaming 3 
Phantom Monument
Inspiring the Feminizing the Ghost(Zeitlin, 2016), which portrays the story of The finale of Peony Pavilion, which sanctions both the phantom heroine's resurrection from the dead and her secret marriage to her mortal lover, defends these extraordinary events on cosmic grounds: "All obeyed the logic proper to the union of yin and yang." On one level, this last phrase is a standard description of both human reproduction and the world's creation and, as such, suggests the metaphorical potential for cosmogenesis present even in an ordinary marriage.
I began searching for various transparent materials to create phantasmic prisms and telescopes, a form of diffuse sculpture. I use transparent curtains, like a window in the middle of the universe; It is moving, and these states of being, in-between, things are always becoming. So, I also chose to forego input to the model in the expression of digital technology and instead create an immersive, participatory research experience that combines the power of sonic narrative with the exploration of future visions while deepening the understanding of life in the present.Spiritual sculpture
Ringing Monument Iron,
Crystals Spray Paint, 
3D Printing Resin
Transparent material experiments-layer2, Tong Niu 2024
Though the "neural image"  inputs and the human electrical interventions generate prophecised organic neural fields, these totems can be heard, translated, and iterated through immersive space, linked with relationships, and the data information of the metamorphosis. Using NASA's outer space sounds and RAVE: Real-time Variational Auto-Encoder Machine Learning Module for generating spatial textures. 
Further explorations integrate concepts of Musica universalis, which posits celestial bodies' movements as mathematical formulas creating inaudible harmonic music. Cybernetic-psychedelic regression techniques will induce altered perceptions, enhancing the depth of sensory data. The methodology includes assimilating celestial trajectories and mapping personal roaming sequences through electrical signals, utilizing computer vision technology to decode infinite spatial potentials. 
Moving images,
AV programming, 
6‘ 30, 2024

In the phantom's chants, I explore the aesthetic narratives of cybernetic-psychedelic regression, using this medium to create apolyphonic healing space. I aim to rebuild the connection between individuals and historical relics, as well as with nature, by providing immersive experiences. Through this process, I aim to establish a relationship between the body and the world, creating an emotional space that resonates with the body through acts of wandering and searching. The voice of the phantom narrator links infinite spaces, diffusing through spiritual sculptures as a metaphor. The natural monuments for the wandering, dissociated ghosts will symbolise the transient and intangible presence of these spectral entities in natural environments. Spiritual sculpture
Ringing Monument Iron,
Crystals Spray Paint, 
3D Printing Resin


These monuments will serve as spaces for contemplation, situated in serene landscapes or ancient ruins, where visitors can reflect on the concept of dissociation and its intersection with the natural world. I adopt the form of artistic installations, resembling a series of monuments, incorporating elements that evoke a sense of haunting and separation. These include sculptures or structures that appear fragmented or semi-transparent, representing the elusive nature of ghosts and their connection to the environment. Natural materials such as stone, wood, or ethereal fabrics could be used to enhance the monument’s otherworldly quality.The soundscape is spatialised through a Hertzian reduction of the synthesizer's original frequency waveform. The aural landscape shaped by the spatialised sound becomes a guide for action. This guides species to engage in dynamic dialogues with the phantoms of natural relics through four methods: listening, tracking, gazing, and reshaping. The focus is no longer on what we see through images but on how sound communicates what we have not seen, unconsciously forgotten, including the emotional and ecological links we experience.Created by the author, Spiritual Sculpture- Ringing Monument(07, 2024)

‘Null-Flux’- A Bit Louder


The work is adapted from an allegorical short story—“A Bit Louder”（Neo Gao, 2023), with noise as the core topic and discusses the alienation of people as "social beings” in a fictionalized context. By using symbolic metaphors, the story delineates the psychological process of schizophrenia of individuals in the ‘social machine’ through the lens of labour life, social relations, desires etc. The Null-Flux translates its literature text into cross-media interactive expression and depicts the heterotopia fable as a real-time audiovisual performance.  

The audio vocal sampled the highest ten search keywords from various departments of the medical industry across continentals, read by an AI speech program with turbulent toned and rhythmed patterns. Sythcrinized with real-time interactive camera imaging, the multilingual vocal gradually crooked its tones and segmentations, forming a data poem emanating in its grotesque life cycle. Visual design @Iris Zhang
Sound design @Neo Gao
Sound Field Folding, Hundred Years Gallery, London

2024/08/03 ’Sound Field Folding‘ at
Hundred Years Gallery

The "8Hz" Sacrifice


Since artificial electromagnetic technology destroyed the earth’s natural electromagnetic field, all human beings became producers and tried to produce 8hz Schumann resonance. At this time, 8hz became the belief in human beings, and the producers must follow the strict five-tone element ritual to make the brain produce 8hz. The 8hz in the brain is produced by playing music, being sacrificed with Schumann resonance, and the amplitude produced is finally dedicated to the earth's "pulse" to maintain the balance of the 8hz natural electromagnetic field. The socalled ritual is a metaphor for transcendental worship, which constrains individual will through natural links that override all things. The endless engulfment of pulses and the endless inheritance cycle express the instinct of human beings to submit to spreading genes for a long time. When the hitherto invisible internal magnetic field appears in the common visual field of the living environment, can humans build a better communication environment?


When the generation of resources in the future needs to be nurtured by human beings, can environmental problems be improved?

Simulation of Silver Visual Fiber Mask design- The worship of 8 Hz has been deeply reflected, Such as the sun-shaped crown of Bronze Warriors in the Jinsha Site, bronzed eye protection vessels, and the bionic form of birds. Cryptochrome 4 (Cry4) protein found in bird retina is sensitive to a magnetic field, which may be a magnetic sensor that people have been looking for for a long time.
Narrating in a sequence of five chapters. In ancient times, people calculated time by the sun, so the 8hz time was calculated by the Central furnace. Collection of electromagnetic friction sounds, and modulation of the tone in the ancient Chinese pentatonic scale. 

Future narrative，
Sound design,
Immersive performance,
5’30

(12, 2022)
Peach Blossom Island
In modern society, while we desire and seek freedom, we are unable to achieve it in the shadow of a particular social purpose. Instead of being free as individuals, people are caught in the paradox of freedom, filled with loneliness, powerlessness, and a sense of unease.

When we are tired of the chaos and confusion, is there an ideal meditative space, a peach island hidden in the middle of the city, where we can temporarily immerse ourselves in the associative consciousness of freedom? Otona Maki is a Japanese treatment method. 
By wrapping the human body in a large piece of cloth simulating the comfort of the mother's uterus to correct posture people can feel comfort and peace of mind in the wrapped stable environment. 

Graphic design
Fashion Design
Immersive performance

Thanks to my Collaborator:
@Fashion designer, Fanrui Sun

 




TCT-The Second Osseous Segment
Exploring the will to act.
Medical instruments into the future of life.

In order to attach importance to the acceptance and behavioural inertia of younger groups, the combination of medical testing and the future lifestyle of human beings is explored with the judgment of individual active cognitive and own health energetics. While adhering to the test and giving life to the jewellery by shooting according to the timeline, a tacit understanding is formed with others.Installation Interaction
Information visualisation


FUTURE PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISING

The advertisement expresses the function and role of the second joint in operation. Production for future health charities to call for greater awareness of potential diseases.
In the future of everyday life, worn as an exposed bone - the second bone - and given a jewellery colour according to the detection of time points, building a tacit understanding between people.
The Post-truth Era
Social Illusion Narrative
If we can use this language system in the future to express events in an instant without being affected by tenses, will it change our way of thinking? And when we can predict future events, what will we think of the truth? While presenting the reflection information in our eyes, we try to express that we are the phenomenon itself, and the truth is not absolute, but we can cherish every real moment.In the TRUTH: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality by Hector MacDonald, a master storyteller who advises the world's leading companies on business, uses vivid stories to show us how the truth is mutilated, distorted and obscured by the messengers.

Inspiration from the TRUTH: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our RealityIf people do not make changes all the time, what impact will the subjective and false images brought by the post-truth era have on people? In the post-truth era, the transmission of truth is a real problem in front of us. More and more people are guided by public opinion, and the truth is increasingly difficult to distinguish.

Information visualisation
Speculative Fiction
Experimental images
sound design


2’28
(07, 2023)

TOP 100 Emerging Designers of the Year 2022 at 2022 Asian New Generation Design Exhibition  

The 9th INNODESIGN PRIZE, France - Bronze Award

Finalist at The Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards



Semi-noisy Parasites
Beauty is beautiful, it is already evil; when all the world knows that good is good, it is already ungood. Yin and Yang is a generalisation of the dichotomy, showing that things have their opposite sides and that the two transform each other, a natural essence.

50 years later, in the massive application of virtual systems, more and more extreme information "noise" broke out. The government regulatory system is constantly improving, and the important premise to maintain the dynamic balance of nature comes from the opposite constraints of natural laws. Humans try to make reverse signals to offset the abnormal sound shielding and build an eternal balance in the signal cycle process. Unfortunately, these fibres can only be seen through the lens of the supervisor.When the information feedback signal is completely embedded in our environment, what impact will this information environment under absolute restriction have on us? 

When we lose the stimulus of neural perception, how will we perceive and distinguish "beauty", and how will individual consciousness survive?Sound Design
Speculative Fiction
Augmented Reality in Shanghai Citymapping

3.30（9，2021）

CHAPTER











Communication design
Sound art
Live performance
Digital storytelling
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