Let's dance with music
Partner Programme
Artist Statement
Qian Zhang is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist, somatic researcher, and creative technologist. She holds an MPS from New York University Tisch's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where her practice explored the intersection of artificial intelligence, bio-sensing, movement, and embodied interaction. Her work spans interactive installation, computational performance, projection mapping, and digital storytelling. Her projects have been longlisted for the Yugo BAFTA Student Awards and received a Silver Award at the New York Digital Awards.
My practice explores the body as an expressive interface between human experience and computational systems. Working across movement, artificial intelligence, bio-sensing, sound, and interactive installation, I create responsive environments in which bodily action becomes both input and a way of thinking. Rather than using technology to replace or optimize human expression, I am interested in how machines can listen, respond, and participate in embodied experience. My recent work investigates these relationships through dance, emotional movement, and human-machine improvisation.
Work Statement
Let's Dance with Music is an interactive AI performance system built in 2025 that transforms emotional movement into generative sound in real time. Using a webcam, BlazePose, and a custom ml5.js time-series model, the system recognizes three expressive movement states-Sadness and Inner Struggle, Conflict and Tension, and Freedom and Liberation-and maps them to layered generative sound. The dancer responds to the evolving music through new movement, creating a continuous feedback loop between body and machine. The work can be presented as an interactive screen-based installation with a webcam, computer, display or projection, and speakers.
Let's dance with music was presented in Mind × Body: Catalyst Phenomenon Archive, organised by the Reality Intelligence Association as part of London Design Festival 2026.
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