Chang Gao is a Berlin-based multimedia artist and postdoctoral researcher working across artificial intelligence, bioelectric sensing, sculpture, film, augmented reality, and real-time generative systems. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art (London), Board member of feminist research collective Art&Dialogue (Berlin), and public art researcher and director of the Social Innovation Research Lab at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing).

Gao’s artistic and theoretical practice investigates affect, desire, and wonder as epistemic forces that challenge cultural hierarchies, anthropocentric AI bias, and regimes of technopolitical control. Her research explores how affective computing, sensory systems, and bioresponsive technologies reshape perception, agency, identity, and social structures. Working across robotics, augmented reality, bioelectric systems, sculpture, real-time AI installations, film, and immersive time-based media, Gao integrates eroticism and bodily affect as critical tools to destabilize normative boundaries between human and non-human intelligence. By harnessing desire and embodied sensation as subversive forces, Gao’s work confronts structures of censorship and exposes the ideological biases embedded within contemporary technological systems. Her projects seek to unsettle dominant imaginaries of control and efficiency, instead foregrounding vulnerability, intimacy, and affective resonance as sites of knowledge production and political imagination. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Berlin, London, Seoul, Utrecht, Graz, Tokyo, Helsinki, and across China.

07/2025 - present — Postdoctoral Researcher on Affect, Desire and Bias of AI, in collaboration with Universität der Künste Berlin and Universität Osnabrück
01.06.2023 - 01.09.2023 — Lecturer at Art Direction department of London College of Communication at University of Art London
03/2021 — Visiting Professorship in Fine Art, leading a large group seminar and individual tutorials to art undergraduate students at Bath University, United Kingdom
09/2020 - 12/2020 — Lecturer at MA group teaching at Royal College of Art, leading a large group teaching to over 40 students from different majors across Contemporary Art Practice, Curating Contemporary Art, Sculpture, Moving image, Glass and Ceramic, Jewellery, photography, painting, and History of Design etc.
01/2020 — Visiting Lecturer, leading a large seminar and individual tutorial to undergraduate students in Fine Art at Liverpool Hope University, UK
12.03.2019 Lecturer, leading RCA SoAH MA Critic and assessment towards MA students major in Sculpture, Contemporary Art Practice, Critical Writings and Moving Image at Royal College of Art, UK
2017 - 2023 — Establisher and Director of International Social Innovation Research Lab-Central Academy of Fine Art in China
2016 - 2018 — Professor teaching public art courses in School of City and Design, Central Academy of Fine Art China, Beijing
06/2015 - 06/2018 — Research Associate at Public Art Research Centre of China – China Academy of Fine Art Leading teaching and research group as the research leader for the national fund project “The Development History of Public Art in China” in Public Art Research Centre of China, Beijing
08/2013 - 06/2015 — Associate Lecturer leading group teaching to undergraduate students in Fine Art at Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing.
2008 - 2012 — Executive Editor at Tsinghua academic journal Academic Sculpture

Research Project Highlights:
1. PhD Project — Using Supernormal Stimuli and Eroticism to Create Artworks: An Experiment in Countering Cultural Hegemony and the Complexity of Postcoloniality in Chinese Public Space (Currently Embargoed due to political sensitivity)
A practice-based research project examining affect, desire, and supernormal stimuli as artistic methods for analysing cultural hegemony and postcolonial power structures in Chinese public space. Through public artworks employing robotic, AR, and biosensor systems, the project investigates embodied perception as a form of non-linguistic political articulation. It demonstrates how affect-driven artistic interventions can generate alternative modes of collective perception, agency, and social imagination.
https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-degrees/research-students/chang-gao

2. Publication of Intimacy and Desire as Subversive Empowering Force Using Supernormal Stimuli and Eroticism in the production of Artworks in Resisting Cultural Hegemony.
It examines how eroticism and supernormal stimuli mobilize bodily affect as non-symbolic forms of expression in politically constrained contexts. Through robotics, AR, and physiological sensing, the project investigates technologically mediated desire as a site of affective embodiment. It proposes affect-driven artistic practice as a strategy for challenging cultural hegemony and reconfiguring the relation between sensation and representation. This publication as part of SFB Intervenierende Intimitäten (Intervening Intimacies): Academic Research Anthology. SFB 1512 Intervenierende Künste, Freie Universität Berlin & Universität der Künste Berlin.

3. Postdoc Research project on Desire, AI & Supernormal Stimuli: Revealing AI Bias and Censorship via Bodily Affect
An immersive practice led research producing installation and interfce on examining how affective intensity exposes the behavioural limits and normative constraints and bias embedded within AI systems. By treating desire and bodily sensation as non-linguistic forms of intelligence, the project investigates how algorithmic systems reproduce cultural norms and censorship structures, positioning affect as both a diagnostic tool and a method for critically interrogating machine decision processes.

4. Multimedia-Performance — Can You Feel My Diasporic Love? Affective Encounters of Wonder, Body and Machine
A live multimedia performance investigating artificial intelligence as an affective feedback system emerging between performers, audiences, and computational environments. Rather than operating through linguistic instruction, the work frames AI as a performative partner whose behaviour unfolds through embodied interaction, rhythm, and collective responsiveness. The project functions as a public research platform exploring intelligence, agency, and meaning as relational processes shaped by affective encounters between human and machine systems. https://vorspiel.berlin/events/can-you-feel-my-diasporic-love

5. Heart rate sculpture & Film Feedback system Shower Me with Affection
An immersive installation translating human cardiac rhythms into spatial, sonic, and visual transformation. By staging intimacy as a dynamic exchange between bodily processes and responsive environments, the project examines how affective coupling between human and machine systems reshapes experiences of care, perception, and co-presence. The installation proposes artificial intelligence not as an abstract computational entity, but as a behavioural ecology emerging through embodied relational interaction.
https://gaochangart.net/exhibition-what-you-hear-when-i-say-gro_-multi-media-installation-shower-me-with-affection/

Artistic Contributions — selected (key exhibitions, performances, lecture-performances, and major conferences):
14.-18.05.2026 — Multimedia performance Can You Feel My Diasporic Love? Affective Encounters of Body, Wonder and Machine, Hybrid Festival 2026, Uferstudios, Berlin.
13.03.2026 - 04/2026 — Sound/light multimedia sculpture Feel My Sensuality, exhibition Technology of Desire, Scope BLN, Berlin.
14.03.2026 — Film screening Erotic Proximity, Groucho Club, London.
22.-28.01.2026 — Multimedia performance and installation showcase Can You Feel My Diasporic Love? Affective Encounter of Wonder, Body, and Machine, alpha nova & galerie futura, Vorspiel / Transmediale & CTM Festival 2026, Berlin.
19.09.2025 - 18.10.2025 — Performance Can You Feel My Diasporic Love? (with sculpture and film components), Unit 1 Gallery|Workshop, London.
05.06.2025 — Lecture performance Desire Beyond Flesh: Combating AI Bias through Supernormal Stimuli, IKSK Colloquium Series The Future of Sex: AI, Desire, and the Flesh, Berlin.
08.-09.12.2023 — Keynote lecture performance Intimacy and Desire as Subversive Force, Intervenierende Intimitäten Conference, Freie Universität Berlin & Universität der Künste Berlin.
27.09.2024 — Augmented reality and print Organic Access, Steirischer Herbst 2024, Graz, Austria.
08.06.2024 — Robotic installation Speaking for the Speechless, Bodywork Festival Speak Your Body Out, IKSK, Berlin.
26.05.2024 — Performance Desire, AI and Public Intimacy, De_colonialanguage Collective / Marxist Fasęd public intervention, Berlin.
26.-29.04.2024 — Film and installations (Emotional Encounter; Book of Disquiet; Shower Me with Affection; Erotic Poetics), exhibition what you hear when I say gro, gallery N.Y.D Berlin.
29.04.2024 — Multi-media theatre performance Love Me with Sound, gallery N.Y.D Berlin.
22.06.2023 — Film Erotic Proximity, Royal College of Art Research Biennale HOPSCOTH, Copeland Gallery, London.
21.06.2023 — Performance Erotic Proximity, Beaconsfield Contemporary Art, London.
14.-18.04.2023 — Film Erotic Proximity and AR interface Erotic Poetics, exhibition Subterranean Organ, The Crypt Gallery, London.
01.-09.12.2022 — PhD solo exhibition Erotic Proximity, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London.
14.-21.03.2022 — Exhibition (film Erotic Proximity, AR interface and print Erotic Poetics), Southwark Park Galleries / Dilston Gallery, London.
30.06.2021 - 05.07.2021 — Artwork Book of Disquiet, London Art Biennale, Chelsea Old Town Hall, London.
27.05.2021 — Film Erotic Proximity, RCA Research Event Entanglement: Just Dreaming (the Worlds), Royal College of Art, London.
02.03.2021 — Research project presentation, RCA Research Biennale, Royal College of Art, London.
04.-07.03.2020 — Double-solo exhibition Public Intimacy, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London.
22.-25.01.2020 — Research exhibition 2084, Royal College of Art, London.
04.10.2019 - 24.11.2019 — Project The Distribution of Wealth Most Conductive to Human Happiness (with Dr. Melanie Jordan), Coventry Biennale Contemporary Art 2019, UK.
02.-03.10.2019 — Hologram installation Emotional Encounter, COLLISIONS Practice-led Research Conference, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, London.
04.-09.07.2019 — Installation Emotional Encounter-3, Transformation Research Conference, Royal College of Art, London.
29.01.2019 - 10.02.2019 — Installations Organic Access and Emotional Encounter, exhibition Entanglement: The Opera, Royal College of Art, London.
25.08.2018 — Artwork Art Must Take Side, Beaconsfield Contemporary Art Gallery, London (permanent installation).
2017-2018 — Residency production of major installation works including Speaking for the Speechless, Central Academy of Fine Arts Residency, Beijing.
10.-17.09.2011 — CORE International Exhibition (Hongik University; Tama University; Tsinghua University; Aalto University), speech as Outstanding Student.
2010 — Sculpture Gender: Not Defined selected for national graduate exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing; work Destruction selected for National Art Exhibition, Changchun Sculpture Park, China.

Gao, C., and de_colonialanguage collective (2024). “Power of Erotics: Desire, AI, and Public Intimacy.” In: Syg.ma, community-run multilingual media platform and translocal archive. 

Gao, C. (2024). “Using Supernormal Stimuli and Eroticism to Create Artworks: An Experiment in Countering Cultural Hegemony and the Complexity of Postcoloniality in Chinese Public Space.” PhD thesis, Royal College of Art.

Gao, C. (2024). “Augmented Reality Interface Erotic Poetics.” In: Itinerant Space, Issue 2.  

Gao, C., and Johnson, D. (2022). “How do Affect and Phenomenology Reshape Representation and Art? A Conversation Between David Johnson and Chang Gao on Ignorance and Oppression in Disability and Chinese Society.” In: Representation: RCA Academic Research Critique Anthology, p. 39-51.

Gao, C. (2022). “Intimate Fantasy, Sculpture Speaking for the Speechless, Sensuousness Against Repressions.” In: PROVA 6: RCA Arts & Humanities Research Journal, p. 60.

Gao, C. (2022). “Erotic Proximity, Intimate Fantasy, Speaking for the Speechless, Gender; Not Defined, Beauty Inside.” In: Representation: RCA Academic Research Critique Anthology, p. 33, p. 35, p. 47, p. 48, p. 50.

Gao, C. (2021). “Using Supernormal Stimuli and Eroticism to Create Public Artworks in Addressing Postcolonialism and Cultural Hegemony in Chinese Public Space.” In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation: Sentimental Machines.

Gao, C. (2020). “Using Supernormal Stimuli in the Production of Artwork Addressing Postcolonial Phenomenon in Chinese Public Space.” In: PROVA 5: RCA Arts & Humanities Research Journal, p. 250-261.

Gao, C. (2020). “Book of Disquiet (ECG heart-rate interactive sculpture).” In: PROVA 5: RCA Arts & Humanities Research Journal, p. 211.

Gao, C. (2020). “Organic Access, Emotional Encounter” In: PROVA 5: RCA Art & Humanities Research Journal, p. 250, p. 252-259, p. 260-261.

Gao, C., and Wu, D. (2017). “Interview with Yuan Yunsheng on Capital Mural Songkran Festival – Hymn to Life.” In: Public Art in China.

Gao, C. (2016). edited “Chance · Voice: Symposium of Public Art in China.” Hebei Education Publication House. ISBN 9787554529553.

Gao, C. (2016). edited “China Public Art Publication” Haitian Publication House. ISBN 9787554529553. 

Gao, C., and Li, L. (2016). “The Increasing Theoretical and Conceptual Consciousness in Chinese Public Art.” In: Zhuangshi, 11th Edition, p. 31-32.

Gao, C. (2016). “Public Art in China.” In: National Social Science Fund Artistic Youth Project: Public Art History Research. Haitian Publication House.

Gao, C. (2016). “Interview with Xu Bing: Transforming ‘Social Energy’ into Artistic Practice.” In: Public Art in China (Interview Series). 

Gao, C. (2016). “Interview with Yin Xiuzhen: Materiality, Memory, and Urban Experience.” In: Public Art in China (Interview Series).

Gao, C. (2016). “Interview with Wang Zhong: Public Sculpture and the Transformation of Urban Space.” In: Public Art in China (Interview Series).  

Gao, C. (2016). “Interview with Yuan Yunsheng: Monumentality and the Ethics of Public Art.” In: Public Art in China (Interview Series).

Gao, C. (2016). “Interview with Liu Jianhua: Contemporary Sculpture and Social Engagement.” In: Public Art in China (Interview Series).

Gao, C. (2016). “Interview with Wang Jianwei: Media, Space, and Public Intervention.” In: Public Art in China (Interview Series).

Gao, C. (2014). “A Poetry of a Thousand Waterfalls – Linhui Yin.” In: Catalogue of the 12th National Exhibition of Fine Arts, China, p. 120. 

Gao, C. (2014). “A Poetry of a Thousand Waterfalls – Linhui Yin.” In: The 8th “Shengfa Yisu Cup” Excellent Works Catalogue, China Sculpture Net, p. 1f.

Gao, C. (2010). “Gender: Not Defined.” In: I Call the Shot of My Youth Catalogue, Giant Cup Collection of Today Art Student Annual ART Awards, p. 45. 

Gao, C. (2009). “From Dunhuang to New York.” In: Academic Sculpture, No. 4, p. 51-53.