What is it like to be so light?
Floating spinning, detached from what we know.

Living Distance is a fantasy and a mission in which a wisdom tooth is sent to outer space and back to Earth again. Carried by a crystalline robotic sculpture called EBIFA, the tooth becomes a newborn entity in outer space. Its performance concerns death, body and homeland in a world where our science exploration and spiritual journeys diverge.

Living Distance is a three-part work. It comprises the outer space performance, a 2-channel video installation, and a VR experience. 

In this technology-infused outer space performance, Xin weaves her tooth’s journey with her inquiry on land. The performance will be represented in a two-channel video installation that mixes documentary footage of the methodical but contingent unfolding of the launch with imagery of the artist performing underwater and in the Texas desert. The installation opens up a space in between the space mission and the dreamlike ceremonies that anoint its passage. In the VR experience, the audience takes on the role of the tooth and experiences the journey firsthand. A wisdom tooth emerges in darkness, destined to extraction, but its life takes an unexpected turn when it enters another darkness: the infinite of outer space. 

“Is breeding a physiological instinct for women? I put my life (time, effort, intelligence) into an inorganic, ruthless mechanical system, and then place my bone and blood (teeth) in the centre. It is part of me, my avatar. We will never be alive in the same space, it will break into pieces before returning to Earth. It came to life in the absence of gravity, but I am standing here firmly. I speculate that "humanity" will not break through the interstellar space-time distance in the form of an organism. If we acknowledge our limits as biological species, how can human beings face the others, who are created and feared by us? ”