Xin Liu Studio | RESEARCH
| RESEARCH documents the interdisciplinary practice of the studio, across contemporary art, scientific research and emerging technologies. The studio develops long-term investigations spanning biotechnology, artificial intelligence, sensing technologies, obritial environment and human spaceflight, building new interfaces between different ways of producing knowledge.

The studio approaches scientific and artistic inquiry as complementary modes of knowledge production. By working across their methods, tools and institutions, it develops new research, collaborations and cultural infrastructures at the boundaries of what is currently known.

i. ORBITAL RESEARCH

Thesis
  
Space exploration is entering a period of rapid transformation.  

  • As humanity becomes a spacefaring species, the challenge is no longer simply reaching beyond Earth, but determining what kinds of knowledge, institutions and cultures accompany us there.

  • As access to space expands beyond national agencies to universities, private industry and international collaborations, new questions emerge about how research is organized, how planetary knowledge is produced, how orbital infrastructures are maintained, and who participates in shaping humanity’s future beyond Earth.

    Xin Liu studio contributes to this moment by developing research programs, flight missions and public initiatives that integrate artistic practice with aerospace engineering, biology and scientific instrumentation. Across orbital missions, international collaborations and cultural institutions, the studio explores how new forms of knowledge and participation shape the future of human space exploration.

Area of Rsearch

    Human spaceflight
    Space biotechnology
    Autonomous scientific instrumentation
    Space habitats and closed-loop systems    Orbital Infrastructures
    Planetary Observation
    Art–science collaboration
    Public participation in space exploration
    Space culture and institutional design


Our Work:
Cultural Infrastructure
    Xin Liu Studio established interdisciplinary platforms connecting artists, scientists and engineers through exhibitions, public programs, research initiatives and space missions. 
    MIT Space Exploration Initiative | Liu was a founding member of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative, where she developed interdisciplinary programs connecting artists, scientists and engineers through exhibitions, public programs and research initiatives. She established multi-year partnerships with LACMA and Ars Electronica, creating opportunities for early-career artists to engage directly with space research and present new work through international exhibitions and public programs. Liu also led the arts program for Beyond the Cradle, MIT’s flagship space exploration conference, curating exhibitions, artist commissions and panel discussions alongside active aerospace research. Through these initiatives, she worked with artists, architects, curators and researchers including Laura Anderson Barbata, Ebru Kurbak, Nahum, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Honor Harger, Nicholas de Monchaux and Benjamin Bratton, as well as collaborators across academia, cultural institutions and the aerospace sector. 
    Sojourner 2020 | Liu initiated and led Sojourner 2020, one of the first international open calls inviting artists worldwide to send artworks to the International Space Station. Liu designed and built the flight payload, enabling a collective artwork to be launched aboard SpaceX CRS-20 and exhibited on the ISS.  The payload was a 1.5U size device (100mm x 100mm x 152.4mm) that was launched into low Earth orbit in March 202.


Our Work:
Human Spaceflight Research
    Liu led the development of MicroPET, an autonomous bioreactor designed to study enzymatic reactions, microbial cultivation and biological upcycling in microgravity.

    The compact, modular system enables programmable serial passaging, automatic media transfer, sample preservation and sensor-based monitoring. The mission investigates a two-stage process in which polyethylene terephthalate is enzymatically degraded and subsequently upcycled through microbial activity, developed in collaboration with  MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Weill Cornell Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Seed Health. The team successfully conducted the payload experiment in the International Space Station in December 2022. The project is recognized as one of The Best Inventions of 2023 in TIME magazine and has been accepted into Nature Partner Journal Microgravity. 

    The project considers how autonomous biological systems might contribute to waste transformation, material recovery and closed-loop infrastructure in future space habitats. 

    Liu, X., Pataranutaporn, P., Fram, B., Werner, A.Z., Sharma, S., Gauthier, N.P., Erickson, E., Chwalek, P., Ramirez, K.J., Ingraham, M.A. and Murphy, N.P., 2025. Development and flight-testing of modular autonomous cultivation systems for biological plastics upcycling aboard the ISS. npj Microgravity, 11(1), p.23.

    Liu, X., 2019, October. Curating the human experience of space—a collaborative, inclusive approach. In Proceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC (Vol. 2019, pp. IAC-19,E5,3,9,x54420). International Astronautical Federation, IAF.

Our Work:
Flight Mission  
    Flight missions are one of the studio's research platforms. Across parabolic flights, suborbital launches and orbital missions aboard the International Space Station, the studio has developed autonomous scientific payloads, biological experiments and mission architectures for microgravity research.Our experience spans every stage of a mission lifecycle, from concept development and systems integration to launch operations and on-orbit experimentation. 
    These missions investigate future forms of experimentation beyond Earth while advancing interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists and engineers. 

    • International Space Station · SpaceX CRS-26
    • International Space Station · SpaceX CRS-20
    • Blue Origin New Shepard
    • Zero-G Flights X 3

Our Work:
Obrital  Ecologies

Position

As humanity extends its presence beyond Earth, the challenge is no longer solely one of transportation or engineering. Every expansion into a new environment also requires new systems of knowledge, new cultural practices and new institutions capable of supporting human life and collective imagination.

Xin Liu Studio understands the outer space as a living environment composed of biological, technological, atmospheric and cultural systems. Through missions, sensing technologies, field research and institution building, the studio develops new ways of investigating the evolving relationship between humanity and the orbital world.