Profile 
 I am a practice-based researcher working across participatory design, collective narrative, and the lived experience of crisis. My doctoral research asks how communities give shape to the aftermath. I co-designed a participatory VR environment with seven participants of the 2022 Shanghai COVID-19 lockdown, working from their testimonies toward collectively authored memorial artefacts in virtual space. I draw on affect theory, counter-discourse, and qualitative methods to understand how narratives of rupture, ending, and recovery are expressed and preserved through creative and spatial practice. My work sits across HCI, design research, and the medical humanities, with a sustained focus on marginalised voices and the role of creative co-authorship in how communities come to terms with collective trauma.
Email, Instagram ↗

Education
UAL – London College of Communication, University of the Arts London
PhD Researcher
2023 – Present

University of Westminster
MA Interactive Media Practice
2021 – 2022

Taipei National University of the Arts (Exchange)
New Media Department
2019 – 2020

Shanghai Conservatory of Music
BA Multimedia Art Design (Rank First)
2017 – 2021
Employment
UAL – London College of Communication
PhD Researcher; Sole Designer & Developer
2023 – Present

Hunan TV
Director; Event Planning; Audio Keyboard Director
01.2023 – 08.2023

UAL Doctoral School PGR Catalyst
Workshop Facilitator, I Ching-Inspired AI Image Generation
Jun – Nov 2025

3A Collective,
Co-curator & Co-organiser, Memory Catcher Exhibition
03.2026

Skills
Technical: Unity, TouchDesigner, C4D, Maya, Blender, Stable Diffusion, Processing, Arduino
Design: Adobe Creative Suite (PS, AI, PR, AE, ID, XD), Mapping, CAD
Research Methods: Participatory Design, Qualitative Coding (Thematic Analysis), Practice-based Research, Co-design, Semi-structured Interview
Coding: C#, HTML, JavaScript
Languages: Mandarin (Native), English (Professional), Japanese (Basic)

Exhibitions
Memory Catcher
3A Collective, Safe House 1, London, UK
2026

Unfolding Narrative Exhibition
Personal Work
2025

“A Mirage” – “Great Sound Be Silence”
Goldsmiths Confucius Institute
2023

Metaphor and Storytelling: Stimulating the “Inner Power”
MA Graduation Project (Leapmotion)
2022

Using AV Installation to Explore Autism Behaviour
Interactive Media Artist
2022

Mental Health Platform
UI Design + App Coding, Sole Designer & Developer
2021

“Bad Activity”
Space and Light Design, TUNA
2019 – 2020

Awards
UAL Doctoral School PGR Catalyst Grant (£1000)
2025
Publications
Liu, Y., Lu, W., & Kang, L. (2026). Reframing Participation through Daoist Cosmology: Patterns of the Unseen in Human–AI Co-creation. Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Participatory Design Conference (PDC ’26). ACM.
2026

Liu, Y., Lu, W., & Kang, L. (2026). Reshaping the Relationship between AI and Humans through Daoist Cosmology: Patterns of the Unseen in Co-creation. In Creativity and AI (Vol. 4). Springer Nature. (In Press)
2026

Lu, W.*, Kang, L.*, & Liu, Y.* (2026). Ritual, Resonance, and the Unseen: A Daoist Cosmotechnics of Human–AI Co-creation. In Performance, Faith, and the Ordinary. Routledge. (Invited for full chapter)
2026

Hu, X.*, Lin, Z.*, & Liu, Y.* Beyond Anthropomorphism: Towards Perceived Intersubjective Partnerships with Generative AI. ACM TOCHI. (Under revision)

Liu, Y. (2026). From Narrative to Space: A Practice-Based Approach to Designing Collective Narratives in Virtual Reality. Design Studies. (In preparation)
AZIEL® Personal  SiteIndex p.(1-10)

Yicen  Aziel  Liu
Interaction Design/XR/AI
PhD. Researcher


Building virtual spaces where memory takes form. I understand humans and AI as entangled becomings, equal counterparts who continuously reshape each other through their relations, never settling into fixed roles. Based in London. Working in VR, installation, and moving image.

4

Void Monument  
April 2026

Void Monument is an audio and video installation developed from my practice-based doctoral research.
Audio and Video Installation
Single-channel video with sound

 The project translates a Virtual Reality (VR) memorial space into moving image and sound, carrying its questions about commemoration out of the headset and into the gallery.
Source Project
VR memorial space, Unity

The original virtual space centres on a glass temple informed by Han Buddhist architecture, Daoist water philosophy, and lotus symbolism. Seven participant-built scenes surround it, each preserving one person's act of remembrance. The installation revisits this space as image and sound, opening it to viewers who never entered it in VR.  
Lorem Ipsum...
Lorem Ipsum...

Authors: Yicen Aizel Liu
Edited by: Yicen Aizel Liu
Audio and Video Installation
Void Monument-2026


4.1
4.2
4.3
[...]  Void Monument grows out of my doctoral project, a virtual space in which participants freely express and construct monument-shaped artefacts to commemorate life under lockdown in China. Traditional monuments claim permanence and a single public account of the past. The virtual monuments made in this project do the opposite. They are personal, provisional, and built from light, and they hold grief, boredom, humour, and care in equal measure. The installation gathers traces of these acts of making and lets them circulate in the exhibition space as drifting images and ambient sound.

Moving the work from VR to video changes the terms of encounter. In the headset, one person at a time inhabits the memorial and shapes it. In the gallery, the space appears as a shared surface that no one can enter, a monument seen through a kind of fog. This distance is part of the work's meaning. Collective memory of the lockdowns remains unsettled, and the installation stays with that condition, offering forms that surface, blur, and recede rather than a finished account of what happened.


3

Vivamus sed sapien
March 2047

Praesent bibendum a elit non efficitur. Etiam et velit vitae quam aliquet fermentum. Quisque sit amet nulla dictum, cursus erat a, tempus est. Sed laoreet, magna eget mattis tincidunt.
Nam lobortis vitae
Type 0-24-DK

Vivamus sed condimentum leo. Nunc efficitur, magna condimentum gravida egestas, ligula mauris posuere neque, sit amet sagittis dui velit vitae neque.
Praesent pellentesque
Suscipit EST

Aenean nisl nulla, porttitor interdum enim nec, sagittis suscipit mauris. Quisque malesuada ullamcorper lacus, nec posuere odio egestas vel. Suspendisse potenti.
Lorem Ipsum...
Lorem Ipsum...

Authors: Zeus Tutu & Tito Penrose
Edited by: Dusty Acres & Mitch Glitch
92pp, Hardback, 24 × 32 cm
ISBN: 978-82-697000-0-0
Printed by: Cargo® Press Ltd
3.1
3.2
3.3
[...] Vestibulum et dignissim magna. Nullam at ultrices felis. Suspendisse facilisis sagittis sem sit amet tempor. Nam sit amet nibh et enim laoreet porta sit amet vel purus. Maecenas augue velit, feugiat in maximus id, auctor vel ex. Integer placerat massa nec tellus convallis aliquet. Nam lobortis lectus mi, vel molestie neque dictum at. Vivamus sed sapien: fermentum, fermentum, metus ut, efficitur nunc. Pellentesque sit amet ex sed est dapibus vestibulum.
               Donec ornare urna metus, ut mollis risus dignissim in. Phasellus tristique sed leo et dignissim. Nam lobortis vitae leo at finibus. Aliquam eget 200 efficitur lacus. Quisque nunc nisi, dictum at sodales sed, ornare vel dolor. Sed rhoncus placerat ante rutrum condimentum. Fusce nunc sapien, sodales et consectetur at, sodales egestas lectus.

1

Vivamus sed sapien
March 2047

Praesent bibendum a elit non efficitur. Etiam et velit vitae quam aliquet fermentum. Quisque sit amet nulla dictum, cursus erat a, tempus est. Sed laoreet, magna eget mattis tincidunt. 
Nam lobortis vitae
Type 0-24-DK

Vivamus sed condimentum leo. Nunc efficitur, magna condimentum gravida egestas, ligula mauris posuere neque, sit amet sagittis dui velit vitae neque. 
Praesent pellentesque
Suscipit EST

Aenean nisl nulla, porttitor interdum enim nec, sagittis suscipit mauris. Quisque malesuada ullamcorper lacus, nec posuere odio egestas vel. Suspendisse potenti. 
Lorem Ipsum...
Lorem Ipsum...

Authors: Zeus Tutu & Tito Penrose
Edited by: Dusty Acres & Mitch Glitch
92pp, Hardback, 24 × 32 cm
ISBN: 978-82-697000-0-0
Printed by: Cargo® Press Ltd
3.1
3.2
3.3
[...] Vestibulum et dignissim magna. Nullam at ultrices felis. Suspendisse facilisis sagittis sem sit amet tempor. Nam sit amet nibh et enim laoreet porta sit amet vel purus. Maecenas augue velit, feugiat in maximus id, auctor vel ex. Integer placerat massa nec tellus convallis aliquet. Nam lobortis lectus mi, vel molestie neque dictum at. Vivamus sed sapien: fermentum, fermentum, metus ut, efficitur nunc. Pellentesque sit amet ex sed est dapibus vestibulum. 
                Donec ornare urna metus, ut mollis risus dignissim in. Phasellus tristique sed leo et dignissim. Nam lobortis vitae leo at finibus. Aliquam eget 200 efficitur lacus. Quisque nunc nisi, dictum at sodales sed, ornare vel dolor. Sed rhoncus placerat ante rutrum condimentum. Fusce nunc sapien, sodales et consectetur at, sodales egestas lectus.
Top AZIEL® Personal Site