The year is 2029. In the mountainous region of southern Anhui Province lies Huizhou, a place renowned for its centuries-old agricultural traditions. Known for rice cultivation, tea production, and sustainable forestry, Huizhou’s unique landscape and climate have given rise to farming techniques rooted in harmony with nature, soil preservation, and resource efficiency. The Chinese government has recently introduced precision (AI) agriculture and widespread robotic farming, automating rice cultivation across the nation.

This transformation displaced humanity’s role in the Sancai (三才) — the Taoist relationship between heaven, earth, and humankind — a guiding principle for traditional Chinese agriculture for generations. This shift reflects China's broader narrative: a nation that has, over the past three decades, used technology to lift millions out of poverty and create a more equitable society. Automation in agriculture is heralded as a blueprint for other developing countries, showcasing technology as a tool for systemic change. This is what Sinofuturism seeks to unpack: “What do we lose when machines take our place in traditions that once defined our connection to the land?”

Materials Used: Resin, Rice Grains, Woven Straw Basket, Liangmao, Small Shovel, Small Rake, Small Spade, Bag of Jasmine Rice, LCD Screen

This project was conceived of in the NYU IMA Low Residency Critical Experiences class taught by Sarah Hakani in Fall 2024.

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Introduction

I was initially inspired to research more on the topic of Sinofuturism after watching a documentary by Lawrence Luk at Metrograph for the Asian Counterfutures festival hosted by the Asian-American Arts Alliance.

“Sinofuturism is a conspiracy theory and manifesto about parallels between artificial intelligence, geopolitics, and Chinese technological development.

Sinofuturism is an invisible movement — a spectre already embedded into a trillion industrial products, a billion individuals, and a million veiled narratives. It is a movement, not based on individuals, but on multiple overlapping flows. Flows of populations, of products, and of processes.”

Continuing from my first project, I’m interested in understanding my Chinese identity more deeply through the lens of technology and AI. While doing some preliminary research, I came across this book by Benjamin Bratton, whom I deeply admire, on China’s implementation of artificial intelligence, big data and automation to increase their productivity on a mass scale.

At the time, I was reading McKenzie Wark’s essay on Wang Hui’s *Twentieth-Century China* exploring China’s contemporary history. It was extremely fascinating to me to learn about my civilization’s history from this point of view, after being ingrained with what it means to be Chinese growing up in the West mostly through the lens of Western media. I’ve realized that I have to unlearn so much of what I know about my people and my culture in order to understand and get to the core of what it means to be Chinese today. As the geopolitical tension between US and China continues to deepen, I want to create narratives that propose alternative futures that counteract the systems of colonization and imperialism that drive our economies today. I was deeply affected by the passing of the Anti-China Propoganda Bill in the House of Reps earlier this Fall, and how this could worsen people’s view on China globally.

However, when analyzing the ways in which China has successfully lifted its people out of poverty in the last 30 years, and used technology as a means to achieve a better and more equitable society, I think it’s worth examining their execution as an example for other developing countries. This is what Sinofuturism seeks to unpack: “It is a science fiction that already exists.”

“At a material level, it is already everywhere: in architecture, in the products and technologies that we use every day.”

Following my last project documenting my ancestral Hakka history, I’ve been thinking a lot about agriculture and land as a tool for class mobility, and self-sustaining civilizations. Hakka people used farming not only as a tool for their survival, but also challenged existing practices through innovation. They were forced to farm on infertile land in the mountains, and had to create new (equitable) practices such as having women working on the farms as well, because labor was scarce and the entire community was expected to help one another.

For this project, I’m interested in how AI can be incorporated into these traditional farming practices as an act of resilience and promote Chinese culture as an exemplary alternative to current class systems.

“This essential unknowability of the AI to the human, of the mystique of a consciousness beyond conventional understanding, is exactly the same 'Other' identified in  Orientalism. It is this oppositional 'Other' which Sinofuturism identifies with, reorienting the technological narrative in a way that the nameless, faceless mass of Chinese labour becomes a collective body.”

Prototypes

My guiding question for this project was: HOW ARE AUTOMATED MACHINES CURRENTLY BEING USED IN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS? HOW DO WE REKINDLE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND AGRICULTURE/LAND?

I created various prototype sketches of interactive installations that addressed this question from different perspectives. One prototype focused on materiality and sustainability, building on a previous experiment I did to create a flame-resistant biosculpture out of recycled wood ash.

Another explored an automated irrigation system which invited audiences to participate in fertilizing a pressure-sensitive plate which would reveal a short film containing clips of traditional farming practices in China juxtaposed with clips of AI-farming techniques in China, specifically the Huizhou Province.

Finally, I settled on creating a speculative futures piece inspired by Damien Hirst and Paulo Nazareth's Produtos de genocídio (2017-18), which proposes the question:

What is the importance of preserving this “artifact” of the future?

I created a prompt to form the guidelines for the installation: Imagine a world where all agriculture is done by machines. We have to preserve this artifact of human hands so that people remember that agriculture was once all done using manual labor.

Research

“Machine envy, where advanced technology doesn’t necessarily embody the all too familiar tropes of servitude or existential threat, but rather, presents a viable, aspirational model of how to be." (Frost et al., 1)

Through my research, I read various papers and books on ancient Chinese agricultural philosophy, precision agriculture, speculative design, hybrid farming, and the development of Hakka agricultural practices. The main goal of precision agriculture, as I learned, was that it is not a means to replace the farmer, but rather become an extension of the vision of farmers, allowing them to knowtheir fields in new ways and to help them understand what is happening in their soils and crops. Precision agriculture in its current form is seen as excluding styles of farming other than large-scale mono-cropping and forms of knowledge other than data-driven knowledge. Thus, there needed to be a push towards preserving the indigenous knowledge of farmers across the region.

After the Communist Revolution in China, there was a large push from the government to rebuild a solid material foundation through investing in agriculture and farmers. “Chinese agriculture, which is of the excellent tradition of intensive cultivation, is just like a huge deep-rooted tree" (Genpan, 1). Their goal was to achieve “harmony between man and nature” as opposed to the “western industrial civilization’s thought of dominating nature and ruling nature (Zhao, 1).

The farmers also understood that the destruction of ecological value (ie. pesticides, destructive farming) was an infringement on the sustainable survival interests of all mankind. So they turned to ancient methods of Chinese "permanent" agriculture, utilizing human intervention to help crops adopt to new environments, and strengthening the relationship between the farmer, crop, and land. The key factor was to mantain good soil health in order to ensure the continuous use of the land.

There are two theories of Chinese traditional science of soil:

• Tuyi: different kinds of soil are good for different people or things
• Tuma i: earth artery, the land is an organic body of vessels changing and corresponding to the alterations in climate

The Chinese understood that “The real materialization of economization requires the restriction of consumption. Such an idea is profound, and yet very practical in meaning” (Genpan, 10). Their goal was to achieve “harmony between man and nature” as opposed to the “western industrial civilization’s thought of dominating nature and ruling nature.

“Only coordinated development is the future development. Efforts should be made to achieve the coordination between the human social system and the natural ecosystem, that is, the coordination among population, economy, society, environment and resources. In a word, people should abandon the development model in the era of industrial civilization, which is purely aimed at profit and wealth growth, and instead pursue harmonious coexistence with the external natural environment, so that human beings can survive healthily.” (Zhao, 3)

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Region of Focus: Huizhou, China

Huizhou, located in the mountainous region of southern Anhui Province, is famous for its traditional agricultural practices, particularly in rice cultivation, tea production, and sustainable forestry. The Huizhou region’s landscape and climate have led to unique farming techniques that emphasize harmony with nature, soil conservation, and resource efficiency.

Terraced Rice Cultivation

• Terracing on Mountain Slopes: Due to the hilly terrain, farmers in Huizhou have developed elaborate terracing systems to cultivate rice and other crops. These terraces help to reduce soil erosion, maintain water, and maximize arable land. They’re often irrigated by local streams and spring water, creating a sustainable ecosystem.
• Water Conservation: Huizhou farmers use natural streams, springs, and rainwater for irrigation. By building small dams and channels, they can direct water to specific terraces, allowing controlled irrigation and reducing water waste.

Aquaculture-Rice Symbiosis

• Fish-Rice Cultivation: In some areas, farmers grow rice and raise fish in the same paddy fields. This symbiotic practice allows fish to eat pests, aerate the water, and provide natural fertilization, while rice provides shade and habitat for the fish. This eco-friendly system improves yields without relying on pesticides or synthetic fertilizers.

Village-Based Crop Rotation and Collective Land Use

• Crop Rotation: Farmers practice multi-year crop rotation, alternating between different crops like rice, vegetables, and legumes to replenish soil nutrients and prevent pest buildup.
• Collective Farming Practices: Traditionally, villages in Huizhou manage certain resources, such as forests and water, collectively. This allows for sustainable use of resources and ensures equitable distribution among the village families.

Sancai (三彩): a versatile type of decoration on Chinese pottery utilizing the three colours of brown, green, and a creamy off-white.

Sancai (三才) - Taoist theory of the relationship between “heaven”, “Earth” and “man”, which acts as a cognitive model and guide for traditional Chinese agriculture.

Agroecology: a scientific discipline, agricultural practice, and social movement that applies ecological principles to farming and food systems

In the final installation, I wanted to select objects for the installation that represent human tools (ie. rake, sickle, basket) and embodiment (ie hat, boots) to paint a picture of what the life of the rice farmer might have looked and felt like. I also wanted to incorporate multimedia such as the video of rice farmers working in the fields as well as a data visualization on how much rice is harvested from these farms vs. how many rice farmers there currently are in the world. The decline and disembodiment of the agricultural sector is deeply concerning to me, and I want to best represent this form of labour as it is something that we encounter every day without ever really reflecting or realizing it. With the acceleration of robotics and precision agriculture (AI), we are becoming more and more disconnected from the source of our energy — this earth, which is where many societal and cultural problems of the 21st century begin.

References

Shuang Frost, Bogna Konior, Vincent Garton, Anna Greenspan, Wang Xin — China and AI: Human Bots, Black Tech, the Dark Forest and the State‍

Leon Karlsen Johannessen — The Young Designer’s Guide to Speculative and Critical Design‍

Daniel van der Velden — Cyborg farmers: Embodied understandings of precision agriculture‍

Jin Tao, Huashuai Chen, Dawei Xiao — Influences of the Natural Environment on Traditional Settlement Patterns: A Case Study of Hakka Traditional Settlements in Eastern Guangdong Province‍

Li Genpan — Thought and practice of sustainable development in Chinese traditional agriculture‍

Lenora Ditzler, Clemens Drissen — Automating Agroecology: How to Design a Farming Robot Without a Monocultural Mindset‍

Margret Grebowicz, Helen Morrick — Beyond the Cyborg: Adventures with Donna Haraway, ”Sowing Worlds: A Seed Bag for Terraforming with Earth Others”‍

Yinghan Zhao - The Ecological Thought of Ancient Chinese Agriculture and Its Contemporary Value

Sinofuturism

Chronicles of hulling rice (a film by Gui Shuzhong)