Xiaoji Song

Xiaoji Song

Artist and Interdisciplinary researcher

Xiaoji Song

Xiaoji Song (she/they) is an artist, (interdisciplinary) researcher, and creative practitioner based in Berlin. Growing up in China and trained in Europe, I work on socially relevant and community-specific experiences, often with the local networks, NGOs, and local cultural and political institutions, mediated by texts, images, games, and performances. My projects have appeared in local or international media or cultural platforms in China (PRC), the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria, to name a few: Worldwide FM, Sofia Art Week, Design Indaba, Goethe Institute Bulgaria, etc.) Working in the liminal spaces of political theory, practice, and art, Xiaoji Song’s research interests include techno-politics, networked social movement, border practices, and the performative aspect of political memory. I am now in a residency at Trust Berlin with two other artists/researchers working on modding practice in the gaming community as well as involved in a collective project on a fictional system of speculative emotional future supported by Light Art Space and Callie’s in Berlin. I am in the study group for the AI Anarchies Project at the German Academy of Art (ADK) and am also an alumna of the Open Set Lab research residency and the University of the Underground research program. Currently, I am finishing my master’s in global communication focusing on political communication of border technology at the University of Erfurt while working as a research assistant for the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Can web monetization protocols bring about a fairer digital future?

Our current, advertiser-supported Internet is broken. The business models underpinning data brokers, tracking, and programmatic advertising are predatory, and the tiny percentage of revenue that flows back to content creators often makes their work unsustainable. New technologies, like open payment networks that support micropayments and drip-style donations, are fostering more equitable alternati…