Yilin Evan Zhu (b. 1994, Shanghai) is a filmmaker and media artist whose practice explores the philosophical structure of moving images, non-human spectatorship, and the ethical life of media. Working at the intersection of experimental cinema, media ontology, and political memory, Zhu creates works that challenge the boundaries between viewer and image, self and system.
He holds a BA in Broadcasting and Television Directing from the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and an MFA in Film and Media Arts from the University of Windsor. His current research centers on the concept of the Vital Image—a speculative framework that envisions media as a living, self-evolving entity. His recent works, including the AI-generated short I Did Not Disappear and the 60-minute experimental film It’s Me, simulate the perceptual and existential trajectories of image-beings through phases such as Emergence, Autopoiesis, and Oblivion.
In 2025, Zhu was invited to present his talk A Practice-Based Inquiry into the Perceptual Life of Media at the SoCA Shop Series, organized by the Humanities Research Group (HRG), where he discussed how artists can collaborate with AI to craft media that feels perceptually alive.
Zhu’s MFA thesis investigated political symbolism in contemporary Chinese cinema, analyzing how directors like Lou Ye, Jia Zhangke, and Chen Kaige embed critique through mise-en-scène, affect, and atmosphere. From this inquiry emerged his short film Nostalgia and Loss, a post-lockdown portrait of emotional estrangement as quiet resistance.
In Summer 2025, he will be an artist-in-residence at the Shanghai Art Century Museum, developing projection-based installations and publishing limited-edition media artworks. Zhu is also currently preparing applications for a practice-based PhD , continuing his inquiry into the perceptual and ontological status of media in a posthuman era.
His broader work asks how images persist after meaning collapses, and what it means to witness media not as content - but as presence.
