A Hunger Artist
A Hunger Artist
Interactive theater adaptation · Aranya Theatre Festival Best Creative Award
An adaptation of Kafka's A Hunger Artist that reimagines the spectator's role through real-time audience participation. Using a QR-code entry point, audience members contribute live danmaku (弹幕) that becomes part of the performance itself, turning the act of watching into an act of complicity, and staging Kafka's themes of spectacle, hunger, and the crowd's gaze as a live formal structure rather than a metaphor.
I served as the interactive technologist for the production, designing and building the real-time participation system (Node.js + Socket.IO) and architecting the full show-control pipeline: live camera integration, DroidCam to OBS to QLab projection routing, network configuration for reliable in-venue performance, and a kiosk-mode operating setup for the live run. The work sat at the intersection of software, live video, and stagecraft, ensuring the technology stayed invisible so the audience's presence could take center stage.
The production received the Best Creative Award at the Aranya Theatre Festival (阿那亚未来戏剧节).
2026 March Young Theater Shanghai
2026 June Aranya Theater Festival · Best Creative Award
2026 Sept Beijing Fringe Festival
Documentation in progress...
Xiao is a New York and Shanghai-based creative technologist and technical artist. His multidisciplinary works range from interactive installation, game design to virtual production. He focuses on creating interactive experiences with new mediums, including physical computing, alt-ctrl, motion tracking, live performance, and VR.
For further information, projects, freelance, or collaborations
︎tanx2202@gmail.com / @real.xiaoxiao
For further information, projects, freelance, or collaborations
︎tanx2202@gmail.com / @real.xiaoxiao