From Shanghai’s 5G Installations to London’s Live Sets | Tong Niu

This Wednesday, for our artist feature, we sat down with Tong Niu (b. 2000) — a deep-listening researcher and sound artist working across experiential design, spatial interaction, and immersive media- to talk about how sound, image, and psychology meet in her practice. This interview looks at the path that shaped her thinking: 5G installations in Shanghai that pushed her to make technology tangible in public space; studies in China and the UK that sharpened her ear for different collaboration styles; live sets at venues like IKLECTIK and Hundred Years Gallery; and factory-floor time with porcelain artisans that taught her to match media to the pace of craft.

She shares why she treats public space as a living interface, how she designs for what people feel as much as what they see or hear, and the way she translates one emotional current across performance, digital work, and social media without flattening it. We learned practical lessons we can apply beyond sound: make innovation graspable through touch and listening, design with attention to thresholds of perception and breath, let tradition set the tempo when working with heritage industries, welcome audience feedback as part of the piece, and treat cultural differences as material to compose with — not hurdles to smooth away.

Tong Niu is a featured artist in our book, “Art and Woman 2025” You can explore her journey and the stories of other artists by purchasing the book here:

https://shop.artstoheartsproject.com/products/art-and-woman-edition-

Tong Niu (born 2000) is a Deep-listening researcher and Sound artist, specialising in Experiential design, Spatial interactions, and Immersive aesthetics. Her work integrates moving images, psychology, and cybernetic-psychedelic aesthetics to reveal polyphonic expressions. During her research programs, she delves into the latent sonic language within natural ecology, investigating how virtual spaces and absolute consciousness shape sensory experiences.

By utilising spectral ethnography, Tong uncovers the therapeutic potential of sonic narration. She participated in different performances and live sound events, engaging in immersive spatial interactions at venues and exhibitions such as IKLECTIK, the London Centenary Gallery, and Battersea Hangar Space. Tong aims to evoke hidden emotions and memories, bringing marginalised cultures and ephemeral collective memories to the forefront. Through dynamic sonic dialogues, her work fosters psychological and emotional healing, reconnecting individuals with their environment, historical heritage, and the natural world.

1.    How did your experience designing 5G-themed installations in Shanghai influence the way you now approach communication between technology and public space?  `

My experience creating 5G-themed installations in Shanghai led me to rethink how technology should be presented in public spaces. I was dealing with something cutting-edge and abstract. Yet, it had to land in the messy intimacy of everyday life — that tension made me realise that if technology only exists as a dazzling spectacle, it can easily feel distant from people. So I started trying to make it more perceptible: not just something to look at, but something you can touch, listen to, and sense — letting technology interact with people in softer, more tangible ways. That experience still shapes how I work now: I see public space as a kind of living interface, where subtle, meaningful connections between people and technology can take root.

“I started trying to make it more perceptible: not just something to look at, but something you can touch, listen to, and sense.”

Tong Niu

2.       Working across both media production and perception-based therapeutic art, what role does psychology play in shaping the way you design immersive experiences?  

Working across media production and perception-based therapeutic art, psychology plays a subtle yet essential role in how I shape immersive experiences. As a deep-listening researcher, I use psychology less as a fixed framework and more as a way of attuning — listening to emotional rhythms, sensory thresholds, and the invisible signals that shape how people inhabit a space. It helps me notice the fragile boundaries of perception: how sound or visual textures can shift breathing patterns, stir buried memories, or open moments of release. Instead of designing only for what people see or hear, I aim to shape what they feel and internalise — allowing the experience to quietly support emotional regulation, reflection, and reconnection with their surroundings.

3.   Your projects often move between performance, digital art, and social media campaigns. How do you balance the needs of different audiences when creating across these contexts?   

Moving between performance, digital art, and social media means constantly shifting atmospheres — each space has its own pulse, its own way of holding attention. I try not to flatten them into one formula. Instead, I start by deep listening — to how people feel, how they move through these spaces, and what emotional states they carry with them. Performance lets me slow things down, invite vulnerability, and even let silence breathe. Digital works can hold more layered, drifting interactions, while social media asks for immediacy — a quick emotional spark. Rather than balancing them as separate audiences, I think of it as translating the same emotional current into different dialects, so it can travel and still stay alive.

4.   During your time with the Te-hua Porcelain Industrial Innovation Institute, you collaborated directly with factories. What did that experience teach you about connecting traditional industries with new forms of media design?  

Being inside the production line slowed me down — I began listening to the rhythm of the craft itself: the heat, the waiting, the minor accidents that shape each piece. Watching the artisans work by hand, I could sense the weight of intangible heritage passed down through generations — a quiet power forged from precision, delicacy, and resonance. Instead of layering new media on top, I began weaving it into those existing rhythms so that the work could carry both the depth of tradition and the spark of contemporary design.

I think of it as translating the same emotional current into different dialects, so it can travel and still stay alive.

Tong Niu

5.   In your performances at venues like IKLECTIK Art Lab and Hundred Years Gallery, sound and spatial interaction are central. What excites you most about working with live audiences in real time?  

What I love most is how, in live performance, sound becomes a shared language — something that dissolves boundaries between us, even if just for a moment. The space itself begins to feel alive, not just as a container for the work, but as something that breathes and resonates with the audience. At venues like IKLECTIK or Hundred Years Gallery, I can sense how even the most minor shift in sound or movement ripples through the room and transforms the atmosphere. I’m drawn to that unpredictability: audiences bring their own memories, tensions, and rhythms into the space, and the work reshapes itself around them. That real-time feedback loop — me listening to them as they’re listening to me — makes sound feel less like a medium and more like a living presence we’re inhabiting together.

6.    Having studied in both China and the UK, how has this international education shaped the way you collaborate with teams from different cultural and creative backgrounds?  

Studying in both China and the UK has made me very aware of how differently people approach collaboration — the pace, the way ideas are voiced, even how silence is used. It taught me to read those subtleties and move between them, instead of trying to flatten everyone into one rhythm. Now, when I work with teams from different cultural and creative backgrounds, I see it less as “bridging gaps” and more as composing with contrasts: letting each person’s way of thinking hold its own shape, while finding resonances between them. That tension and diversity often spark the most unexpected, meaningful ideas.

Tong Niu’s work is about listening differently to the world around us and finding new ways for sound and space to shape our connections with one another. Through her journey, we see how technology can feel less distant when designed for touch and sensing, how traditions can guide contemporary design when we allow their rhythm to lead, and how performance becomes a shared language between audience and artist.

Her practice shows us that sound is not only to be heard but to be inhabited, reminding us to notice the subtle ways environments shape emotion and memory.

To learn more about Tong, click the following links to visit her profile.

Arts to Hearts Project is a global media, publishing, and education company for
Artists & Creatives. where an international audience will see your work of art patrons, collectors, gallerists, and fellow artists. Access exclusive publishing opportunities and over 1,000 resources to grow your career and connect with like-minded creatives worldwide. Click here to learn about our open calls.