ARTIFACT Futures

An Experimental Collaboration: Koa Pham x Creader.io x Everlasting AI

What happens when a character created through collective imagination is given the chance to respond?

At The Future of Expression, artist Koa Pham collaborates with Creader.io and Everlasting AI, two Builder Projects supported by ARTIFACT Futures, on an experimental installation centered on Kevin Nguyen – a fictional character emerging from an internet meme that has circulated widely within Asian diasporic communities since the late 2010s.

Representing a stereotype of Vietnamese-American masculinity, Kevin has been collectively constructed and reproduced through online images, anecdotes, and cultural references. By giving this familiar yet fictional figure new forms of presence and expression, the project explores how collective imagination shapes identity, and how technology might allow a character defined by others to respond.

The installation brings together two interconnected works. In Chat with Kevin Nguyen (2026), Everlasting AI transforms an archive of online material into an interactive digital figure whom visitors can converse with. In The Oversharing Kevin Nguyen (2026), Kevin becomes an aspiring writer, continually developing story ideas from imagined experiences, romantic encounters, and personal memories through Creader.io.

Together, the works explore the tension between individual identity and collective imagination, and between the production of ideas and their ownership, asking how artificial intelligence might transform the ways identities and narratives are created, expressed, and experienced.

Discover The Future of Expression at West Bund Art & Design 2026.

10–15 November 2026
West Bund Art Center, Shanghai

#kevinnguyen
#kevinnguyen2026
#chatwithkevin

The Future of Expression

When Technology Becomes Part of How We Create, Remember, and Imagine

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly involved in writing, memory, and creative processes, how is technology changing the ways we express ideas, tell stories, and understand ourselves? What new possibilities might these changes open up for art and culture?

Bringing together independent curator Yang Zi, Creader.io founder Tim Shen, Everlasting AI founder Liu Xiaoben, and ARTIFACT Futures Venture Partner Henry Yuan, this conversation explores how emerging technologies are transforming human expression through perspectives from contemporary art, artificial intelligence, writing, digital memory, identity, and technology entrepreneurship.

From AI-assisted thinking and writing to the preservation and reconstruction of memory, and from questions of authorship and identity to new forms of cultural practice, the speakers will draw from their respective work to consider how technological experimentation might reshape the ways we create, communicate, and imagine.

Moderated by Muchun Niu, founder of ARTIFACT Futures.

Speakers
Yang Zi | Independent Curator
Tim Shen | Founder, Creader.io
Liu Xiaoben | Founder, Everlasting AI
Henry Yuan | Venture Partner, ARTIFACT Futures

Moderator
Muchun Niu | Founder, ARTIFACT Futures

14 November 2026, 12:30–13:30
West Bund Art & Design, Shanghai

ARTIFACT Futures presents The Future of Expression at West Bund Art & Design, taking place from 10–15 November 2026 at the West Bund Art Center in Shanghai.

Bringing together artistic experimentation, emerging technologies, and publishing, the presentation explores how artificial intelligence is changing the ways we think, create, and communicate, raising new questions about authorship, identity, and the possibilities of human expression.

At the center of the presentation is a new experimental collaboration between artist Koa Pham and ARTIFACT Futures Builder Projects Creader.io and Everlasting AI, revolving around Kevin Nguyen – a fictional character emerging from an internet meme that has circulated widely within Asian diasporic communities since the late 2010s.

Through two interconnected works, visitors can encounter Kevin as an interactive digital figure shaped by an evolving archive of online material, and as an aspiring writer generating unfinished stories from his imagined experiences and memories. Together, the works explore how collective imagination shapes identity, how ideas are produced and owned, and how AI might transform the ways identities and narratives are created, expressed, and experienced.

The presentation also marks the release of the three-year anniversary Chinese edition of ARTIFACT Futures Journal, bringing together selected material from its first two issues alongside a reflection on the development of ARTIFACT Futures since 2023.

The Future of Expression forms part of ARTIFACT Futures' 2026 Annual Inquiry, The Future is Behind Us.

10–15 November 2026
West Bund Art Center, Shanghai

What if future generations could still speak to us hundreds of years from now?

In his previous reflection, Xiaoben Liu considers the three forms of death and how digital immortality might reshape our relationship with memory and mortality.

In this video, he extends this idea further by imagining a future where it's not just about being remembered, but it's also about remaining accessible to future generations. For Xiaoben, digital immortality could offer a way for future generations to engage with the experiences and perspectives of those who came before, extending our presence beyond the limits of biological life and collective memory.

If AI can automate more of our work, what space remains for human creativity, contribution, and fulfillment?

How can we use AI to expand what people are capable of doing without losing sight of the value of human work?

In this video, @KolentoH draws a distinction between using AI to augment human capabilities and deploying it to replace human workers. He raises questions about how people can continue to find purpose through work and create new value as AI transforms the workplace.