Hello, I’m Xizhe Zhang, I think of design as a way to structure lived experience, where space, story, and interaction are inseparable rather than stacked layers. My background in film art direction showed me that environments speak long before words do, through texture, light, proportion, and that every spatial choice carries emotional nuance and cultural resonance. Over time, I grew curious about what happens when viewers are no longer locked into a single perspective but invited to move through, reshape, and complete the narrative with their own bodies and choices.

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This curiosity drew me toward interactive and generative media as natural evolutions of cinematic language. I don’t see game mechanics, real-time systems, or AI as replacements for traditional storytelling, but as new grammars for crafting worlds that respond, remember, and reflect the agency of those who engage with them. My aim is not to add interactivity as decoration, but to build experiences where meaning arises from how people inhabit and act within a space.

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I’m especially committed to using these tools to center voices and memories that dominant visual cultures often overlook, whether through procedural design or culturally rooted prompts. At the same time, I recognize that immersion alone doesn’t create understanding—real connection demands both poetic sensitivity and deliberate structure.

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For me, design is not about dictating a story, but about creating the conditions in which it can be felt, challenged, and collectively remade.