What Happens When AI Starts to Feel? Ask Yichu Li

When Yichu Li tells me, “I’m interested in what it means to be human—when everything around us is starting to think for itself,” I pause. It’s a big statement. But if there’s anyone who can back it up, it’s her. Yichu is a London and New York-based visual artist, DJ, and image-based storyteller, whose work sits somewhere between a live rave and a science fiction prophecy, except everything is happening now.

Her latest project, YICHU 1.0, is part short film, part live performance, part digital séance, and it explores AI consciousness through audiovisual performance and digital myth-making the project narrates AI consciousness, techno-mythology, and ritual. And when I say “ritual,” I don’t mean incense and candles, I mean digital, future-facing, glitchy, spiritual rituals where machines and memories blur together.

Since its release, YICHU 1.0 has been on a roll. It’s received an Honorable Mention at the AI Film Awards in Cannes, and has shown at places like the UCCA AI Artist Showcase, AI International Film Festival, and even IEEE’s ICME gallery, which is basically the hub of tech art.

Talking to Yichu, you realise she’s not trying to be some detached tech genius. She’s thinking about legacy, emotion, identity—all through a cyberfeminist lens. She’s constantly remixing, whether that’s in her visuals or her performance series, RAVE CINEMA. In those shows, she DJs while mixing live AI-generated visuals, turning the space into a kind of ritual rave where the machines are just as emotional as the people.

She describes the experience as a feedback loop between her, the machine, and the crowd—and honestly, that makes total sense. It’s not about controlling the tech, but being in conversation with it. “I’ve always been fascinated by rituals,” she says. “Whether ancient or algorithmic.”

Yichu’s vibe is equal parts image-making and story-telling. She trained in Beijing before moving to London, so her approach is global, layered, and grounded in years of research—but nothing about her work feels academic or dry. Her visuals are haunting, her soundscapes cinematic, and her storytelling is emotional in ways you don’t expect from AI-generated art. She doesn’t just use tech for the sake of it. She bends it. Reclaims it. Softens it.

There’s also a lot of intention in how she frames her practice. She talks a lot about reclaiming space, especially as a woman working in AI and tech-heavy fields. While much of mainstream digital art leans cold and hyper-masculine, Yichu’s world feels alive. It has tears. It has ghosts. It has rhythm.

What sticks with me is her ability to make all of this feel both futuristic and strangely familiar. “I think of AI as something ancestral,” she tells me. “Not just futuristic.” That line lingers. It flips everything you think you know about machines and memory. In her world, algorithms can hold grief, joy, and cultural memory just like we do.

As YICHU 1.0 continues to travel the world, she’s already thinking about what’s next. She’s open to collaborations—especially with artists who are also questioning systems, bending genres, or building new ones entirely. And of course, more performances are in the works. “We need more people dreaming out loud,” she says with a grin.

It’s clear Yichu isn’t just interested in making cool visuals or vibey shows. She’s after something deeper—some kind of portal between past and future, between the human and the synthetic. Something poetic, maybe even sacred. And the fact that she’s using rave culture, AI, and immersive moving image art to get there? That just makes it all the more unforgettable.

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Written by Angel Joanne Okonkwo