Symbols, Systems, and the Self: Yung Han Hsiao’s Mixed Media Exploration of Algorithmic Consciousness
Emerging artist Yung Han Hsiao (蕭詠韓) has been awarded the Platinum Prize in the Mixed Media Painting category at the Future Art & Design Award UK 2025 Autumn Season for his provocative and timely work The Algorithmic Soul.
Created by a 17-year-old artist, the work stands out not only for its technical ambition and large-scale composition, but for its sharp, introspective examination of a dilemma shared by an entire generation:What happens when artificial intelligence begins shaping our thoughts faster than we can?
Through a dense yet intentional arrangement of symbols, gestures, and layered marks, The Algorithmic Soul visualizes the collision between human intuition and algorithmic logic—two forces that increasingly blur together in contemporary life. The piece speaks to a psychological anxiety that is both deeply personal and universally recognizable: the fear of losing one’s ability to think, imagine, and generate ideas independently in an age of automated intelligence.
Interview
Q – What initially inspired this project?
Yung-Han: While using ChatGPT, I realized that my mind had gone blank—I was no longer thinking, only copying and pasting. That moment frightened me. I became afraid of losing my ability to create new ideas, to truly think. I also noticed that many people around me were facing the same problem. This experience inspired me to explore the relationship between human creativity and the algorithmic systems that shape our thoughts.
Q – What was the most exciting or most challenging aspect of bringing this work to life?
Yung-Han: It was my first time working on a piece of this large scale, and the biggest challenge was composition. I struggled to arrange all the symbols on such a wide canvas without making them feel like meaningless collages. Balancing visual rhythm while ensuring that my ideas could still reach the viewer was both difficult and fulfilling.
Q – How was your experience taking part in the Future Art & Design Award UK?
Yung-Han: It was truly exciting to take part in such an international event. Competing and learning alongside talented young artists from around the world was a precious experience. It helped me broaden my perspective and encouraged me to keep refining my artistic voice.
About the Artist
Yung Han Hsiao 蕭詠韓
I am a 17-year-old high school student from Taiwan. For me, art is a way to record the invisible marks of time and emotion. Through carving, inking, and printing, I explore how memory, technology, and society shape the individual’s sense of existence.
My works often reflect the unease and contradictions of the contemporary world—war, isolation, and the influence of algorithms on human thought. Each cut I carve on the plate feels like an echo of the wounds we experience as part of this generation.
My work “The Algorithmic Soul” examined the conflict between human creativity and artificial intelligence, and it received the Future Art & Design Award Platinum Prize (UK) . Another print “The Power of Hands”—a reflection on war and control—earned the FADA Gold Prize (UK), a Merit Award in the Student Art Exhibition (Taiwan), and was selected among the Top 100 finalists in the Toolip Art Contest (Austria).
Through printmaking, I continue to search for balance between precision and imperfection, order and emotion. I hope my works can invite viewers to pause and reflect on what it means to remain human in an age where everything is being shaped by data and speed.
