Xianliang Ye

About

With a background in Digital Moving Image and Graphic Design, Xianliang Ye’s interests shifted during his BA at Central Saint Martins, where he became drawn to the relationship between individuals and their environments. Now working at the intersection of sensory design and interaction, his practice explores how negative experiences, such as noise pollution, might be transformed through perceptual reorientation rather than physical elimination.

“If we cannot change the environment, we can redesign the way we interact with it, through neutralisation.”

This belief underpins his MA work in Information Experience Design at the Royal College of Art. Drawing on Taoist philosophy and Paul Watzlawick’s theory of first and second order of change, Xianliang proposes neutralisation as an “or” solution, neither removal nor ignorance, but a reframing through design affordances. He defines this practice as Critical Reality: a method influenced by both critical design and critical realism, concerned with transforming our experience of the present moment.

His research centres on the London Underground, whose iconic yet overwhelming noises cape serves as both a health hazard and a shared urban memory. While Transport for London continues its long term efforts to reduce these sounds, Xianliang suggests a parallel, immediate strategy: coexistence. Through interactive design, he explores how we might recast discomfort as engagement, allowing experience itself to be restructured.