UG Research Spotlight: AFCT 8 Projects Join XJTLU SURF 2025

1. 2025 AFCT SURF Excellent Poster and School Winner

Project: Rednotable? The City Image of China in the Age of Digital Reproduction

No.: SURF-2025-0267

Supervisor: Biwei Cong

Team member: Sichen Fan, Shuyi Li, Yaqi Lei, Muzi Li

Martin Parr’s The Leaning Tower of Pisa (1990)

User generate near-identical city images on Rednote

1. Project Brief

This project investigates how Chinese cities are visually represented in the era of digital reproduction. In the summer, Biwei led four students to conduct a systematic study of 1,052 Rednote images from ten major Chinese cities. Using a combination of visual analysis and thematic analysis, the team identified eight dominant visual and narrative patterns. These patterns not only reflect aesthetic preferences (composition, colour, filters) but also deeper cultural and social meanings. In doing so, the project contributes to wider discussions in visual culture, social media, and urban representation, showing how ritualised social-media photography practices both reflect and reshape collective understandings of the contemporary city.

2.Project Background

Martin Parr’s The Leaning Tower of Pisa (1990) famously satirises global tourism by revealing how visitors reproduce the same staged gesture, as if photography itself were a ritual performance. In the age of social media, this phenomenon extends beyond iconic tourist sites. On Xiaohongshu (Rednote), both tourists and residents generate near-identical images across diverse cities, following online guides that prescribe shooting locations, camera angles and settings, and post-production settings. As a result, city imagery risks being trapped in a cycle of visual repetition, where cities are increasingly defined by standardised and homogenised aesthetics.

3.SURF Poster Fair

On October 10, Biwei Cong and the “Rednotable?” team to participate in the 2025 SURF Poster Fair.

As one of the 20 school winners across the university, the team presented their research findings to a panel of academic judges, sharing their exploration of Chinese urban imagery in the era of social media.

Although the team did not win an Outstanding Projects award, being selected among 2,600 students and 585 posters to enter the Top 20 is already a strong recognition of their academic inquiry and research communication skills. As Professor Zhoulin Ruan, Vice-President Academic Affairs, remarked:

“For undergraduate students, the value of research lies not only in the outcomes, but also in cultivating rigorous academic thinking, problem-solving abilities, and a spirit of teamwork.”

The experience proved deeply rewarding for all team members — helping them discover their research interests, strengthen their research skills, and build a solid foundation for their future academic and creative pursuits.

2.Additional AFCT 2025 SURF Projects (listed by code)

1. Monitoring dome filmmaking in a VR system

SURF Code: SURF-2025-0555

SURF Supervisor: Tianzuo Shi

SURF Team Member: Yiheng Wang; Jianrui Xu; Ke Wen; Yixin Huang; Zhenzhou Niu

2.From Capture to Projection: A Mixed Reality Workflow for Interactive Projection Mapping

SURF Code: SURF-2025-0304

SURF Supervisor: Tian Leng

SURF Team Member: Yuxuan Gao; Qianye Wang; Qianli Yang; Minyu Yao; Chang Sun; Shuhao Li

3.Bridging Ancient Art and Modern Technology: AI-Driven Storytelling of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes

SURF Code: SURF-2025-0310

SURF Supervisor: Yang Liu; Fang Liu

SURF Team Member: Xinran Mao; Jiexin Sun; Jiayi Qian; Clement Fernando Kusuma; Cherine Abigail Kurniawan; Sibei Chen

4.Enhancing Visual Storytelling in Character Animation with AI-Generated Content (AIGC)

SURF Code: SURF-2025-0238

SURF Supervisor: Yu Sheng

SURF Team Member: Yulin Cao, Yuxin Gong, Yufan Liao, Yingchu Ma, Qingqing Zhao, Wanyi Zhou

5.Parents and Children of the Future: Family Dynamics in Chinese Science Fiction Cinema

SURF Code: SURF-2025-0531

SURF Supervisor: Stephen Andriano-Moore

SURF Team Member: WeiTing.Wang24 Siyu.Chen2404

6.The Co-Creation Frontier: Al's Role in Creative Workflows of Micro-Short Dramas

SURF Code: SURF-2025-0338

SURF Supervisor: Yiming Chen

SURF Team Member: Yuhan Liu; Rongzhe Yu; Xiaoxi Yang; Yixuan Cao; Duorui Shi; Ziying Ren

7.THE POLITICS OF CHINA'S CLIMATE FICTION CINEMA

SURF Code: SURF-2025-0182

SURF Supervisor: STEPHEN ANDRIANO-MOORE

SURF Team Member: SHRUIXU; WEN XIA

From Rednote cityscapes to AI-resurrected Dunhuang, from VR domes to climate-fiction futures—eight posters, eight quests, one shared summer of wonder. To our mentors: thank you for turning questions into blueprints. To our students: thank you for turning blueprints into breath-taking images, code and stories. May the curiosity seeded in SURF 2025 keep growing in tomorrow’s classrooms, film sets and labs; may creativity remain our compass and technology our wings as we keep redrawing the horizon of visual storytelling.

Provided by Yunyi Xue

Edited by Wenzhen Li

Photos courtesy of Yunyi Xue