Artist Bio
Michael Luo is an artist and game maker who uses drawing, writing, animation, game design, and code to build virtual spaces that imitate the absurdity and cruelness of the real one. Born an anchor baby in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and raised in Southwestern China, he funnels his experience with both Chinese authoritarianism and American hegemony into hallucinatorily abstracted worlds that tell the very real stories of social turmoil. He uses these uncanny worlds to explore themes of oppression, alienation, and marginality. He aims to escape from the commodified escapism hellscape by challenging the tradition of videogame equipoise with twisted interactions, comical visuals, and alternative narratives.

Michael received his BA in Design | Media Arts from University of California, Los Angeles in 2020. He’s a member of the UCLA Game Lab.