Talk#1: Consumer Aesthetics and Interpretation

Speaker: Sofi Xian. Sofi Xian (also known as Sofia Lee) is a Rotterdam-based semiotician, experimental photographer, design archivist, and computational linguist. She is a co-founder of the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute, where she first presented foundational research on and helped name the Frutiger Aero aesthetic. Her work examines contemporary visual culture and technology-linked design trends, exploring how culture spreads across modalities, particularly around technology and the tech industry. Her views are critically shaped by her background in computational linguistics, for which she holds a Master’s degree from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Talk#2: Metasequoia Specimen 0001: Tourism Mascot and Living God

Speaker: Henry Lee. Henry Lee Heinonen is a landscaper, musician, and ethnographer based in Toronto, Canada. He is a member of Toronto Master Gardeners and holds a master's degree in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Toronto. His highest back squat in competition is 468lbs.