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Introduction

Before joining XPUB, I worked as an editor for a government-funded art curation agency in Southern China. My role spanned branding, copywriting, and radio show planning. This experience made me deeply reflective about the relationship between systems, narratives, collectivity, and individuality.

Throughout my time at XPUB, I've explored one recurring theme across all three Special Issues: how the body is disciplined by systems, and how we resist.

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SI25 – Sound of Making: Protocols of Collective Performance

Sound of Making poster by Kim

Sound as Systemic Labor

In SI25, I used sound as a tool to explore invisible discipline. Sound, like call center scripts, is repetitive and systemic—it shapes behavior in ways we don't always recognize. By editing and transforming these soundscapes, I aimed to create moments of agency.

What we did:

• Produced collaborative radio shows exploring themes like water, protocols, and customer service systems
• Used various research methods: collecting open-source sound files online, reading and rewriting scripts, creating set-up scenes to express ourselves
• Experimented with different roles: VJs, message readers, sound editors

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  Protocol of Radio: Collaborative sound editing session

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  Live radio performance with VJ and message reading

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  Radio show promotional poster

Artistic Labor in China: A Radio Prototype

After this exploration, I created a radio show prototype examining Chinese artistic labor—the intersection of creative work and systemic pressure. This piece was broadcast on Worm Radio, questioning: how do artists survive when their labor is both creative and constrained?

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SI26 – Declarations

Face Notation: Defining the "System"

Face Notation prototype: Interactive face puzzle

Face Notation is an interactive website inspired by Chinese physiognomy (face-reading) and web design. I noticed how CSS elements move and shift when you resize a browser window—just like how facial features supposedly determine destiny in traditional face-reading logic.

The project allows users to compose music with their own faces: a way of reclaiming the body from systemic definition. By turning the face into a musical instrument, I question: who has the power to define what our bodies mean?

In Chinese physiognomy, every mole, every line, every feature carries meaning assigned by tradition. But what if we could reassign that meaning? What if the system of interpretation became playful, collaborative, musical?

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SI27 – See You Many Times

Observer Clock: The Labor of Attention

Observer Clock is an installation that links blinking to the flow of time.

"Every blink counts. The more you blink, the faster the clock runs."

This work reflects my experience in service jobs where attention itself becomes labor. When your job is to watch, to monitor, to pay attention—your body's unconscious actions become part of the work.

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  Observer Clock: Installation view showing the clock interface

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  Documentation booklet explaining the concept

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  Detail: Eye-tracking mechanism and clock display

The central question: If attention creates value and shifts time, what do we truly desire from our bodies and technologies? Are we observers of time, or is time observing us?

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Beyond the Classroom: External Activities

My practice extends beyond XPUB coursework into broader artistic and publishing communities.

Book Fairs and Art Communities

• Flyleaf Fair in Berlin and BYOB in Amsterdam: Immersed in zine and art book communities, exchanging ideas with other independent publishers and creators
• Experiencing diverse worlds of self-publishing and experimental print culture
• Building networks with artist-migrants and experimental publishers

Exhibitions

• Piet Zwart Institute graduate shows
• KABK Language(s) Alumni Exhibition at Garage Rotterdam: Showcasing explorations of body, language, and technology in local art spaces
• Presenting work at Varia (SI26 Face Notation installation)

Workshops

Workshop: "From Face-Reading to Personal Soundscapes"

In this workshop, participants used Chinese mole-reading traditions to create music. By translating ancient bodily "readings" into sound, we challenged historical interpretations of the body through collective sound-making. Each person's face became a score, each feature a note—reclaiming the body from predetermined meanings.

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Future Direction

My creative practice is evolving toward more participatory performance and interactive workshops. I aim to deepen the intersection of programming, sound, and body while exploring new modes of engagement with audiences as active co-creators.

Plans ahead:

• Expand into interactive art projects that invite audiences to actively participate in shaping the experience
• Develop participatory art performances where the audience is no longer passive but becomes an active participant
• Continue exploring how bodily actions and creative inputs can co-author artistic experiences
• Investigate the intersection of labor, embodied knowledge, and transcultural production through my publishing project Earnest Edition

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Conclusion

My work reflects the complex relationships between technology, labor, and the body. I create spaces where people can reconsider their role in the systems that govern their lives and explore new possibilities for agency and self-expression.

Through sound, code, and interactive installations, I ask:

How do we resist the systems that discipline us?

What new forms of being become possible when we reclaim our bodies from systemic definition?

In each project—from the repetitive sounds of labor to the reading of faces, from the counting of blinks to the making of radio—I trace a line of inquiry: where do we find agency within systems that seem total? The answer, I believe, lies not in escaping systems entirely, but in finding the cracks, the glitches, the moments where we can insert our own meanings, our own rhythms, our own resistance.