✍️ assessment2
Preface
The entry of my graduation proposal will be a Buddha machine, a music box for meditation. It was sacred but cheap, industrial yet transcended.
There is a 24/7 sound in my house—ambiguous, genderless, looping "Amitabha" endlessly. This is my **mother's machine**. She once worked on the factory assembly lines; now, she uses this cheap plastic box to "accumulate merit."
Before the graduation proposal, I need to find the clue from my Xpub 1 practices, tracing the methodology and the tools in the past one year.
How the body is disciplined by systems
/// and how we react ///
I want to find the cracks, the glitches, the moments where we can insert our own meanings.
🪷 🪷 🪷 🪷 🪷 🪷
SI#25 SOUND_OF_MAKING
In SI25, sound was the tool to explore invisible discipline.
Broadcast#3: Underwater_Exploration
> Field recording as storytelling
Using water as a metaphor to explore systems. Collaging diverse audio samples to investigate the textures of aquatic environments, finding the materialization, fluity and resistence of the sound.
Key Connection✎: Sound collage, archival practice
Broadcast#5: Bad_Customer_Service
> Script-based Narrative
Sound, like call center scripts, is repetitive and systemic. This project constructed a fictional space transforming protocols into narrative scripts.
Key Connection✎: Script-based narrative, fictioning, storytelling
Radio Worm: The Guideline to Shadows' Mindscape
A radio drama about the Chinese art system. Exploring algorithmic intrusion and escape.
Key Connection✎: fiction writing, role play, broadcasting
SI#26 DECLARATION
[Key_Connection]: Interactive Interface
Face_Notation
It is a interactive website that transforms the bodily markers of Chinese physiognomy into a music system.
Users adjust browser windows (CSS Grid), turning the disciplined body into a musical instrument.
Key Connection✎: fiction writing, role play, broadcasting
SI#27 See you many times!
The Observer Clock
"Every blink counts.
The more you blink, the faster the clock runs."
Installation.view
Documentation_Err.log
Eye_Tracking_Mechanism
I also used the weasy print to documentation the whole research process and the basis machnism.
Key Connection✎: installation, archiving
THE_BUDDHA_MACHINE
[0] CONTEXT: THE_INFINITE_LOOP
Why research the Buddha Machine?
It returns to my home in Shenzhen. There is a 24/7 sound in my house—ambiguous, genderless, looping "Amitabha" endlessly.
This is my **mother's machine**. She once worked on factory assembly lines; now, she uses this cheap music box to "deliver sentient beings" and "accumulate merit."
THE PARADOX: The machine embodies a contradiction of Displacement:
- Soundscape: Repetition in the factory is hard labor; repetition in practice is healing.
- Body: On the production line, the body is a batched industrial product; at home, it is a holy object.
- Identity: Workers exchange labor for capital; listeners exchange listening for afterlife relief.
The Urgency: In Shenzhen, the "City of Design" masking "Endless Labor," factory work and spiritual work are converging. Exhausted bodies repurpose repetitive technology to reclaim subjectivity.
Key Question: Can this loosen the framework of reality and become a tool for constructing personal meaning?
/// SYSTEM QUERIES ///
1. Formation: What historical conditions made this construction possible?
2. Operation: Through what mechanisms does it function?
3. Transmission: What patterns are passed down between generations?
Instant Faith Workshop
Participants designed their own "Faith Systems" to test belief mechanisms. We explored personal narratives within **exhausted bodies** and how to translate dependency into faith.
> Method: "Seriously Unserious" critical reflection.
[Key Connection]: How does dependency translate into faith? Legitimate interfaces for re-narration.
Bladder Runner (Field Diary)
A field diary using the **bladder as a metaphor**. It translates somatic experiences during Shenzhen fieldwork into images and text.
[Key Connection]: Creative non-fiction, metaphor as an analytical lens.
Mundane Spiritual Interface Mapping
An interactive questionnaire website collecting daily (spiritual) technologies people use while in states of exhaustion. Mapping personal/collective "spiritual geographies."
[Key Connection]: Interactive questionnaire design, data visualization.
THE_PHANTOM_CITY (化城)
Concept: A non-linear virtual space simulating a state of **"Spiritual Suspension"**. The user enters a loop—a "Phantom City" (Yicheng)—where time stagnates and goals remain forever unclear.
STATE 1: THE LOOP
If input stops, system decays into noise. Mirrors the "survival mechanism" of factory labor.
STATE 2: PHANTOM CITY
Based on Buddhist "Hua Cheng". Clarity appears as a mirage (perfect image/sound), then dissolves.
STATE 3: SUSPENSION
No levels, no winning. Floating in a system that offers only endless continuation.
Scene Settings: 4-6 Abstract scenes (Faith Space, Workshop, Home) scattered with religious objects, folk symbols, and industrial equipment.
Tech Stack: Three.js / A-Frame, Blender, Spatial Audio.
[3] TIMELINE: 4 MONTHS
- Month 1: Deep Reading (Cybernetics) + Visual Concept + Prototype "Infinite Scroll".
- Month 2: Blender Content Gen + Sound Experiments (Factory Noise x Chanting).
- Month 3: Integration + Workshop Testing (Testing "Suspension" atmosphere) + Thesis.
- Month 4: Final UI Polish + Zine Publication.
░░░ Thank you ░░░