✍️ 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
THE_BUDDHA_MACHINE
[0] CONTEXT & URGENCY
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 plastic box to "deliver sentient beings" and "accumulate merit."
The Paradox of Displacement:
- Soundscape: Repetition in the factory is hard labor; in practice, it is healing.
- Body: On the production line, the body is a tool; at home, it is a holy object.
- Identity: Workers exchange labor for capital; listeners exchange listening for afterlife relief.
Key Question✎: Can this repetitive technology loosen the framework of reality and become a tool for constructing personal meaning?
[1] PROTOTYPES (PATHWAY)
In SI27, I conducted three experiments to arrive at this proposal.
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 using a "seriously unserious" approach.
Key Connection✎: How does dependency translate into faith? Legitimate interfaces for re-narration.
Bladder Runner (Field Diary)
A visual and textual field diary that employs the **bladder as a metaphor** to translate visceral bodily experiences from field research in Shenzhen factories.
Key Connection✎: Creative non-fiction, metaphor as analytical lens.
Mundane Spiritual Interface Mapping
An interactive survey website collecting and mapping the mundane technologies people use during states of exhaustion.
Key Connection✎: Interactive questionnaire design, data visualization.
[2] METHODOLOGY (HOW)
The Phantom City (Web Installation)
I am creating a non-linear virtual space simulating a state of **"Spiritual Suspension"**. The user navigates a **"Phantom City" (Yicheng)**—a digital mirage where clarity requires constant exploration but never truly arrives.
Three Core States:
- **THE LOOP (Repetition):** If input stops, the system decays into noise. Mirrors the "survival mechanism" of factory labor.
- **THE PHANTOM CITY (Ambiguity):** Based on the Buddhist concept of Hua Cheng. Moments of clarity (images/sounds) appear but dissolve like mirages.
- **SUSPENSION (Stuckness):** No levels, no winning. Floating in a system that promises transcendence but offers endless continuation.
Tech Stack: Three.js / A-Frame, Blender, Spatial Audio.
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 ░░░