For the last few years, I’ve been interested in the intersection of digital technologies,
folk religion (which is not lacking in its own technological systems, e.g. Daoist fulu talismans)
–especially as manifested through everyday objects and regurgitated through objects of
mechanical reproduction. Overall, this ties into larger inquiries via art-based research
on the role of machines in our lives, what kinds of desires/hopes we project onto them,
and where human and machine agency meet.
Why are we using machines at all?
This piece was made through taking every word of the Lotus Sutra and extracting the phonemic tone in Mandarin. The image is of my paternal grandparent’s grave in Leshan, Sichuan, which is our ancestral home on the paternal side of my family. This past summer, my cousins and I made a small pilgrimage up the winding hills, past fields of gardenia, to burn joss paper and incense around the time of the ghost festival. Though here you see the final realized version, this piece is meant to be experienced in time—stroke by stroke as the robot arm whirs and hums.
南無阿彌陀佛 is a well-known Buddhist chant in Chinese. Stickers bearing this text can be found across Taiwan – https://www.are.na/bdon/amituofo. They are said to mark sites of accidents for humans and non-humans alike.
This piece was inspired a joke I shared with my friend that quips on how women would not likely write their numbers using lipstick because lipstick is pricey (I actually found some for ~$1). Likely due to my being aroace, I've spent a lot of my life feeling puzzled by and distanced from typical allosexual/romantic behavior. The machine can stand in my place. Feel free to call the number. Does that sound like my voice?
Tone through stroke count.
The four full phrases are written by hand. An algorithm selects one word from each phrase, forming the red layer. Please touch.