Jin Shi's words (poster)
Stone's words (video)
Jin Shi's words (PPT)
1 Core Concepts
The mechanical device of "Jinshi's words" is a ritual theater of contemporary technological civilization. The fragile nature of technological civilization is revealed through three interrelated elements: the rusty pyrite sphere, the ever-moving robotic arm and the ore code-switching device. The robotic arm continues to push the metal ball up the top of the slope, but the ball always rolls back to its origin, playing a futile game of election. Pyrite, known as "Fool's Gold", gradually rusts from dazzling silvery white to brownish red residue, just like the illusory aura of technological promise-those "cloud" intelligent systems that claim to operate forever are actually built on the continuous plunder of the earth's mineral resources.
The work does not explore the significance of Sisyphean labor, but rather exposes the structural absurdity of cyclical violence in a technological society. Technological rationality compresses human nature, resources and ecology into consumable data, forming systematic violence; human beings are not only the perpetrators of technological violence, but also the victims, falling into an unsolved dilemma. The so-called "progress" is actually self-sacrifice in the closed loop. The work does not provide answers, forcing the viewer to confront the phagocytosis of the technical system and explore the path to breaking the game.
II. Context
The device is inspired by Camus's existentialism, and the loop of the robotic arm symbolizes the meaningless labor of human beings in the technical system. The oxidation of pyrite is also consistent with Benjamin's theory of historical ruins, showing the destruction of nature and culture by technological progress. The designer himself witnessed the mechanical rhythm of the pumping unit in the early 1990 s and the corrosion of the now abandoned oil tank. This experience has profoundly shaped the cognition of resource metabolism-the oxidation track of pyrite sphere, which is actually the rebirth of the memory of the petroleum industry in the digital age.
Three. Theme Focus
1. The Golden Lie: Pyrite shines at the beginning like a bright future depicted by technology, which is very attractive, but its oxidation process shows us the ecological cost behind relying on hardware.
2. Cyclic violence: the precise movements of the robotic arm repeat the industrial rhythm of oil drilling, and the frequency of 3.2 elections per minute is a metaphor for the violent exhaustion of resources by the algorithm.
3. Individual digestion: After the audience presses the "Start" button to activate the system, the mirror reflection is cut into data fragments, revealing the digestion of human subjectivity in the technological society.
Four. Device implementation
1. Pyrite sphere: pyrite sphere is initially golden, symbolizing the brilliance of AI industry surface. The time dimension of ore is different from that of human beings. Although it seems to have no change at present, it will oxidize after a period of time, making the glue dropping sphere yellow, and the paper strip with personal goals written inside will also be stained and corroded. This phenomenon exposes the ecological problems behind technology and shows the erosion of individual will by technological violence.
2. Robotic arm: It is a symbol of modern technological society. Repeated actions reflect the dilemma of human beings under the control of algorithms. The shadow projection of the robotic arm when grasping highlights the connection with mining.
3. Double ramp: The sphere will roll back to the starting point after being pushed to the top of the slope. The mirror ramp can reflect the shadow of the audience, making people wonder if they are also trapped in some kind of cycle.
4. Cone light source at the top: When the sphere rises, the light becomes stronger, which symbolizes that the goal is clear and full of hope. When the sphere falls, the light becomes weak, just like the loss after the hope is broken.
Five. Audience Experience
Enter the scene: the audience steps into the white space, and the pyrite sphere lifted by the robotic arm is like a small sun.
Observation cycle: The audience witnesses the repetitive actions of the robotic arm and feels the operation of the technical system and the insignificance of the individual.
Exit reflection: at the end of the showcase, the ground at the exit was marked "an AI chip ≈ 50kg of pyrite mining" to convert technical consumption into tangible ecological debt.
Through its ingenious design, Jinshi's words make the audience think about the absurdity of the technological age and the loss of human nature. Every time you press "start", you are thinking about the relationship between civilization and nature.
1 Overview of works
With pyrite ("Fool's Gold") as the core medium, the "Golden Lie" and "Oxidation of Truth" are used to construct a critical fable of technological society. The robotic arm pushes the sphere at a precise frequency of 3.2 times per minute to re-engrave the industrial rhythm of the oil drilling machine; the vein-code topology of the double-slope structure reveals the parasitic logic of virtual computing power on physical resources. The oxidation of pyrite from mirror gloss to rust red residue reflects the profound contradiction between efficiency worship and ecological cost in the process of industrialization in China.
II. Creating Context
The designer himself grew up in the oil field migration trajectory and experienced the rise and fall of the oil industry. The mechanical rhythm of the pumping unit and the corrosion of the waste oil tank in the childhood memory have shaped the unique cognition of resource metabolism. The oxidation track of the pyrite in the installation is actually a translation of the oilfield community from the slogan "Iron Man Spirit" to the residual shadow of the nursing home-when the saline-alkali soil devours the land of the oil tank area, the work sublimates the individual memory into a general inquiry of technological modernity: resource exploitation is not only the engine of development, but also the executioner of ecology and culture.
Three. Criticism of Materiality
The oxidation narrative of pyrite refers to the hypocrisy of technological civilization. Its mirror luster symbolizes the golden fantasy of the AI industry, while the decay of FeS → FeO(OH) nH O reveals the ecological cost of hardware manufacturing. The sphere is marked "an AI chip ≈ 50kg pyrite", which condenses the reality that China's copper ore imports account for 60% of the world's total into a touchable formula.
The algorithm design of the robot arm has a double reference: the frequency of 3.2 times per minute not only represses the physical rhythm of the oil drill pipe, but also metaphors the violent compression of natural time by the technical system. When the audience presses the "Start" button, the hydraulic sound of the device and the historical roar of the oil field diesel engine form a cross-time resonance-this is not only the trigger of interactive behavior, but also a replay of the fate of resource-based city residents: from oil immigration to digital labor, passivity has always been the secret footnote of industrialization narrative.
Four. The unfinished confession.
The top cone light source (5000K cold white) simulates the spectral violence of oil field searchlights and constructs visual discipline for industrial production. The focus of the strong light when the sphere reached the top of the slope reproduced the glorious illusion of the celebration banquet of "30 million tons of crude oil per year". The collapse of the falling light corresponds to the long night of power failure in the community after the oil well dried up.
The design of the mirror ramp is inspired by Benjamin's "Angel of History": the reflection of the audience overlaps with the rolling image of the pyrite sphere, revealing the mirror violence of technological civilization-the so-called "progress", which is actually a value-added symbol that transforms the pit scars into data capital. When the pyrite rust residue piled up in the showcase into miniature mountains, the "Golden Stone Chants" completed the most pointed question of developmentalism: how do we place oil-pickled land in the silicon-based blueprint?
Five. Conclusion
"Jin Shi Chuan" rejects the narrative trap of technological romanticism and reflects the deep cracks in China's modernization process through the decay prism of pyrite. Between the rust of the pumping unit and the cold light of the robotic arm, between the silence of the oil field nursing home and the buzz of the data center hive, the work constructs a critical state of material poetics-it does not deny technological progress, but It questions its one-dimensional violent logic. When the audience sees their own reflection broken in the cracks of the vein-code, they will finally understand that every time they click on the choice of "start", they are participating in writing the new and dead contract between civilization and nature.
The designer graduated from the Royal College of Art with a master's degree in information experience design. She draws inspiration from the life wisdom of nature and uses bionic design thinking to reshape the artistic expression of ecological themes. By integrating ecological philosophical thinking, digital humanities research methods and biological genetic information analysis technology, a unique "data archaeology" creation path is developed-that is, mining environmental memory through digital technology, tracing the interweaving track of life system and human civilization.
His works take digital images and intelligent interactive devices as carriers, and have successively landed in international art fields such as Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, BBC Television Centre, Seoul KR Art Museum, Dutch Design Week and so on. In 2024, the team's work won the Lumen International Digital Art Influence Award, and the experimental art works were selected for the 14th National Art Exhibition.
