Xinyun Ma

With the influence of globalization, cultures with unique characteristics are rapidly disappearing. Undoubtedly, globalization has brought tremendous benefits. However, it has also led to the accelerated process of cultural assimilation, profoundly affecting the construction and shaping of individual identities among ethnic minorities. This phenomenon is not solely a result of government actions or power dynamics but is also influenced by individual choices during the assimilation process and its impact on territorial intimacy.

Based on research on the Aoluguya Ewenki ethnic group in China, the project will incorporate nomadic thinking within the resistance against contemporary social power and control structures. Through narrative monologues, sound, poetry, and moving images, the final output is an experimental film that explores how ethnic minorities form intimate connections with their territories under the influence of cultural assimilation.

In the Post-Covid era of uncertainty, what do we really possess? A fish tank, a potted plant, or a personal laptop? In an intelligent environment that is highly controlled and supervised by algorithms and intelligent technology, where do we flee to?

The body, at this moment, is the only thing we really own by ourselves, it carries our biogenetic information, it carries our energy, mind and spirit, it carries our interaction with the outside world. The body is a temple that houses our seven senses, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, touching, thinking, and time. The body is a sacred place.

In future, with the help of technology, can our bodies have new organs and new senses? Can we shift from feeling the outside world to feeling the inside through new senses? Can technology transform the body from body enhancement to spiritual enhancement?

Thus, we imagine a future body-portable meditation device that allows us to listen to ourselves, explore ourselves, and seek peace and warmth in our body and mind in a constantly changing and chaotic environment. 

Inspired by the obsession with ruins, which transforms past grandeur into an illusion and a projection of human desire. That inherent incompleteness of the scattered fragments, therefore, creates spaces in imagination. The simultaneous coexistence of despair and fascination can be observed in ruins and also in the digital fragments peculiar to our time. Through incompleteness, we trace back to the past glory of history, project ourselves into the "avatar" as new incarnations at the present moment, and leave pieces of digital rubble as our legacy for the future to reconstruct and portray.

Within the boundary between humans and technology, what do we see? A projection installation that explores the relationship between humans and technology through incompleteness, imagination, and desire. It seeks to explore the flowing and blurred boundaries between humans and technology when perceiving different times, aiming to provoke reflection on the role of technology in shaping our perceptions and experiences of the world.