User:ZUZU/Final presentation

Final presentation

In the next 20 minutes, I'd like to share my learning journey and personal transformation over the past two years at XPUB. During our mutual interviews for the graduation publication, there was a core question: "How did your practice change from entering XPUB to leaving XPUB?"

What's particularly different is that I'm not sure if I had anything I could call a "practice" before entering XPUB. It seemed like I didn't have a personal form of expression that I could identify as my practice. After studying design in my Bachelor's, my state was somewhat depressed, following mainstream rhythms. My demands on life were simply to find work, earn money, and achieve self-sufficiency—following a traditional life path.

So my time at XPUB was a completely new experience. Sometimes we'd joke during conversations, "You've been assimilated by XPUB." This assimilation sometimes refers to being able to appreciate things I couldn't appreciate before, finding beauty even in things I previously thought were crude.

Special Issues

SI22

Special Issue 22 still feels somewhat foreign to me because it was radio-related, which wasn't what I expected. But as a sound medium for external output, I also tried to create some radio content.

In Radio Worm: Protocols for an Active Archive, I developed this project in a group collaboration. For the final post-apocalyptic theme, we imagined the audience as survivors of the apocalypse. Through the Rain Receiver, we analyzed the language of nature by capturing the frequency of rain to generate sounds. When survivors touch the Rain Receiver, they become part of an unfolding narrative. This intimate gesture, akin to the act of giving, triggers a cascade of experiences—rain sounds, fragments of stories, and stream-of-consciousness memories collected from the community.

The concept of a gift economy(Kimmerer, 2022) became central to our exploration. For example, while a person can buy a wool scarf in a store, receiving a scarf hand-knitted by someone close carries a different emotional weight. Both serve the same physical function of keeping someone warm, but the emotional connection to a gifted item is far deeper. This realization resonated with my preference for the metaphor of a post-apocalypse picnic box. In a gift economy, community networks are built not on material wealth, but on connections that avoid disrupting the natural flow of resources for artificial scarcity.

Technically, this was my first attempt at connecting code and input devices with real printers. After multiple failures, the final solution was connecting a web page to a dot matrix printer. I thought it was magical at the time, but later learned this is standard practice—due to compatibility issues with old printers, using web pages to handle Python code output is quite conventional.

SI23

This subject introduced us to feminist server concepts, creating a Web quilt. During this period, I experimented with various web page styles and discovered my interest in web creation—it offered me various possibilities for creative output.

I created an HTML game with this concept: The Aquarium is a sci-fi concept—wherever there are servers, virtual aquariums exist. Digital fish—embodiments of consciousness—reside within, observing human behavior. Each fish possesses autonomy. As users navigate the labyrinthine server activities, these digital fish reflect their actions.

SI24

The "Loitering" theme was much closer to my life than the previous two, less abstract and easier to understand, and it influenced my graduation design content.

In this theme, I made a new discovery—starting to notice emotions. Though emotions exist constantly, this was a new process: focusing attention and thinking on emotion generation. When I began thinking about why I produce certain emotions, they were no longer ignored. Interestingly, this seemed contrary to loitering's essence—originally about aimless walking, but precisely in aimless walking, I saw this learning as an intense process of simultaneously exploring inward and outward.

I began thinking about why I like aimless walking and what I encounter in it. There turned out to be so many rich emotional changes! In various walking processes—including choosing different ways to reach destinations—there are so many places for emotions to generate.

My output was a floating installation. The initial purpose was: sometimes when taking public transport, perhaps due to my appearance, people around me would unconsciously encroach on my space, like spreading their legs wide. In this subject, I realized I could express this emotion concretely, leading me to connect with more—how can adults freely express emotions in urban life?

Specially designed for adults prone to embarrassment. EmoHooHoo supports the outward expression of unspoken emotions in public places; once you wear this device, it clumsily reflects your emotional changes, whether you like it or not 💨💨💨 In urban life, emotional expression is confined to specific occasions, often requiring an entry fee. To achieve emotional freedom in a consumer society, we must first dissolve this embarrassment. EmoHooHoo helps you break free from societal constraints. If burdened, attribute responsibility to our device💨💨💨

I created a device that inflates by measuring mood changes. The specific principle: the detector tests based on skin moisture—people produce oils and moisture according to mood changes, causing different conductivity and current data. Based on data stability, it outputs emotions, ultimately transforming a flat sofa into a resting place.
Of course, during this process I discovered I'm really not good at hands-on making—soldering and circuit boards gave me headaches.

reading/writing

For a long time before completing my thesis, I couldn't imagine: "Can I actually complete a 7000-word thesis?" When finished, I discovered I had actually begun enjoying reading and writing. To some extent, I consider this a major gain from the Master's process.

I used to think academic books were boring and tedious. But now I've discovered people are doing genuinely interesting research! Like William H. Whyte's "Social Life of Small Urban Spaces"—this artist spent nearly 25 years recording and observing New York urban life. Watching his documentaries and reading his books now, I still find them fascinating, with his humorous tone commenting on people's urban behaviors.

Another discovery: my exploration direction focuses on relationships between people and their surroundings—this "nearby" includes time and space, transcending time and space, plus emotional connections between people, people and space, people and matter. This means during exploration, I discovered researchers from various countries studying related topics at different times, researching similar content across different fields.

For example, in Japan, some call this "observation societies," while in France there are completely different French terms for description. What's interesting is how language and environment give these observers diverse expressions and research styles—studying Parisian versus Tokyo urban life surely produces different outputs and interest directions.

In this process, I began believing my perspective is also unique. The emotions I experience and observation angles, even if mundane observations, still carry strong personal color because they unfold from me. These personal colors to some extent also reflect the life observation state of many people.

Research question and workshops

My research attempts to pose a critical question: how might we rediscover and reconstruct "the nearby" within highly institutionalized urban environments? Exploring this question requires us to transcend traditional spatial understanding, viewing "nearby" not merely as geographical proximity, but as a sociological and emotional construction.

While this research appears very serious and sociological, at its core, I see it as an exploration focused on the emotional connections between people and their nearby environments. It can be both a very personal experience and a deep excavation of daily details.

My workshops attempt to transcend the representation of the "nearby" concept, instead creating conditions for participants to directly experience the multiple possibilities of "nearby" through embodied perception and interaction.

Final publication and grad show

I will have two exhibition formats:

• Indoor exhibition amplifying those emotionally-charged daily details I've observed in life, with hanging laundry as a key focus, encouraging viewers to re-examine these overlooked emotional carriers.

• Outdoor small publications in the woods. I've collected found objects from my nearby, through adhocist practice—improvised, usually informal spatial interventions—assembled them into a temporarily occupied space between private and public, where participants can read, hang laundry, and rest under trees.

My final publications are part of the archive, currently completed in two parts: one about my residential area, and another about stepping out from my residence to explore the nearby. These publications document my ongoing reflections and discoveries about "the nearby."

Soft mini pieces of the nearby is a series of gentle responses to the overlooked rhythms of everyday life. These works gather fragments too small to be archived—moments too intimate yet easily ignored. They return our attention to the faint movements and soft traces of daily existence: clothes hanging out to dry, benches, and routes traversed day after day.

Through inviting participants to join in collective engagement with what is near, these pieces investigate "nearby" as a form of resistance and creation within an atomized society. They approach it through everyday micro-practices—as a way of noticing, of staying with, of encountering by chance—always relational, emotional, and in motion.

Future plans

During my research, I collected increasingly more personal reflections, including thoughts from others and researchers and anthropologists from different countries. I want to connect these discoveries together, but linear approaches make such connections difficult. Therefore, I plan to create a website, like a quilt, weaving different thoughts and discoveries together.