Single Channel Video
8 mins
The Museum of NTUE, Taipei Taiwan
This video artwork emerged from "Dark Fluid: A Science Fiction Experiment," a speculative writing workshop initiated by Angela SU(HK) in Taiwan, with textual foundation by Lin Xinhui(TW). The piece explores our increasingly tenuous relationship with reality in a technologically mediated future.
Set in a futuristic hotel where robotic housekeepers maintain pristine environments, the work examines how standardized spaces—warm lighting, white beds, comfortable sofas—create temporary illusions of home. Yet upon exiting one's room, the corridor reveals the unsettling truth of mass replication, challenging our conception of private space.
Drawing inspiration from the Eagles' iconic song, the narrative features a protagonist living in an AI-controlled environment where every aspect of existence is optimized and quantified. When he attempts to leave his room, the AI's simple question—"Why do you need to go out?"—exposes the philosophical tension between algorithmic efficiency and inexplicable human desire.
Like the hotel in the song where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave," the work contemplates our willing imprisonment within technological systems of our own creation. Through this speculative lens, the piece interrogates whether consciousness itself might be another simulation within nested layers of programmed reality.