There’s A Woman on the Pedestal
2023
Live Performance With Microcontrollers And Electronics

There’s a Woman on the Pedestal is a Live Performance with microcontrollers and electronics. On the date of International Womens Day, I wear a cheap wedding dress and sit on a pedestal in an extremely uncomfortable position, holding a machine that represents a pregnant stomach (the name of this machine is “mental image”). The audience puts their fingers into the fingertips, and the heartbeat sensor will detect the heartbeat of the audience. The frequency of the heartbeat will affect the water pump installed in the ink bottle so that the ink in the water pump and in the water pipe presents a rhythm consistent with the heartbeat of the audience. The other end of the water pipe is connected to the machine, and the ink drip from top to bottom, through the filter that has a mixture of stone powder, deicing salt, sea shell powder, and dust, which reference the same element as bones and drips into the box covered with silk paper ( a traditional paper for Chinese ink painting). The blank silk paper is a metaphor for Tabula rasa, which means the blank state of the mind of an infant. Excess ink that the paper couldn’t hold would stain my wedding dress and flow from my stomach to the floor.

Photo credit to Tianjiao Wang