I set out to trace the hidden control mechanisms of modern society and, through personal practice, respond to the frictions they generate between the individual and the social body—mapping both the continuity and the mutations of disciplinary systems across historical moments. Methodologically, I draw on Foucault’s notion of the Panopticon—a disciplinary network that has seeped into the fibers of everyday life.
Using a factory in full transition to mechanization as my field site, I record the shifts in its internal structures and rhythms: ever-upgrading mechanical and automated apparatus quietly displace repetitive manual labor; between person and collective, body and institution, a tense coexistence and conflict takes shape. This series examines how the tangible forms of social norms sculpt perception and gesture, while tracing how these mechanisms evolve within contemporary industrial settings.
Across media, I photograph the architecture of the shop floor, the textures of machines, and the postures of daily labor; I build interactive installations that pair the viewer’s “intervention–feedback” with the cadence of production; and I design a book to organize archives and evidence across time, making visible the historical continuity and material embodiments of discipline. As the factory enters a new production stage, one near-constant stands out—the daily, manual quality test of a concrete cube measuring 1000 cubic centimeter. The routine’s relentless repetition turns it into a ritual: pour the mix into a mold, compact and degas with a high-frequency concrete vibrator, then air-dry. As Tagore writes, “This fragile vessel you empty again and again, only to fill it with new life.” Repetition gives time a body and inscribes regularity into the body.
To probe this “steady procedure,” I learned to cast the test cubes myself, while collecting objects discarded in the march toward mechanization—rounded-head nails formed by heat, metal offcuts scored by blades—and embedding them back into the traditional process. Abandoned parts and the unchanging regimen of quality control are juxtaposed within the same cube, as if sealing “institutional residue” inside “production routine.” I document the factory’s transformation through photographs and design a photobook with the same volume as the cube 1000 cubic centimeter, aligning reading with the object at the level of scale. Finally, I present the works atop an infrared-triggered concrete vibrating machine: when the motor roars to life, images and objects overlap in tremor; in the clamor of progress, past people and things stand in silent contention—“The years pass, and still you pour.”