Zixuan Xiong 雄 子轩

This attempt was a fleshing out of some of the characters in a worldview story I created. For a long time, I seemed to be playing the role of myself in the eyes of others. Observing the faces of others, speculating on what image might be more acceptable. This has left me no longer knowing how to think on my own terms. So, as I thought about how to get me out of the way that this conclusion had caused me, I simulated… What conclusion would my parents want me to make about this? How would my friends want me to resolve this? As I thought with a different mask, a vision came to me.

And so, the Black Box was born, a world that has gone through several reboots and uses everyone’s memories as energy to keep the planet’s life-support equipment running. And the characters I created, they were separate individuals and extensions of my imagined self. The completely self-interested me, the me that chooses to stick to a certain principle no matter what, the me that wants to believe in my own potential, the me that thinks I can change the world, etc……

I’m excited about all of this, and I hope I can share the confusion I’ve felt along the way in a new way to someone who may have had similar struggles. Maybe it will bring warning, maybe it will bring relief, maybe it will bring thought. Most importantly if I can get feedback, it will also bring about a clash of different viewpoints and debate. This would be something I could try to achieve with my life.