su, where the moon rests

宿 (su): in the ancient system of twenty-eight lunar mansions, the moon did not drift aimlessly. Each night it chose a direction. It rested there until morning. Your birthdate is one of those nights.

Five stools mark the five directions: East, South, Centre, West, North. Fabric in the colours of each palace trails inward, gathering at the yellow centre. Touch an NFC tile and the direction opens: a Gelora, a hybrid being from the threshold between the cosmological and the everyday, appears through your phone screen.

The system is old. The stools are plastic. The moon is still there.

You already know which way to sit.

Materials

Five Vietnamese plastic stools (ghế nhựa). Five 6-metre fabric trails in palace colours: green (East), red (South), yellow (Centre), white (West), blue (North). Five NFC inlay tiles, one per direction. WebXR via A-Frame, with a Gelora being activated at each direction. Generative pentatonic soundscape by Patrick Hartono. Battery LED uplights and strips: no gallery infrastructure required.

Exhibition history