"New Era Women | 新时代 女性 " is an interactive kinetic installation that materializes the complex relationship between China’s techno-economic aspirations and women’s labor through an automated AI-powered propaganda-printing and dough-sheeting system.
The piece begins as an AI system, fine-tuned with historical propaganda slogans from Chinese family planning campaigns’ period, generates contemporary pro-reproduction propaganda. These slogans are printed in iconic Maoist-era typography and vibrant red onto sheets of dough with a custom-built CNC printing system, symbolizing state authority. Audience can then engage in repetitive physical labor by operating a hand- cranked dough-sheeter that deforms and reshape these imprinted sheets. As the dough cycles through the system via conveyor belt, returning repeatedly for new impressions, it gradually transforms – its texture distorting and color shifting to pink, embodying the continuous exploitation of women’s bodies and labor. Throughout this cycle, a megaphone broadcasts an endless stream of propaganda, both real-life and AI-generated, creating an overwhelming atmosphere of state rhetoric.