We live In That Bright One Second
2025
Game Simulation
Wolf Boxuan Chen
In a room synchronized to real-time, a sleeper remains anchored in a heavy rest while a relentless firework display rages outside. Even in the depths of sleep, we are colonized by the external hum of a world that refuses to pause. This sanctuary is shattered when a stray firework pierces the window, negating gravity and igniting the sleeper into a living firework emitting the very sparks and noise that once besieged them from a distance.
As the character finally drifts through the door after being repeatedly battered against the walls, we are left to decide if this exit is a hopeful liberation or simply the heavy, inevitable result of a blast that lasted long enough to empty a room.
The work frames rest not as a recovery, but as a state of constant, low-level combat against an intrusive world. By surrendering to a live physics engine, the piece moves beyond the static loops of traditional video art into a choreography of the accident, mirroring the unpredictable struggle that occurs as external influences become internal. It functions as a passive game; the viewer’s choice to remain—to endure the real-time friction and noise alongside the sleeper—recasts the act of observation as a shared vigil for stillness in an age that permits none.
