车轮、调圈台、磁带、磁带播放机 Wheel, turntable, cassette tape and cassette player 2023
Wheel_Will是一件旨在揭示和质疑转经轮背后意识形态流变的装置。当观众手动顺时针旋转转经轮时，磁带会缓慢地掠过磁头，循环播放“南无阿弥陀佛”的声音，将前现代信仰和现代自动化功能并置于后现代语境中。
Wheel_Will is an installation that aims to reveal and question the evolution of the ideology behind the prayer wheel. As the audience manually rotates the wheel clockwise, the cassette tape slowly passes through the tape head, looping the sound of "Namo Amitabha," functioning as a combination of pre-modern beliefs and modern automation within a postmodern context.
ChengkaiXu_Wheel_Will_15sec.mp4
The initial idea of this project comes from the “hell jokes” on the Internet. Hell jokes make fun of something that is morally serious or forbidden. Whenever somebody listens to a hell joke and then laughs, in the context of the hybrid ideology context of Chinese people, people think they lose some of their “Gong De” (a Buddhism term meaning “good deeds and merits”). “Gong De”, in this context, is a typical concept that qualifies good deeds with a certain scale, for example, how many times you knock the Muyu (Buddhism Wooden Block) or how many times you pray to the Buddha. When the postmodern hell jokes meet the idea of Gong De, people choose to compensate for the lost Gong De in a utilitarian way, like praying for an apology from the Buddha or God immediately after enjoying hell jokes or knocking the digital Muyu on the smartphone. Interestingly, the mobile app even offers auto-knocking service. Without tapping on the screen, the user can get the count number increased.
The contrast between pre-modern beliefs and post-modern behavior inspires me to think more about this phenomenon. As a result, I have begun to consider the relationship between repetitive behavior, beliefs, and automation. Combining these three points, I quickly realized that the prayer wheel perfectly aligns with my research interests. So, why not make a prayer wheel of my own?