Single-channel video, AI-generated video and synthetic speech, color,sound | 00:30:00 | 2025

READING is an AI-generated video in which the face of an artificial infant recites Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto through a synthetic voice. The reading is mechanical and emotionless, stripping the text of its bodily resonance and affect. What remains is a de-subjectivized voice—information flows seamlessly, while the act of understanding stays unresolved. In an age where algorithms can store and reproduce text flawlessly, reading becomes an infrastructure: efficient, scalable, but detached from context and responsibility. The work questions whether understanding still requires embodied subjectivity, or if within technical systems, knowledge now equals circulation. Returning to Haraway’s idea of the “cyborg,” READING examines how boundaries between subject and medium are being rewritten, and what forms of meaning can persist once severed from the body.

Jing Hsu (b. 2002, Suzhou) is a contemporary artist and digital director based in London. He graduated from the School of Innovation Design at the China Academy of Art and is currently pursuing an MA in Art and Science at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. His artistic practice examines the intersections of technology, classical aesthetics, and speculative narratives, constructing ambiguous visual languages that blur the boundaries between authenticity and distortion. His works have been exhibited at institutions such as Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, Zhejiang Art Museum, and the Asia Digital Art Exhibition, as well as major art fairs including West Bund Art & Design and Beijing Dangdai. In 2024, his filmic work received the Best Art Design Award in the AIGC Short Film Section of the 14th Beijing International Film Festival.