Emotional Rubik's Cube

2024. Interactive Installation Art

"Emotional Rubik's Cube" is an interactive installation artwork that explores the multiplicity and expression of emotions. The work constructs a set of faces using six expressions (anger, calmness, joy, surprise, melancholy, and sadness), with each face divided into nine sections corresponding to the six sides of a Rubik's cube. Visitors trigger changes in the faces and expressions by rotating the cube. Through a camera placed beneath the display platform, a projector casts the cube's changes onto the wall, creating continuously transforming faces and emotional states.

The creative inspiration for my work comes from Roland Barthes' "Death of the Author" theory, which proposes that the meaning of a text is not solely determined by its creator but becomes an independent, multifaceted, and fluid space through reader engagement. In "Emotional Rubik's Cube," the creator is not the sole source of meaning; rather, the visitors' interactions and choices are key to constructing the emotional faces. The rotation of the cube and the transformation of expressions symbolize the openness and uncertainty of textual meaning. Through this interactive process, the work emphasizes the shifting relationship between creator and audience, suggesting that artistic creation is an open, continuously generative process where each interaction represents a new interpretation and reconstruction of "meaning."

"Emotional Rubik's Cube" is not only an exploration of emotional expression but also an artistic presentation of Roland Barthes' theory, challenging the fixity of traditional meaning and encouraging audiences to redefine the possibilities of emotion and expression beyond the "dead author."