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P R A C T I C E - B A S E D   R E S E A R C H

Artist

Cyber Reliquary 赛博圣物箱

Zine series + Physical / Interactive works

STATUS: ONGOING MEDIUM: MIXED SERIES: DO NOT FEAR

The dominant narratives of contemporary technology, including artificial intelligence, posthumanism, the Singularity, and digital transcendence, are not new. They are secular reruns of mythological structures embedded in the collective psyche for millennia.

The project takes its name from the reliquary, the medieval container built to house a fragment of the sacred. Where a reliquary enshrines a relic, Cyber Reliquary enshrines a set of inherited myths: isolating them from the ideological machinery that currently conceals them, placing them under glass, and asking what it means that we are still living inside them.

+ F R A M E W O R K 理论框架 +
01

The Psychoanalytic Substrate

Drawing on Jung's collective unconscious, Freud's structural model, and Campbell's monomyth. Mythological structures are not cultural residue; rather, they serve as the operating system through which human beings process existential uncertainty. They do not disappear when a civilization becomes secular. They migrate.

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The Mythological Archive

The Enuma Elish maps onto AI alignment. Judeo-Christian eschatology supplies the template for Singularity thinking. Chinese cosmological traditions challenge the implicit universalism of Western techno-mythology.

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The Techno-Posthumanist Layer

In dialogue with Haraway and Hayles. The rationalist tradition that declared God dead did not escape the mythic drive. Instead, it inherited and redirected that drive, and is now constructing a new god in the same image.

D O   N O T   F E A R   :   A R T I F A C T   I

不要害怕

The Witness

Mixed media: Sculpture, Computer Vision, and Facial Detection

In the Book of Ezekiel, the angel does not descend softly. It arrives as a storm, manifest as a wheel of fire studded with eyes and a creature with four faces and wings folded over its body in concealment. Its first words to the prophet are not greetings. They are a command: do not be afraid.

A biblically accurate angel occupies the installation space. Constructed from the formal iconography of Ezekiel and Revelation rather than the soft-winged messengers of Renaissance painting, it is covered in eyes. It watches. And when you look at it directly, it closes. Its wings fold inward, its eyes shut, its form contracts into stillness.

But the angel does not stop watching. Beneath its performed retreat, facial recognition runs continuously to track position, gaze direction, and proximity. The Witness logs every face that enters the room. It sees everything. It simply refuses to be seen seeing.

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We have built watchers. We have distributed them across every surface. We have given them the same property the ancient texts attributed to God: omniscience without reciprocity, the gaze that is never returned.
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ACTIVATION The installation activates only in the presence of human faces
BEHAVIOR Observation collapses the encounter as the moment of looking triggers a retreat.
SUBSTRATE Surveillance infrastructure mapped onto divine omniscience
+ P R O C E S S 制作过程 +
01

Concept & Sketches

Exploring a cyber-tech aesthetic for the angel by integrating organic biblical iconography with machine forms. Multiple iterations of the silhouette were explored, searching for something that felt both ancient and engineered.

Initial ink sketch: loose gestural drawing of the angel form with central eye and radiating organic limbs Initial ink sketch
Silhouette iteration: wide wingspan with central eye and mechanical joint details Refined silhouette
Iteration sheet showing multiple wing and body variations exploring different levels of complexity Form explorations
Silhouette iteration: compact vertical form with crossed upper wings Variation A
Silhouette iteration: wide horizontal wingspan with eyes in lower limbs Variation B
Silhouette iteration: minimal open wing pair with lower eye clusters Variation C
Silhouette iteration: dense radial form with maximum complexity Variation D
02

3D Modeling & Printing

Translating the sketches into a printable 3D model. The central sphere houses an OLED display for the eye. Wings were printed in segments: white for the skeletal structure and green for the organic extensions, all designed to mount on servo motors.

3D model perspective view: central sphere with organic wing forms radiating outward Model — perspective
3D model front view: symmetrical wing silhouette with central sphere and eye detail Model — front
3D model close-up: sphere body detail showing organic surface textures and eye socket Model — detail
3D modeling software showing the angel sculpt with central sphere and organic wing forms 3D sculpt in progress
All 3D printed parts laid out: sphere body with eye textures, green and grey wing segments Printed parts
03

Assembly & Electronics

Integrating servo motors into the wing joints, wiring the OLED eye display, and mounting everything onto an inscribed base. The sphere houses the display and camera components, with the mechanism of watching concealed within the body of the angel.

Work in progress: 3D printed wings being attached to servo motors on the central sphere Wing assembly
Front view showing OLED display embedded in the sphere cavity with servo motors visible OLED eye integration
Full assembly with all wings attached, showing the complete form emerging Full assembly
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Face Tracking Integration

Python face detection running on a laptop feeds state commands to an ESP32 via serial. The state machine cycles through IDLE, CLOSING, HIDDEN, and OPENING; the angel's wings fold inward when it detects a face looking at it and slowly reopen when the gaze is withdrawn.

Development environment showing Python face detection with bounding box and serial communication logs to ESP32 Face detection + serial state machine
Night testing: the sculpture glowing with blue LED eye, connected to laptop running face detection Testing the behavioral loop
05

Exhibition

The completed installation features a gold-painted body, glowing blue OLED eye, and servo-actuated wings on an inscribed base. A webcam mounted behind captures the viewer's face. The screen displays the live feed, allowing the viewer to see themselves being watched as the angel watches them.

Viewer encountering The Witness at the exhibition, the sculpture's wings open as he looks at it Viewer encounter
Exhibition setup with screen behind showing face detection feed and webcam mounted above Exhibition installation
Wide shot of the exhibition showing the complete installation The gaze that is never returned
Exhibition demo
Exhibition footage I
Exhibition footage II

The reliquary does not destroy the relic.
It makes it visible as what it is.

C Y B E R   R E L I Q U A R Y   :   O N G O I N G