Unauthorised Emotion

2025
Single channel colour 4K video with stereo sound
9 mins

Exhibitions
Ming Wei Arts Award Exhibition (Arts and Culture Center, National Taipei University of Technology)

Awards
Ming Wei Arts Award - Shortlisted ; Honourable Mention (Ming Wei Education Foundation, Taiwan)

Unauthorised Emotion is a single-channel video installation set in a near future where Taipei is governed by a powerful technology corporation. Presented through the perspective of AI systems designed to optimise society, the work offers a satirical reflection on Big Tech's promise of rational control and technological efficiency.

When a newly deployed monitoring network detects a surge of unclassifiable human emotion—manifested through a wave of collective sighing—the AI headquarters begins to tremble, echoing Taiwan's seismic landscape. As analytical frameworks fail to process this anomaly, emotion emerges as noise within computational logic, exposing the fragility of technological authority. What was designed to eliminate uncertainty becomes destabilised by the very human experiences it cannot quantify, triggering fear within the system itself.

Blending speculative fiction, political satire, and 3D animation, Unauthorised Emotion examines the tension between technological governance and emotional autonomy, questioning whether human subjectivity can ever be fully captured, regulated, or optimised by computational systems.

Written, Directed & Produced by Riley Tu
Script Editor: Nathaniel Trost
3D Animation: Riley Tu
3D Animation Assistant: Sunni Liao
Edited & Music by Riley Tu

Supported by Taipei City Government, Department of Cultural Affairs