The Unmined
2025
Generative Sculpture · Data Visualization · Semi-documentary Animation
We now inhabit a datafied world, making use of and existing as data. The ways in which we access and process data are never neutral; instead, hidden power dynamics govern their flow, lifecycle, and use. In his 1999 article “Value and Affect,” Antonio Negri argued that affect might be emerging as the basis for a new conception of value, noting that it is “beyond measure.” Yet, a few decades later, we find ourselves in an era where emotions are calculated, objectified, and accumulated as raw material for profit. From emotional extraction to affective computing, this “mind mining” treats our lived experiences and feelings as commodities for states and large tech companies.
This project, initiated in response to these circumstances, explores the intersections among digital labour, data colonialism, and the rise of “emotional” big data. By reverse-engineering data mining and using procedural modelling, the artist assumes the role of a miner who extracts human sentiments that are overlooked or dismissed as useless in capitalist value systems. In this exhibition, the artist juxtaposes three distinct bodies of work—Mined Minds, The Unmined (sculptures), and Pit—comprising a wall installation, sculptures, and a video projection. By arranging these artworks within an open space, the project invites viewers to navigate the environment and decipher the conceptual riddle woven through the works.
The Unmined seeks to bridge digital labor, historical and data colonialism, and mineralogical principles, reflecting on how our lives and emotions are increasingly being mined and exploited. This project also prompts a fundamental question about the ‘real’ value of human sentiment within a system that quantifies every facet of existence, and whether we can still find ways to connect freely and autonomously in an age of total extraction.
Mined Minds is a wallpaper installation that visualizes a dataset of “mined” emotions. Using web scraping, the artist collected texts posted on X (formerly Twitter) during the pandemic—a period when global isolation drove a collective migration to digital platforms in a desperate search for connection. For many, social media became a vast repository for the emotional debris suppressed in daily life. Starting with an initial filter based on Paul Ekman’s six basic emotions, the artist moved beyond algorithmic detection by using her own emotional responses as a litmus to detect “humane” sentiments. This curated dataset captures the “unproductive” spectrum of experience—nuanced layers of irony and illogicality that remain illegible to algorithmic sentiment analysis and are often marginalized in a society obsessed with utility. By juxtaposing these raw sentiments with the quantified outputs of machine “emotion detection,” the artist seeks to reveal how data science translates human feelings into measurable units and question what is lost in this reduction.
The Unmined (sculptures) materializes human sentiment in tangible form. The artist developed an algorithm informed by the crystalline structures of coltan—a conflict mineral essential for digital devices yet extracted through exploitative labor in the Global South. By applying the ‘sentiment scores’ from the curated dataset to the algorithm’s parameters, she transforms these emotional values into spatialized entities. This process allows navigating the tension between data visualization and abstraction, moving beyond literal interpretation to create a tactile, physical encounter. These sculptures embody human emotions as raw resources, reflecting the hidden labor that underpins both our mediated communication and material extraction.
Pit (2025) Single channel video (3D animation, archival and re-staged imagery), AI-generated voiceover, 8:15.
Pit, the video projection that concludes the exhibition, functions as an epilogue. Inspired by Ahn Hoe-nam’s novel Coalpit*, which depicts Korean miners during the Japanese colonial era, it draws a parallel between historical colonialism and contemporary data colonialism. The video’s narrative is built upon the novel’s structural backbone—specifically the opening coal mine explosion and the protagonist’s internal monologue. Within this framework, the artist situates these affective minerals within the global chain of digital production. The work intertwines research images, 3D models, and footage of virtual and real mines, converging into a form of autofiction narrated from her perspective as a miner-artist.
*Note: Ahn Hoe-nam (1909–?) was a Korean novelist who was subjected to forced labor in the coal mines of Saga, Kyushu, during the Japanese colonial era. Drawing from this lived experience, he wrote the autofictional novel Coalpit, which was serialized in the magazine Minseong between 1945 and 1947. Having remained fragmented and inaccessible for decades, the text was finally republished in 2019.
Credits
Procedural Modeling & Video Effects: Hanjin Cho
Graphics & Wallpaper: Heesun Seo (Studio Hik)
Production & Installation: Karie Tsui Ka Yee (interval:in)
Curatorial & Promotional Support: Eunice Tsang (Current Plans)
Photography: Helen Leung Xi Lan
Videography: Wong Hing Hang
Exhibition Assistant: Iris Su Jiayi
Screen Frame Production & Installation: Harry Tsang Tsz Hin
Research Support: Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
Production Support: Hong Kong Arts Development Council