Egoism
Year of Creation:
2018
Media:
Digital Collage + EP (3 Tracks: In Defense of My Ego, Cycles, Egoism)
Dimensions:
Variable
Interaction Type:
Not Interactive
Duration:
6:52
Description:
Egoism is a paired work of sound and image examining ego as both survival suit and prison. The digital collage presents a black-and-white negative-style composition: the central figure is the artist with covered mouth, silenced amid looming machinery, and distorted human forms. The aesthetic is claustrophobic and compressed, reflecting ego as armor that suffocates as much as it protects. The EP expands this image into sound. Across three tracks, it stages ego’s multiple registers: external defense (In Defense of My Ego), internal compulsion (Cycles), and paradoxical selfhood (Egoism). The production ranges from sharp and confrontational to hypnotic and expansive, with vocals shifting between accusation, confession, and chant. Together, the collage and EP critique egoism not as confidence but as mechanism: a system of silencing, compulsion, and paradox that shields the self while keeping it trapped.
Core Question:
Is ego a shield for survival—or a prison that silences connection?
Loop Analysis
Structure:
Ego Feedback Loop
Definition:
A system where ego protects against external harm but simultaneously generates internal cycles of alienation and repetition.
Leverage Point:
Recognition that ego is both armor and wound—its defense mechanisms reproduce the very isolation they resist.
Inputs / Outputs:
External voices + internal wounds → ego defenses → compulsive cycles of behavior → paradoxical assertions of identity → repetition of ego’s role as both protector and jailer
Effect:
Confrontation, claustrophobia, reflection, paradoxical liberation
Ethical Valence:
Vulnerable and critical—exposes ego’s survival role while critiquing its alienating cost
Design Note:
The pairing of EP and collage enacts the split between silence (visualized hand over mouth) and voice (musical confession), collapsing self-image and self-sound into one system of egoic tension.
