What contemporary boxes have we trapped ourselves in? Box Body is a site-specific 3D video artwork showcased on the iconic TenSquare billboard in Singapore, viscerally embodying the constriction that defines many urban lives. For a few nights in one of the busiest and fastest-growing metropolitan spaces in the world, a giant crouched, wedged in a building, contemplating their entrapment and ours too.

As part of the 2023 ART-ACT Festival during Singapore Art Week, we presented our very first site-specific 3D media piece in collaboration with several specialists. Inspired by conversations with locals during our four-month stay in Singapore as part of a graduate program exchange, the two-minute and fifty-second film depicts a giant human trapped within the Ten Square building. It invites onlookers to confront the oppressive structures that frame our lives, urging reflection on the spaces we inhabit and the invisible forces that shape them.

Our generation is increasingly fatigued by a lack of control. Many aspects of life are dictated by customs and corporations, rendering individuals powerless in the face of crises. As a young queer diasporic Asian woman, Xin’s presence in the box underscores the intersectionality of societal constraints. Box Body reclaims billboard space to vividly depict marginalized lives constrained by structures they had no hand in creating, subverting the billboard into a magnifying glass for reality rather than a platform for materialistic fantasy.

The Living Screen Production Technique

Through Box Body, we developed a production workflow involving remapping filmed imagery from a built scaled model of the screens. This innovation has the potential for real-time interaction with site-specific 3D visuals, eliminating the need for CGI. We chose to forego prior experience in computer-generated animation to realize a more subtle, tangible, and visceral vision through live-action film. By partnering with experienced filmmakers and innovating in live mapping production flows, we created instantaneous 3D imagery that is not only captivating but also deeply human, contrasting the synthetic vibrance common to CGI.