Designed by ephemeral objects

Variable
Plastic, wood, hazelnut, string, cotton, rice paper, aluminum

Building on Tonomi Adachi’s exploration of imaginary instruments and the use of AI in sonic imagination, Reimagining the Ordinary examines how technology and material memory intersect in the act of instrument-making. Drawing from Vietnamese natural and synthetic found objects, the work explores both the creative potential and cultural limitations of AI-generated imagery.

Using Adobe Firefly to visualize Vietnamese everyday materials as instruments, the artist encountered the model’s Western framing of “Vietnamese-ness”—a reflection of how AI systems reproduce inherited gazes and biases. In response, she transforms these misrepresentations into physical form, crafting a tactile, playable instrument from objects sourced and upcycled in Vietnam.

Through this process, ephemeral objects interrogates the politics of representation embedded in machine vision and proposes an embodied, culturally grounded approach to eco-acoustic imagination. Her work invites audiences to consider how sound, material, and algorithmic mediation shape our collective sense of the “ordinary” and its sonic possibilities.

About the Artist

ephemeral objects is the alias of Michelle La, an interdisciplinary artist, producer, VJ, and DJ based in so-called Vancouver. She has performed at influential music venues and festivals throughout North America, including Bass Coast, New Forms, Active/Passive Osmosis and MUTEK. She produces ambient, experimental, noise, drone-inspired music, with her latest releases on SYS Sister Sounds and Wuji.

Her lived experienced as a queer Chinese-Vietnamese-Canadian and her academic background, with an MA in anthropology and BA (Hons.) in sociology and anthropology from Simon Fraser University, grounds how she situates her work: ethnographically, relationally, and accountable to place, power, and people.