Audio recording Z. at American Congress x Start-up Mantra
This work unfolds in two registers. First, as a visual transcription: the tear-shaped forms are not human sorrow, but the soundwave of Z. public apology before the U.S. Congress. No visible emotion. No rupture. Just the smooth, calculated rhythm of a voice designed not to tremble.
Second, as a title—Data Beats Emotion—the phrase echoes a dominant mantra in the startup world. In tech culture, feelings are noise. Growth requires data: measurable, scalable, testable. Emotion is seen as inefficiency—something to simulate perhaps, but never to follow.
By overlapping these layers, the piece reveals a tension: between affect and performance, between sincerity and computation. The tear is not real—it is rendered.
And the apology, like the system it represents, is more a metric than a moment.