I gave myself 101 days, 20 hours, 36 minutes, 51 seconds to live and to answer what life is. Each second of my transient life counted down by a tiny digital clock. In order to truly live, you must first understand life and rediscover its value. In pondering our mortality, we actually see the reflection of our own life within the void of death. We become more sensitive to life as something beautiful. We learn to love it in a way transcendent of its meaning. It's inherently painful to live but it's also joyful to live. Because life simply is.

The performance work known as Death Clock was completed on January 29th, 2026 with no witnesses as a silent event documented only through the clock and a titular journal, presented only after its completetion. Death Clock serves as my first seminal work that paved the direction for my future inquiries with art. 

"When faced with the profound silence of the world, I laugh. I laugh at the absurdity of the world and enjoy it. Because its silence allows me to pursue what I want on my whims.

I laugh and declare, 'Well that's because life is!'

For life is itself, an experience unable to be rationalized, so we live it. This is how you live as the fool.


Life is.
I always want to add more to [this phrase]:
Life is beautiful.
Life is evanescent.
Life is transient.

But those never capture the entirety of life. My best attempt at capturing it as I witness its negation is that it is a transient experience blossoming with emotions and beauty and full of pain and misery.

The true experience of my life dies with me.

In the end, I'm glad to have led the life I've led." - Excerpts from the journal, recorded 21hr 11min 38s before death.

I live on with the weight of my life firmly placed in my palms. 

- Yixuan, 2026