Lila Rui Lan's Interactive Works Expose Digital Compliance

Artist Lila Rui Lan's installations 'Kill Heroes' (2024) and 'LOL: Laugh Out Loud' (2025-2026) examine how digital systems train behavior through participation and emotion. In 'Kill Heroes,' facial recognition software registers visitors before a digital instructor issues commands like raising hands or opening mouth; cameras track movements while software evaluates compliance. The work borrows the rhythm of digital interfaces, triggering prompts and rewards until reflection is prompted only after obedience. Rui Lan cites Byung Chul Han's concept of psychopolitics, where control feels like choice. The installation uses Python-based facial recognition, motion detection, and Arduino-controlled sensors. 'LOL: Laugh Out Loud' monitors participants via cameras, microphones, and AI in a blue-lit room where laughter must be sustained to keep the installation alive; thermal cameras reduce faces to color fields, and graphs calculate 'LAUGH SPEED' and 'LOUD ENOUGH.' Silence causes projections to glitch. The work references Hochschild's emotional labour, Deleuze's society of control, and Baudrillard's simulation. Across both works, Rui Lan suggests contemporary power depends on learning rather than prohibition, with digital systems rehearsing behavior until it feels natural, referencing Zuboff's surveillance capitalism.