Rosaline Dou
2025/26
Full video and essay are available upon request
In an Airbnb-turned-study, we pose as intellectuals to perform essay writing in a deliberately unserious manner: reading, discussing, and writing, while eating, excreting, sleeping, and having sex. We challenge the stereotype of the “serious” intellectual by performing “omnivorousness” and ask: can the unserious also produce knowledge? The four-channel video splits into two parts: a screen recording of Google Doc essay-writing, disrupted by daily needs and desires documented in three security camera feeds. The essay, structured as a Reddit-style forum discussion, blends Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, and Cantonese, and incorporates sources ranging from academic journals to unverified wikis and memes, defying conventional academic formats. Through performance, writing, and self-mockery, Embed in bed explores how the image of the intellectual is maintained by symbols of seriousness and productivity. Can knowledge be produced in distraction, in leisure, in pleasure? Must the intellectual always appear busy?
* The Chinese term 正经 / 正經 connotes uprightness, seriousness, adherence to standards, and an appearance of authenticity and reliability. “Serious(ness)” is an approximate translation because no single English word fully captures its range.