This is a scale I made for myself. When I was in high school, I weighed only 55kg and was very thin. But when I graduated from college, my weight was 75kg. During the BFA exhibition, I met a few high school classmates who were not very familiar. Although I was not very close to them, I still heard one of them say: "Why is he becoming so fat? ". I felt very uncomfortable at the time because I was rarely said to be fat, and at that time, 75kg, according to my height, is a standard weight. But it still hit me a lot. After that, I started to lose weight and it took two months to reduce my weight back to 65kg, which is my weight before the beginning of my freshman year.

 

The process of losing weight is painful, and my mood changes every day according to the numbers on the scale. I feel this is very stupid but powerless. If the number becomes low, I feel can eat more and I will become happy. If the number becomes high, I will start to become anxious. Will anxiety be rejected during the interview? Will my girlfriend reject me because of getting fat?

 

Recalling this incident recently makes me feel that it is like many other numerical indicators imposed on me by the society I live in. These numbers are very nothingness. I recently opened the recruitment information of a Chinese university. The above requirements are to Have a doctorate degree and are under 32 years old. I feel, does it mean that a 33-year-old Ph.D. graduate is really inferior and not qualified to apply for a job? I don’t think there is any difference in academic ability between a person who gets a doctorate at the age of 32 or 33, but under these imposed conditions, if you are a 33-year-old person, you are not qualified.

 

I think all of this was absurd. I kept the index of the scale at 65kg. No matter what your weight is, it will be still showing 65kg on this scale. I want to dismantle these imposed standards by eliminating the connection between this number and reality. This connection between this kind of numbers and real-life itself is absurd and nihilistic. I just want to present and emphasize the absurdity and unreliability of this connection through this work.