Sandwich Biscuit

A post-photographic project reconstructing emotional memory through street-level ACG fragments, transformed into layered shelters via coding, photogrammetry, and print. A modular archive of anchors, glitches, and belonging.

Sandwich Biscuit Project Description:
Sandwich Biscuit explores how street-level fragments of ACG (anime, comics, games) subculture—figurines in display cases, scratched decals, dusty mascots—can be reassembled into layered visual shelters. As a Taiwanese artist living across cities, I collect and annotate these fragments in Bangkok, Taipei, London, and Tokyo. They begin as “Default Code Images”—photographed, printed, and manually marked with syntactic notations that record time, location, and subject. These notes serve not just as metadata, but as emotional anchors, holding presence amid displacement.

The use of ACG imagery is rooted in biography. Growing up, my world was immersed in anime and games—not just as entertainment, but as social currency and cultural texture. In school, at home, and among friends, ACG formed the language through which belonging was negotiated. After relocating to London, these fragments re-emerged as psychic shelters—familiar codes in an unfamiliar environment. Sandwich Biscuit reclaims these residues as emotional architecture, rather than nostalgia.

Inspired by Arjan de Nooy’s 99:1 and Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, the project asks: what if a single photographic fragment could unfold into multiple forms of meaning? Through repetition and reassembly, Sandwich Biscuit transforms each fragment into a system of recursive layering—where every step is both process and product.

This is grounded in a post-photographic methodology: photography is no longer about capturing a single moment, but about accumulation and consequence. Each image is a node in a wider network of transformation—an index of edits, translations, and affective shifts. Rather than representing, the image accumulates, fragments, and shelters.

The annotated images are reconstructed via Photogrammetry or Gaussian Splatting, producing unstable, glitch-like 3D models. These morphologies reflect the density and variation of input data: smoother when uniform, fragmented when diverse. I treat these models as spatialised emotion—visual consequences of emotional labour. They are then re-lit, re-photographed, and printed either as photogravures or digital screenprints.

A forthcoming series will integrate coded annotations directly into the photogravures, linking each print to its data fragments. Other ongoing developments include looped videos composed of sequential street images, motion-overlaid diptychs that map shifting visual data onto print surfaces, and a browser-based prototype that allows viewers to navigate the transformation process interactively.

Each iteration—handwritten notes, 3D models, browser interaction, moving image, or print—functions as a distinct shelter. Sandwich Biscuit is not a linear narrative, but a modular archive—where memory splinters, photography thickens, and belonging is rebuilt across layers.

Though the project is ongoing, its conceptual structure is complete. I am steadily building each layer in accordance with that structure. The work also includes experiments with alternative print surfaces—such as plastic, graphite-core paper, or packaging boxes. In total, Sandwich Biscuit spans ten thematic sub-series, each built around a different ACG icon of personal significance. This proposal focuses on the book as a form of consolidation, reflection, and narrative expansion.

Sandwich Biscuit Photobook Proposal:
While Sandwich Biscuit is highly modular and layered in its artistic format, the photobook will offer a linear—but interlinked—way to experience its full conceptual and emotional range. Drawing inspiration from Arjan de Nooy’s 99:1, the book will reflect experimental structure, but not as pure variation: rather, it will map the journey from scattered fragments to constructed shelters, both formally and narratively.

The book will begin with a reflection on my personal history—how my childhood immersion in ACG culture shaped my sense of belonging, and how this resurfaced in my adult life through photographic collecting. It will then unfold across the core transformation phases:

• Anchors – Street-level fragments, presented as Default Code Images

• Ritual – Handwritten annotation, printed and collated notes

• Sheltering – Photogrammetry and Gaussian reconstructions

• Re-inscription – Re-photographed models, digital and print-based outputs

• Assembly – Relational maps and diagrams of inter-shelter connection

Each chapter will include my personal commentary on the making process—how hundreds of notes were written to quiet anxiety, how each shelter emerged from repeated reinterpretation, and how these practices became a system of emotional orientation.

All ten sub-series will be represented, with notes on why each ACG element—Gundam, Evangelion, Kirby, Pokémon, Godzilla, Ultraman, Mario, etc.—holds specific personal meaning. The photobook will allow me to present these layers of affect, code, memory, and transformation in full, beyond what exhibitions can typically accommodate.

The book design will reflect its namesake—Sandwich Biscuit—through layered page structures, fold-outs, or insertions. While final design choices are still in development, the goal is to make structure reflect content: fragmentation, accumulation, and emotional sheltering.