Xiangying Fang

HerVerse is a feminist absurdist narrative about gender dynamics in Chinese online society—embedded in a film version of a virtual reality experience that overwhelms its viewers through sensory overload. The environment of HerVerse is a surreal gallery space, where every element—organic, feminine landscapes; reactive soundscapes; explicit visuals—symbolizes the gendered dynamics of power, the gaze, and societal expectations. The viewer is forced to forfeit their agency in this disorienting world and interact with its elements. The landscape, off-kilter and unpredictable, increases the viewer’s discomfort. The environment itself seems appalled at the voyeurism inherent in the viewer’s presence.

This is the algorithmic theater of online platforms: structured for discourse, sustained by spectacle. What is absurd is that even self-expression becomes scripted. You’re not really sharing—you’re optimizing. You don’t participate—you’re processed. The rules of engagement aren’t written, but they are enforced. Speak with certainty and you’re arrogant. Defend yourself and you’re hysterical. Stay silent and you’re complicit. The only acceptable action is disappearance.

And so HerVerse was born, not as a form of revenge, but as a rendering—a looping, glitching, gasping rendering of the absurd roles we are forced to play. This is my version of that loop: digitized, disoriented, performed again and again until the system crashes.