Hamster Run

Hamster Run is a cross-media project centered on “temporal dislocation” and “self- confrontation.”
The project comprises a new media animation and 5-7 installation pieces, constructing a symbolic space that stages the inner dilemmas of the human condition— revealing how individuals wrestle with instinct, self-aversion, and temporal alienation in a state of perpetual pursuit.
The project is inspired by a Syrian hamster I keep. As a nocturnal animal, she often runs late at night while I am working in front of a screen; the sound of her movement feels like my own restless thoughts jolting along on her back.
This sensory experience prompted self-reflection: Why am I so unwilling to stop? Why am I always chasing a “next moment” that promises improvement yet remains indistinct? The hamster’s running became a metaphor for my mental state—a symbol of entrapment and the impossibility of rest.

The project takes a new media animation as its narrative core, extending into a behavior-driven installation environment to form a cross-media spatial narrative system.
One day, the protagonist wakes up and, as usual, goes to check on the hamster. The moment she picks it up, a passage resembling the entrance to a dungeon opens in the floor. The hamster slips from her grasp and darts into the dark tunnel; she falls in after it, and an unceasing run begins.

Through cycles of failure and reset, she is forced to reexamine her own behavioral logic and memory systems. As the flight progresses, she gradually recalls her interactions, attachments, and anxieties surrounding the hamster: the repressed nights, binge eating, indulgence in instinct, and simultaneous self-disgust. The labyrinth slowly reveals itself to be not a physical prison, but a materialized simulation of her psychic structure—a complex self-system constructed collectively by different temporal versions of herself.