A blend of Scent and Chinese typography.
Inspired by Eastern philosophy.
A blend of Scent and Chinese typography.
Inspired by Eastern philosophy.
Leaving no trace:
A reflection on the Into You interactive sound installation and the modern aesthetics of relationships
In the foreword of Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics, he draws attention to the phenomenon of the increasing entanglement between social relations and capitalism, in that under a capitalist societal framework, maintaining relationships seem to necessitate, in some way, shape, or form, the act of monetary exchange. The very nature of social bonds seems to be denaturing in front of our own eyes, turning into what Bourriaud characterises as ‘standardised artefacts’. In this short piece, I employ some concepts in Relational Aesthetics as a means to reflect on some aspects of AT LLEMS’s Into You interactive sound installation (2025).
Coffee Cup exhibit, Into You Exhibition. Photography Adrian Lee, 2025.
Into You is a short story written by Cindy Chan, co-founder of LLEMS, and was first published on Valentine’s Day of 2025. In tandem with the story, AT LLEMS created an exhibition of memorabilia from Into You, together with an interactive sound installation that furthers some of the themes mentioned in Into You. As such, the Into You interactive sound installation is naturally affiliated with the concept of the story. Nevertheless, in this essay, I examine this installation as a work in itself with the purpose of unpacking its social nuances, rather than its correspondence to Into You’s narrative.
View of Into You Exhibition. Photography Adrian Lee, 2025.
It benefits this essay to pre-emptively bring up the fact that LLEMS is a perfume lifestyle brand, meaning that the following discussion is by no means an attempt to criticise existing models of monetising relationships or art. Instead, this essay is more or less an attempt to understand various observations throughout the exhibition’s duration, as well as evaluate the nature of this installation in the context of a wider community.
The Into You interactive sound installation (2025) had three recorders, and within each of them, a (usually melancholic) voice track of a person talking about a previous relationship that had come to a gradual, if not expected end. Three volunteers would make the first recording on these recorders. After that, to participate, a participant would choose a recorder at random, and enter a tent that was situated upstairs in the LLEMS Concept Store. Having made themselves comfortable, the participant would then put on a pair of headphones and listen to the single recording by the previous participant. They would then proceed to delete it and replace it with their own story, leaving it for the next participant. Every participant would partake in this installation knowing that they would be the sole recipient of a stranger’s sad story, and that their story would also be heard by exactly one stranger. When the exhibition ends, the volunteers would then be able to hear the three remaining recordings, before everything is deleted for good.
Interior view of recording area. Photography Adrian Lee, 2025.
