Nothing

The accumulated traces posses no claim to authenticity. Instead, they demonstrate a commintment to constant change that effaces individual subjectivity, replacing it with an unspooling image of process.

The collaborative project of the Shanzhai Lyric offers pleasure in text as a "sacnctioned Babel", a mode of reading that itself becomes a form of authorship by further inscribing meanings from and into the ambiguous cross section of voices, what Susan Hiller calls "a fruitful incoherence".

Similar to zen painting, the Shanzhai Lyric makes no attempt at mimesis. Rather, it prduces a reflection of emtiness that is filled with activeness. "High quality emptiness" is an experience of pure nothingness. A feeling of wholeness is attained through an acceptance of not knowing, by learning to transcend a desire for rationality. Sustained engagement with the resultant illegibility enables a practice of radical empathy, of continual opening towards the seemingly nonsensical as a guide in new modes of imagining.