The Cost of “Decency”
Xiaoyi Wang
The Cost of “Decency” investigates the hidden emotional labor behind everyday acts of politeness, compliance, and self-control. Using the receipt as a primary medium, this thesis archives twenty-five cases of social friction and translates invisible emotional labor into a visible billing system. Each receipt becomes evidence of an emotional transaction, showing how small performances of adjustment accumulate as psychological and material residue. Rather than seeking freedom from performance or a return to an authentic self, the project frames reconciliation as the recognition that performance is a condition of social life, and that agency can emerge through awareness of its necessity.
Confession Archive
A public archive of emotional performance, where collected objects and fragmented facial images reveal the residue left by everyday acts of politeness, compliance, and self-control.Archive Before Reconciliation
The video archive documents the twenty-five performance residues into the form of billing ledgers.
Awareness, Confession, and Reconciliation
Objects preserved as proof of performance; emotional receipts translate invisible psychological residues; written analyses as process of reconciliation, allowing each small act of politeness, silence, or self-correction to be examined as part of a larger system of social performance.
