Artificial Stupidity hopes to help people experience the simplicity and inherent beauty of existence by spending time drinking tea.

In the spring of 2024, Yaya brought her design sketches to Yixing's purple clay teapot artisans, initiating our first collection of purple clay teapots. The design aims to disrupt the traditional classical teapot form with digital visual elements. As the world undergoes a digital revolution, the future becomes increasingly unclear and elusive. These teapots encourage us to take the time to carefully brew and drink tea, allowing our spirits to return from the absurd and chaotic disruptions to our authentic selves, and peacefully experience our existence in the present moment, feeling content, relaxed, and free.

There are several types of artists and designers. While teamwork can provide a sense of belonging and fulfillment, some people simply don’t enjoy the daily grind of working. It’s not that they don’t want to be part of a cause, but they don’t see the value in that cause itself. Let’s call these people the “hippies without ideals.” Another group consists of those who have forgotten their ideals, becoming empty shells. Many designers and artists enter their fields because they want to express themselves, but over time, through the long and tedious process of learning methods and functionality, they forget themselves, becoming tools for expression rather than its subject. When they pause to reflect on their lives, they are overwhelmed by a sense of unbearable emptiness and meaninglessness.

Then there are the diligent “worker bees.” They find achievement in building systems and enhancing efficiency, and derive joy from the process itself. For them, working with others to complete a large project is a uniquely human superpower. The project may be meaningless, but they find satisfaction in the collective effort and their own role within it.

The last group is probably the happiest and most grounded. The first two groups represent the invisible elephant in our society—a quiet undercurrent of anxiety and meaninglessness that makes people uneasy when facing an uncertain future. Ideologies and values fly across the internet, grand narratives are carefully dressed in solemn emotions, and everyone is endlessly repeating the meaningless task of pushing a boulder uphill only for it to roll back down again. It’s absurd.

What people need, more than absurd ideas, is to once again recognize the existence of each life. More importantly, they need to see that this intricate, diverse, and segmented world system—woven from the existence of each life—manages to maintain balance and symbiosis, a reality that is rare and precious. We are all pushing our boulders, but the world is a unified whole, and this vast, ever-changing universe is created by each of us, all living, all distinct.

No one is perfect, but the world is perfect. Artificial Stupidity wants to remind people that it’s worth taking a moment to see your true self, to recognize your own unique and imperfect individuality, and then focus on finding a balanced, symbiotic relationship within this diverse ecosystem, becoming part of the perfect world.