ZHAO JIAJING
赵嘉旌



Acousmatic Compositions
Installations & Multimedia

Sound Design & Soundtracks

Information
CV
FOMO
2025
16-channel (3rd Order Ambisonics)
7’10”



FOMO is an AI-aided acousmatic composition inspired by the experience of “Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).” FOMO is a psychological phenomenon describing the anxiety or unease one feels when believing others are having rewarding experiences they are missing out on. This phenomenon has become increasingly prevalent in the age of social media and digital communication. FOMO explores the painful addiction to information and the unsettling feeling of being overwhelmed by endless data streams.

The sonic material is generated with AI technology in two ways. First, a custom-trained model processes a corpus of audio extracted from a continuous screen recording of YouTube Shorts, representing the chaotic and noisy soundscape of social media platforms. This model functions both as a synthesiser oscillator and as an audio transformation tool to process everyday sounds. Second, the work incorporates AI-generated poems by ChatGPT and DeepSeek, composed of attention-grabbing phrases that amplify the sense of FOMO. These texts are vocalised using an AI-powered text-to-speech application. In addition to AI-generated sounds, the composition also employs social media sounds used in training the AI model, as well as mouse clicks and electromagnetic recordings from portable electronic devices. 

Working with AI tools is an intuitive choice for exploring the FOMO phenomenon, as much of the information we encounter on digital platforms is AI-generated and filtered through AI-powered recommendation systems. Engaging with the language and voice of the machine allows me to examine the complex relationship between human and machine, particularly in the process of collaborating with AI tools and organising AI-generated sonic materials.

Credit:
Bryan Yueshen Wu - co-developer of RAVE model Schizophrenia

Journal


Symptoms of FOMO include constantly checking emails, messages, and social media to stay updated. Experiencing this was one of the main reasons I began composing this piece. For a period, I became obsessed with checking emails and social media for opportunities I might miss. As a result, I felt overwhelmed by the ocean of information—an overwhelm that gradually turned into a constant, low-level anxiety.
FOMO → constant checking → “doomscrolling” → increased anxiety → more FOMO
ChatGPT Generated Poem featured in FOMO.
Schizophrenia is a RAVE (Realtime Audio Variational AutoEncoder) model co-developed by Bryan Yueshen Wu and myself. The model is trained on a corpus of audio extracted from a continuous screen recording of YouTube Shorts—specifically, an unbiased stream from a newly registered account—to provide an objective sonic representation of the internetsphere.
ZHAO JIAING 赵 嘉旌
Composer, Sound Designer, interdisciplinary Artist
jiajingzhao96(at)gmail(dot)com