Samuel Mui SOON

I am an interdisciplinary writer, artist, educator, designer, and researcher specialising in game design, emergent storytelling, and worldbuilding.My work is process-based usually involving participatory mediums (such as tabletop games, online spaces, interactive narratives, digital environments, workshops, and generative artworks) to create collaborative spaces for collective exploration and expression.Through these spaces I aim to support participants in collectively exploring and expressing aspects of their lived experiences that have been traditionally overlooked or neglected; such as southeast asian identities, mental health, or queerness.I do not see myself as sole author or creator of my works. Instead, my methodology seeks to cultivates emergence and dialogue, mobilizing participants to become active researchers and designers of their own lives. Any work is complete only through their interpretation and affective experience.

Exhibitions

2024
› Arc 2 Launch, Small Time Project - Exhibition Info
Work Exhibited: A Bowl of Noodles› This is why the whole remains open [...], Goldsmiths - Exhibition Info
Work Exhibited: Cosmopagan› elevenses, Ugly Duck - Exhibition Info
Works Exhibited: Multiagent Nonlinear Progression Algorithm, Horse Girl
Workshop Facilitated: Generative Storytelling & Ritual Making (slides)2023
› Simbiosis, Goldsmiths - Exhibition Info
Works Exhibited: Abundance I

Conferences & Events

2024
› Areas of Effect, Arebyte Gallery - Event Info
Panelist: Nameless Horrors! Creeping Flesh!
Works Exhibited/Presented: A Bowl of Noodles, Horse Girl, Superzeroes (in-development)2023
› Reimagining Relationality: ASPECT Conference & Program 2023, Virginia Tech
Work Presented: On Locality, Being, Fragmentedness, and Multilinearity (an early draft of decolonial fragmentologies for the deeply problematic)2022
› Big Bad Con, San Francisco - Event Info - Scholarship Recipient
Panelist: The TTRPG Freelancer's Toolbox
Works Presented: Horse Girl, Your Pain & You, Lumen Ryder Core (in-development)2021
› Session Zero Online - Event Info
Works Presented: Capitalites, Superzeroes (in-development)

Research

Interests: postcolonialism, identity, worldbuilding, character building, intertextual literary experimentation.


decolonial fragmentologies for the deeply problematic (2024, 6000~ words): dissertation, academic, postcolonial, autotheory.
A reflective exploration and critique of colonialist frameworks of being and otherness situated within my own lived experience. Here, I discuss the formation of the postcolonial subject as "fragmented", the pitfalls of both essentialist and relational thinking, and establishing "continuity in discontinuity" with theoretical grounding in indigenous approaches to philosophizing and Campagna's metaphysical conceptualization of prophet-as-position.Keywords: postcolonial embodiment, fragmented identity, southeast asia, prophetic culture, locality, indigenous philosophizing


A Bowl of Noodles: (2022) hypertext research essay, performance, interactive poem.
A branching hypertext poem-research essay where you explore the evolution of a family recipe across time and political boundaries. This work critiques notions of fixed authenticity and essentialism in foodways and postcolonial identity.Keywords: postcolonial foodways, southeast asian identity, alternity, multiplicity, hybridity, hypertext narratives, polyphony, historiographic metafiction

Fiction

Capitalites: The Rachel Tan Experience (2023):
A branching hypertext game where you tell the story of Rachel, a 26 year old singer-songwriter living in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, as she reflects on her life, failed relationships, faith, and asexuality while undergoing a COVID quarantine.Based on Capitalites: the urban asian roleplaying game.Content Warnings: references and explicit depictions of COVID, oral sex, vomit, wartime violence, acephobia, depression, misogyny, Christianity, coercion, sexual harassment, food, and situations that can be described as uncomfortable or panic-inducing.
[18+] Hot Lesbian Bondage Sex With Oiled-Up Japanese Cyborgs (2021, 1440~ words): A disabled cyborg rediscovers intimacy and bodily wholeness through kink.Content Warnings: explicit depictions of gore and BDSM.


[18+]Take Me To The Sky (2020, 2200~ words): An asexual person agonises on the nature of their sexuality as they engage in a night of passionate lovemaking with their partner.Content Warnings: explicit depictions of sex.

Capitalites: the urban asian roleplaying game (2020)

Capitalites is a coming-of-age, slice-of-life tabletop roleplaying game about a group of young adults living in the big city and figuring out who they are while trying to get their shit together.It uses a newbie-friendly, narrative-focused structure of play that focuses on collaboration and conversation - just like a TV Writers’ Room - to tell a story full of as much drama, romance, and tragedy as you please. If you’ve enjoyed games from the Belonging-Outside-Belonging and “Penned to Good Society” design families, you'll enjoy this one as well!Play the role of one of 22 unique Characters, each with their own fashion styles, insecurities, ambitions, flaws, and strengths (all inspired by real-life friends and enemies - mostly with their permission). Each one explores a different facet and dynamic in the great big chaotic world of young adulthood with their own special blends of spicy drama.Get the game here!