Middling
Classy™ 

Work in progress since 2018

Ms. Compli-Katy (b. 2025) Brand Ambassador, Middling Classy™

She wants you to succeed. She wants you to feel middle class. As the brand's official spokesperson, Katy introduces products and programs designed to upgrade your life — whether or not you can afford it. She's the voice you've already internalized. The one that turns exhaustion into ambition and consumption into self-care.

Ms.KOMPLI-TAKY FIELD REPORTS

Wellness Package™

A Middling Classy™ Integrated Lifestyle Program

Wellness Package™ is a service developed by Middling Classy™, a fictional lifestyle corporation dedicated to helping individuals maintain the appearance of stability. Using biometric sensors and real-time data processing, the system converts physiological signals — heart rate, stress index, time spent — into billable wellness metrics. In this environment, health is no longer a condition but a subscription. The body becomes both user and resource.

TouchDesigner Prototype

Biometric Usage Log, 2026

 A real-time prototype built in TouchDesigner. Sensor data collected via Apple Watch (acceleration, wrist motion, orientation) is processed and visualized as a live billing interface — MIDDLE CLASSY™ BIOMETRIC USAGE LOG. Each physiological parameter is assigned a price: Heart Rate (ECG) €0.15, Stress Index €2.40, Time Spent €0.63, Celje Forest Air™ €1.80. The total updates in real time. When the bill exceeds the threshold — STILL RUNNING.

" Your body is generating data every second.

We simply help you understand its value.

Every breath is an asset. Every moment, an invoice. "

— Ms. Compli-Katy, Brand Ambassador

Experience the Live Demo

  • I live near the Slovenian forest. I work for the Japanese digital economy.

    My body is on damp earth. My consciousness is somewhere in a server.

    At some point I realized — the forest I walk through every day has already been packaged. "Forest Bathing." A wellness product. A subscription tier. The silence I needed was being sold back to me.

    Capitalism didn't just enter the market. It entered the woods. It entered the body. It gave everything a price and called it self-care.

    That's why I started building the bill.

    Wellness Package™ is my receipt.

  • Current stage: working prototype - Sensor data via Apple Watch → TouchDesigner → real-time billing visualization - Next: live ECG input to replace simulated heart rate - Challenge: stable wireless data transfer in performance context - Open question: should the performer see the bill in real time, or only the audience?

    Open questions — exhibition format

    • Indoor or outdoor? The forest data (Celje Forest Air™) suggests site-specific outdoor context, but the billing interface requires controlled lighting.

    • Single performer or participatory? Does the audience watch someone being billed, or are they billed themselves?

    • Screen configuration: wearable display, projection, or monitor?

    • Duration: continuous loop or time-limited session?

  • Wellness Package™ Subscription Series

    01. Solar-Vitamin D Direct™ (Sunlight) Upgrades a simple walk into "Ultraviolet Irradiation Therapy." Access beyond the daily free quota (15 mins) requires a premium upgrade. Otherwise, smart glasses automatically apply a blackout filter.

    02. Hydration-Blessing Shower™ (Rain) Walking in the rain redefined as "Natural Mineral External Detox." An option to infuse raindrops with corporate-sponsored scents. Discomfort rebranded as "Micro-tapping to stimulate skin turnover."

    03. Deep-Silence Luxury Node™ (Silence) Monetizes the absence of sound as the most expensive asset. Free-tier users hear a faint whisper: "This silence is currently valued at €0.05 per minute."

    04. Primitive-Grounding Essence™ (Soil/Mud) Touching Slovenian mud called "Data Synchronization with Earth." Dirt under fingernails branded as "Bio-Memory Storage."

    05. Self-Isolation Premium™ (Solitude) Disconnecting from AGI and SNS sold as "Digital Death and Rebirth." A per-minute fee charged to maintain the privilege of being unsearchable. "The time when nobody loves you is your ultimate luxury."

Sweet Syndicat™

A Middling Classy™ Product Line

Sweet Syndicat™ is a collective of structurally sensitive pastries navigating the realities of contemporary creative labor. Each member represents a different survival strategy within the aspirational economy — from visual perfection to invisible work, endless reinvention, and the quiet pressure to remain desirable at all times. In their regular meetings, these pastries discuss productivity, branding, burnout, and resilience.
They are supportive. They are exhausted. They are trying their best to remain delicious. Because in today's economy, even dessert must justify its existence.
Macaron

#01 Macaron

Title: Director of Visual Standards

Macaron maintains the visual identity of the syndicat. Perfect symmetry, delicate shells, and precise color calibration are considered essential for market survival.

She believes presentation is everything.
Unfortunately, even the smallest crack can dramatically reduce her perceived value.

Macaron regularly hosts internal workshops on brand consistency, aesthetic resilience, and coping with algorithmic beauty standards.

Known vulnerability: structural fragility.

#02 Donut

Title: Head of Circular Productivity

Donut specializes in workflow cycles and sustainable repetition.

He strongly believes that continuing the process is more important than reaching a final result. His professional philosophy centers on the idea that productivity is best maintained through circular motion.

Donut frequently reminds other members that emptiness is not failure — it is structural design.

Known vulnerability: chronic burnout around the center.

#03 Croissant

Title: Director of Invisible Labor

Croissant oversees the syndicat’s internal recognition program for hidden effort.

From the outside, he appears light and effortless. Internally, however, he is composed of hundreds of carefully folded layers, each representing a stage of unseen labor.

He advocates strongly for the acknowledgment of preparation, maintenance, and emotional effort.

Known vulnerability: exhaustion from continuous folding.

#04 Cupcake

Title: Chief Self-Branding Officer

Cupcake manages the syndicat’s public presence.

Her frosting is intentionally larger than the cake itself. This is not a mistake — it is a communication strategy.

Cupcake trains members in visibility management, platform optimization, and decorative self-presentation.

She believes that if the topping performs well, the structure underneath will be forgiven.

Known vulnerability: identity confusion between substance and decoration.

#05 Tiramisu

Title: Director of Recovery & Resilience

Tiramisu leads the syndicat’s recovery initiatives.

His structural philosophy is simple: collapse is inevitable, but reconstruction is always possible. Layer by layer, members learn how to absorb disappointment and return to the market.

He frequently reminds colleagues that bitterness, when balanced with sweetness, becomes sophistication.

Known vulnerability: chronic saturation from repeated rebuilding.

Syndicat Meeting Policy

This is a concept demo and image sample. In this prototype, three miniature sweet characters — a donut, a croissant, and a macaron — hold a clandestine assembly, their bodies responding to their own voices. The final work will use physical sensors and actuators to animate real miniature objects in real time, triggered by sound and biometric data. This video demonstrates the narrative concept and character dynamics ahead of physical production.All members are expected to attend weekly strategy meetings to discuss survival in the aspirational economy. Attendance is mandatory. Remaining delicious is strongly encouraged.

  • Desserts have always felt strangely familiar to me. I know they are unnecessary — too much can even be harmful — but I find myself drawn to them, as if they carry a small promise of relief on ordinary days. They are the quiet colors I notice in life when nothing else seems remarkable.

    I remember seeing sweets in a shop window, lined up under a "Final Sale" sign. Perfectly decorated, carefully placed on the top shelf of the refrigerator. I thought: they didn't choose this. They didn't choose to be desirable. They simply exist, waiting to be consumed, their value ticking down toward expiry.

    I recognized something in that. Something painfully familiar.

    I recognized myself, and people I know — the way freelancers, workers, and caretakers offer pieces of themselves. How we decorate, perform, and present in ways that signal: "I am still worthy. I am still here. I have not expired." It is exhausting. It is fragile. And yet, it is survival.

    For me, Sweet Syndikat™ is about this recognition: the collective performance of these fragile, decorated selves. It is about visibility, value, and the quiet labor that makes us palatable to others, often at the cost of our own comfort.

    This work is born from my own experience navigating these rhythms — the tension between presence and expectation, care and consumption. I am observing, but also participating. I am documenting, but also confessing.

    Sweet Syndikat™ is their assembly. The meeting that happens after the shop closes, when no one is watching, when the decorating is done.

    This is my perspective — personal, partial, and impossible to separate from my own life.

  • Current stage: animation prototype + character design complete

    What exists:

    • Character design: 5 sweets (Macaron, Donut, Croissant, Cupcake, Tiramisu)

    • Narrative script: clandestine assembly meeting, 3 characters speaking

    • Animation prototype: After Effects (sound-reactive motion, concept demo)

    Next stage:

    • Physical miniature objects: real or sculpted sweets as performers

    • Arduino-based actuators: motion triggered by sound/biometric input

    • Sound design: voice recording + ambient assembly atmosphere

    Open questions — technical:

    • How to trigger precise movement at miniature scale?

    • Wired vs wireless actuator control?

    • Sweet Syndicat™ connected to Wellness Package™ biometric data?

    Open questions — exhibition format:

    • Table-top installation vs floor-level vs elevated stage?

    • Audience distance: intimate (lean in close) vs theatrical (watch from distance)?

    • Lighting: product display aesthetic vs dramatic shadow?

    • Does the audience hear the assembly, or only observe it?

  • Scene: Three characters sit around a table.

    Donut: What is the meeting about today?

    Macaron: Stability.

    Donut: Emotional support?

    Macaron: No.

    Croissant: Then why are we here?

    (long pause)

    Donut: ...I forgot.

    Macaron: …Why is everyone so extra today? I mean, you guys are definitely looking unstable.

    Croissant: Extra? Me? I'm… a bit premium today.

    Donut: I feel… empty. Deeply hollow. But also, I am a Limited Edition. It's a very confusing Wednesday.

    Macaron: Right. I mean, Donut, you are definitely overloaded. You've got fruit, cream, and dust coming out of places I didn't know you had.

    Croissant: If we're being honest, I didn't actually ask for all this cream. I just woke up and it was... there.

    Donut: I didn't ask for my hole either.

    Macaron: …

    Donut: Hmmm, so what's the topic today?

    Macaron: …Anyway. Back to the topic: The Middle Class. What does that even mean anymore?

    Donut: Middle… hole? Is that me?

    Croissant: Is it "Middle Cream"? Being over-decorated to hide the fact that we're just bread underneath?

    Macaron: Exactly. It's mostly a performance. You have to keep updating your "toppings," selling pieces of yourself, looking polished and expensive… even when you're structurally exhausted.

    Donut: …So my sparkly hole is survival?

    Croissant: And my cream layers are… what… invisible labor baked in? I'm literally sweating vanilla bean right now.

    Macaron: Even just being "normal" is very tiring. Everyone expects you to act stable, productive… perfect.

    Donut: …But we went on that trip last month, remember? We enjoyed our holiday, laughed… paying rent on time. We survived a bit.

    Croissant: Yeah… that's a small victory.

    Macaron: Exactly. We survive, we update, we sell, but sometimes… we just notice the little breaks.

    Donut: I'll keep living in my hole… but at least it's sparkly.

    Croissant: Fine. If that's the game, I'll keep adding cream until someone mistakes me for a piece of contemporary art.

    Macaron: Perfect. That's middle-class survival: always selling yourself, decorating the exhaustion… and calling it "delicious."

    Donut: …Well, I guess I'm a round, sparkly, hollow middle-class pastry then.

    Croissant: (Smugly) And I'm a multi-layered cake of pure anxiety.

    Macaron: Exactly. Welcome to capitalism, boys. Baked fresh daily.