EGGTYMOLOGY


An exploration of identity through what is seen, and what is carried.

Eggtymology is an interdisciplinary design project that explores identity as a process of becoming. The project is rooted in a personal linguistic and symbolic connection: my name “Dan” echoes the word “egg” in Chinese. This association led me to see the egg as a self-representative form—an enclosed structure that holds fragility, protection, and infinite possibilities within.

Using the lifecycle of an egg as a conceptual framework, Eggtymology examines how identity forms, fractures, and transforms over time. The project unfolds across multiple interconnected systems—including installation, interactive media, publication, object-based design, and a digital platform—inviting audiences to engage with identity not as a fixed definition, but as something layered, evolving, and participatory.

At its core, Eggtymology questions how we perceive identity:
what is visible, what is hidden, and what exists within.


Annie Danning Xu


ann.xu226@gmail.com
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CONTACT
Description


Eggtymology operates as a distributed system rather than a singular work. Each component—the book, installation, magazine, and image sets—functions as a fragment within a larger structure, carrying its own mode of representation while remaining incomplete on its own.

Instead of presenting identity as something fixed or fully visible, the project disperses it across formats. The book structures identity through time and sequence, the installation introduces interaction and instability, and the magazine reframes it through editorial and visual language. Each medium translates the same core idea differently, allowing identity to shift depending on how it is encountered.

The egg serves as both a metaphor and a system model. It suggests containment, protection, and latency—a state where something exists but is not yet fully accessible. What is inside cannot be immediately seen; it must be approached, activated, or inferred.

Navigation becomes essential. Meaning does not reside in a single object, but emerges through movement between elements—between reading and viewing, between image and interaction, between surface and interior. Each encounter reveals only a partial state.

In this way, Eggtymology resists resolution. Identity is not presented as a stable image, but as a process—layered, responsive, and continuously reconfigured through perception and engagement.




© Ann.X
My Egg Universe



1.    EGGTYMOLOGY 226
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The Lifecycle as Narrative

September 2025
  • Publication

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This publication forms the conceptual foundation of the project, using the lifecycle of an egg as a narrative structure.

Divided into stages such as formation, protection, cracking, and transformation, the book organizes visual materials into a temporal sequence that reflects identity as a process rather than a fixed state.

Through image curation, layout, and sequencing, the publication constructs a visual language of becoming—where identity exists in a continuous state between containment and emergence.


2.    EGGWALK
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The Egg as Interface

November 2025 - March 2026 
Installation + Interaction

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At the center of the project is a large-scale egg-shaped installation that functions as both a symbolic object and an interactive interface.

Using TouchDesigner, I created a responsive projection system where visuals react to real-time hand gestures captured through a camera. Participants can move and scale their fingers to control a circular field of view, navigating and reframing the projected content.

The background consists of curated runway footage from various fashion brands. However, rather than presenting the imagery in full, the system limits visibility—allowing only partial glimpses through a shifting visual window.

This interaction explores how perception is constructed through restriction. When the runway is only partially visible, viewers are encouraged to focus on overlooked details, peripheral moments, and subtle gestures that are often ignored in conventional viewing.

The installation transforms fashion into a mediated experience, where seeing becomes an active process of selection, framing, and interpretation.



3.    EGGUE
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Fashion as Discourse
January - March 2026 
Fashion Magazine 

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EGGUE is a fashion magazine inspired by the editorial language of publications such as Vogue, reinterpreted through the conceptual framework of Eggtymology.

The magazine analyzes and recontextualizes contemporary fashion brands, positioning runway imagery within different stages of the egg lifecycle. Through this structure, fashion is explored not only as aesthetic production, but as a system of meaning, narrative, and cultural expression.

Rather than documenting fashion, EGGUE reframes it—revealing how identity is constructed, performed, and transformed through image and styling.


4.    EGGLOOKS
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Identity as Performance 

September 2025 - March 2026
Lookbooks 

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The lookbooks consist of three self-directed styling and photography series.

Each look represents a constructed identity—formed through clothing, pose, and visual framing. These works explore how identity is performed, staged, and mediated through fashion imagery.

By positioning the body as both subject and surface, the lookbooks function as a visual archive of identity in its performative form.


5.    WHAT’S IN MY EGG
What You Carry Defines You
March 2026
Playcards

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This component is inspired by the iconic fashion format “What’s in My Bag,” reinterpreted through the conceptual lens of Eggtymology.

I believe that the items a person carries reveal their habits, personality, and inner world—and are therefore an essential part of fashion. This extends fashion beyond outward appearance into the realm of everyday behavior and personal objects.

Outward looks alone cannot fully represent one’s “mental fashion.” Instead, what one carries—what exists inside their “egg”—reveals a deeper and more authentic sense of the self.

The work takes the form of a card-based system housed in an egg carton. The carton contains twelve compartments corresponding to the twelve months of a year. Each month includes a set of egg-shaped cards: the front indicates the month, while the back displays images of the essential items I carried during that time.

Together, these cards form a temporal archive of identity—constructed not through appearance, but through possession.







© Ann.XParsons Thesis 2026