I walk by softly is a single-channel video with audio made through a game system. In the video, a tank moves forward and relentlessly crushes everything in its path. The action is direct and repetitive: a vehicle, a path, impact, and a world that responds according to programmed rules. What first appears as an action inside a game soon becomes a visual shock and a way to think about political, historical, and social violence.
The tank is not a neutral image. In a Chinese context, it carries a direct relation to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and to the censorship that still surrounds that history. Because of this, the tank becomes more than a weapon. It is both an object and a forbidden political sign: a symbol of state violence, coercive control, historical erasure, and the pressure placed on individual memory.
Yú’s use of a game system is important because it changes how this symbol behaves. The tank is not frozen as an iconic image. It is set in motion. It drives, crushes, repeats, and continues. The game turns historical violence into an action that can be performed again, almost casually, with a playful and ironic tone that makes the scene even more unsettling. This does not make the violence lighter. It shows how easily violence can be transformed into a controllable sequence: drive forward, crush, continue.
Through the tank’s cold, mechanical movement, Yú questions the legitimacy of authority and aggression while also reflecting on the repetitive nature of violence itself. The tank appears unstoppable, yet its programmed repetition also points to the emptiness and exhaustion of force. In this sense, the work shows how games and reality can mirror each other: both can make individuals feel small, powerless, and trapped in systems of authority that continue moving forward.
