HDCM (Human Distributed Coordination Model) is a protocol-based framework developed by Lin Chi-Wei and his colleges for organizing collective action through sound, signal transmission, and embodied interaction. It shifts the focus of artistic production away from composition and representation toward game play : condition-setting and systemic operation.

At its core, HDCM treats sound as a control signal circulating within a distributed human network. Participants act as local nodes, receiving, transforming, and retransmitting signals through processes of delay, serial transmission, and situated interpretation. Rather than synchronization under a unified temporal authority, coordination emerges through propagation—sometimes chain-like, incremental, and often unstable. Latency, misreading, and deviation are not errors but constitutive elements of the system.

This logic is articulated across a series of works and experimental formats. In Tape Music (since 2004), performers collectively “read” a linear, tape-like score—often marked at regular spatial intervals—triggering phonetic events as the material is physically passed along. While structurally simple and seemingly rigid, the system generates complex sonic textures through accumulated temporal offsets and individual variation; multi-track versions further intensify this by layering parallel chains of transmission.

In works such as Quipou sonore, inspired by the Andean quipu, sound and action are encoded through knot-based or segmented structures, extending HDCM into spatialized and non-linear configurations. Other iterations explore cellular automata logics, where participants follow local rules comparable to algorithmic systems, producing emergent global patterns without centralized control. Across these variations, HDCM operates as a human-based computational field—an embodied form of signal processing.

The framework also engages with the historical concept of Li-Yue (ritual and music) in early Chinese thought. Here, Yue is not treated as musical repertoire but as a systemic device for regulating bodies, synchronizing action, and generating social order. HDCM reactivates this logic while detaching it from hierarchical enforcement, repositioning coordination as a distributed and negotiated process.

Conceptually, HDCM intersects with cybernetics, anthropology, and distributed systems theory. Its protocols—often described as “weak notation”—define minimal constraints while leaving parameters such as timing, duration, intensity, and interaction open. The initiator does not compose the outcome but sets initial conditions, enabling a form in which structure emerges from collective execution.

Developed across performances, workshops, and site-specific projects in contexts ranging from museums to public space, HDCM functions both as an artistic method and as an experimental platform for rethinking collective organization. It proposes a shift from centralized authorship to distributed emergence, using sound as a critical interface for exploring new forms of coordination, perception, and social relation