Study 25: The Immaterial Object of Witness: Ai Weiwei’s 'Cockroach' as Post-Luxury Conceptual Functional Art

Ai Weiwei's 2020 documentary 'Cockroach' is not a film. This study posits the documentary as something far more significant: a definitive, immaterial object of Post-Luxury Conceptual Functional Art (PLCFA). It argues that the film's true value is not found in its aesthetics, which are raw, disturbing, and hard to watch, but in its essential and tireless political labor. Rejecting the manufactured scarcity of traditional luxury, 'Cockroach' functions as a permanent, indestructible digital monument. It is a global archive of resistance, a final witness to the precise moment Hong Kong's autonomy