South Asian Digital Art Archive

Fortune Baby

Artist
Category

Fortune Baby emerged during a period of personal transformation, written before the pandemic but released years later, after she had become a mother. She described the sounds as carrying unconscious Asian influences, shaped by her background and exposure, though not intentionally designed as Sri Lankan. The track’s visual component became the space where her heritage was more explicitly explored, as she used an old Macintosh computer and the pixel-art software Flying Colors to create imagery that paralleled her identity journey. For Lyton, the process of making the video was a way to reckon visually with themes of dual heritage, racial barriers, and cultural reclamation, even if the sonic elements themselves were less deliberate. She positioned the piece as an early gesture toward reconnecting with Sri Lankan culture, one that reflected her story of being in-between identities and beginning the work of creative reclamation.

 

 

Year Published

2023

Type of Art

Sound Art

Theme

Identity
Memory & Archives

Languages

English

Credits

Mastered by Amir Shoat

Audience

Everyone

Cassie Layton

Cassie Layton

Sri Lanka United Kingdom

Cassie Layton (performing as Toulip Wonder) is a Sri Lankan–British interdisciplinary artist, musician, and researcher based in London. With a background in acting from RADA and an MMus in Popular Music from Goldsmiths, she works across performance, voice, and experimental sound. She has appeared at the Barbican, Tate, ICA, Café OTO, and the Hollywood Bowl, and is also known for voicing leading characters in video games such as Greedfall, Xenoblade Chronicles III, and Final Fantasy XIV. 

Currently a PhD researcher in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, her project Sounds & Silences in the Archives of Empire explores decolonial approaches to sound and archives. As Toulip Wonder, she released her debut album Fortune Baby, blending ambient jazz, synth-pop, and DIY electronic soundscapes.

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