Socially Engaged Art

[SEA-DP] Revisiting the three ideas...

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Revisit your 3 ideas project. How has this semester’s study shifted your thinking on the ideas? What revisions would you make now, based on this knowledge? Post to your SEA-DP blog.

Revisiting my 3 ideas from the beginning of the semester, I am still intrigued by these topics and want to pursue them. Reflecting back at close to teh end of the class though, the main difference is that the way I would approach them is more detailed. I also feel better equipped with reference materials and information. My interests are still rooted in the following topics. 

For my first idea on creating a piece about algorithmic bias in Chat GPT and facial recognition models, I would adapt it to be more interactive (per the feedback when presenting this). Rather than a data visualization, I think I would collaborate with my data scientist friend doing research on this area to develop a game that teaches participants how artificial intelligence works. Then, it would be more engaging.

For my second idea on creating an electronic textile lion dance head sculpture illuminating the textile garment industry and history behind Chinatown, I would adapt this idea to be more realistic. I looked into how to build a lion dance head and in order to make one safe for the dancers to use, it would have to be constructed in a very sturdy way. Creating lion dance heads is an artisan craft passed down through families in building these dance heads, and if I had a budget, I feel it’d be more meaningful to commission or create one in conjunction with such artisans rather than build one with my limited knowledge alone. Additionally, having a lion dance adorned with electronic components such as LED’s and other reactive light up components is nothing new. I think what could be a more meaningful project would be to hold lion dance head making workshops for children. In such workshops, it would not only be an opportunity for children to reconnect with their heritage, but there also wouldn’t be as strong of a need to adhere to the safety restrictions of proper lion dance heads.

For my third idea, I am planning to pursue this as my SEA-DP final project. Although a lot of the production and work I’ll, it is meant to be in preparation of setting up a studio practice of using discarded textiles and making them parsable in a way that can be iterated in the future. Awaiting feedback on this idea!

[SEA-DP] Final Project Proposal

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For my final project, I want to create a database / archive website for the textile contributions collected throughout my studio practice, starting with those collected in “to you, 100 years into the future”, a workshop series and exhibition project inviting participants to actively reflect upon our existing belongings and revisit sewing as a time-honored practice towards emotional healing. Textile contributions were documented using embroidered ID numbers to be traceable pre-transformation (when it was collected) and post-transformation (after it was turned into a sculpture). The identification numbering system will serve as the base organization method for the website. 

This archive shows the items that the workshop participants chose to “discard” into this project’s collective fabric stew and the goodbye letters they wrote to the “discarded” textiles. Together, the fabric stew of nostalgic colors and prints made from silk, polyester, cotton, denim, and others.  Each discarded textile is given a new character to play—a bowl, a table, a monitor, a potted plant, a teacup—within this newly constructed home. Each household item transformed is called a “titem”, a play on the words “(t)ransformed item” and “totem”. 

As we click through the archive, we’ll see different manifestations of the titem’s identity. It will display different modes of viewing; the front and back photo of the item, the goodbye letter written, the 3d object item, the 3d object titem, and the 3d objects’ uv unwrapping. In the same way that are contemporary bodies are now distributed, each textile is no longer just tied to its corporeal self, but the different representations and data that trails behind it. What would it look like if each textile that slips in and out of our lives was traced through the hands it went through, in harvesting the wool, spinning the thread, weaving the fabric, sewing the item, and onwards? Would it change the way we obtain, treasure, or trash each textile? 

In creating the website, I’m heavily inspired by Laurel Schwulst’s work and her essay “my website is a shifting house”, where she writes a manifesto on what a website can be and what the web can look like if was built and guided by individuals rather than corporations. She writes on the capabilities of a website to be a living temporal space particularly effective for world-building, and consequently as a medium for artwork. Another resource is Aidan Quinlan’s course “Handmade Web”, which remains as an open access hub of information and references. In Quinlan’s words, “The hand has become increasingly less present in the web as we know it today. Websites are largely automated or built from templates, and the knowledge of how to make a website is relegated to a select few. It has only grown easier to learn how to make websites, but the perceived requirements and expectations for a website have become so convoluted and arcane that many avoid the subject.”

[SEA-DP] mecha mecha mecha - a demo

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mecha mecha mecha is a livestreamed performance-lecture and participatory nail reading that explores the networked and disembodied self through the persona of the "girl". Our interpretation of the "girl" is an ungendered model / AI that is stepped into while navigating digital spaces. In mecha mecha mecha's accessories, the performing body is prompted to both move and interact with the world in ways beyond the limitations that societal norms have shaped. We've equipped the hard shell of the fingertips with a soft armor. The ruffle on each nail is coiled and tightened up, but when undone using the drawstring, it reveals an embroidered excerpt from the text to be read out loud into the microphone. mecha mecha mecha livestreamed performance activates the text from every angle, recorded using multi-projection camera captures, amplified by the microphone and pitch shifts, and put into motion with our hands and voices. 

This performance was conceived and executed in collaboration with Vinh Mai Nguyen as part of their thesis on the Cute and the Nail. 


Girl dinner, hot girl walk, that girl, clean girl, girl boss, girl math, girl blog, hot girl summer, pick me girl, christian girl autumn, vsco girl, e-girl, good girl, bad girl, sad girl, manic pixie dream girl, i’m just a girl, girl’s girl, girl power, rat girl, feral girl, gorgeous gorgeous girls love soup, it girl, cam girl, for the girls, girl code, horse girl, gamer girl, girlypop, tomato girl, olive girl, red onion girl, girl next door, riot grrrl, gremlin girl, girl shopping, daddy’s girl, dream girl, babygirl, girl rot, girl blunt, fangirl, go piss girl, girl pretty, the girl reading this…

This project pulls from Girl theorist Alex Quicho’s use of the mecha as a metaphor for “climb[ing] into and pilot[ing] this already-existing subject that has the unique privilege of being greater than us all, yet thoroughly downplayed and underestimated.” As Quicho writes in Everyone is a Girl Online, “It may well work in our favor to accelerate our way into Total Girl—that is, to consider the girl as a specific technology of subjectivity that maxes out on desire, attraction, replication, and cunning to achieve specific ends—and to use such technology to access something once unknowable about ourselves rather than for simple capital gains, blowing a kiss at individually-scaled pleasures while really giving voice to the egregore, the totality of not just information, but experience, affect, emotion.” Tracing homologies from the Girl to AI brings us to the upstream effects of Total Girl; a perfect model for AGI aspirants; the well-dressed singularity that retroactively writes itself into existence from the future one purchase at a time.

[SEA-DP] Assignment 1

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The first idea I have is an interactive data visualization on algorithmic bias found in AI generated stories. Heavily inspired by Joy Buolamwini's research and activism in the field, I hope to create an interactive piece developed using statistics found in the research papers “"Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification” (Joy Buolamwini) and “Laissez-Faire Harms: Algorithmic Biases in Generative Language Models” (Evan Shieh). How does algorithmic bias in Chat GPT and facial recognition models exist and what are the dangers that they pose on our society, especially the youth that takes AI for granted as "objective" computation? How can we make more people cognizant of this algorithmic bias?

A potential extension of this project would be to create an application where people could type in prompts such as "top 10 famous artists, directors, etc." and find out what the demographics of the recognized figures reflect (which often bias Western + white public figures).

Artists to reference: Joy Buolamwini, Jonathan Zong









The second project is an electronic textile lion dance head sculpture illuminating the textile garment industry and history behind Chinatown. It will map a patchwork of found fabrics embedded with stories from local textile workers. Later on during Lunar New Year, it will contain a lion dance performance in Chinatown open to the public and inviting all those involved with the project.

Reference: The Chinatown Art Brigade, the WOW Project, Joy Mao



 

The third idea is a continuation of a project I've been working on "to you 100 years into the future. I wish to create a website archive and network of discarded fabrics and the stories / goodbye letters each person has written when discarding it.

“to you 100 years into the future”  currently contains a fabric stew of nostalgic colors and prints made from silk, polyester, cotton, denim, and others. Each discarded textile was transformed given a character to play—a bowl, a table, a monitor, a potted plant, a teacup—into a newly constructed home. The project explores the ways we transcribe our stories into permanence through the textiles that outlive us.

Textile contributions are traceable pre- and post- transformation through embroidered ID numbers, which will also be the organization method through which people can find each item as a link. Each household item is named “titem”, a play on the words “(t)ransformed item” and “totem”, followed by an ID number. Visitors of the site are encouraged to peruse the documentation of the transformation process and the memories recounted by contributors.

Website references include: Screenshot Garden, Handmade Web, Laurel Schwulst




[SEA-DP] Week 2 Assignment

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With the increased digitization of our lives, so many interactions of our everyday lives have become traceable than not. An interaction or conversation on the internet can feel private, especially in chatrooms, password-protected spaces, and personal websites, but I feel unnerved when I think that this privacy is only conditional and can easily / quickly be made public outside of my control. It’s become a habit for me to make information accessible online when I want it to be “public” and ask to have a conversation offline when I want it to be “private”.


In Radical Technologies’s chapter on Digitized Lives, they mentioned stacking as a commonly used method by tech giants to maintain control over every stage of the production, wrapping the variety of services, products, and devices we use under the umbrella of one power. With one company attempting to obtain ownership over many different aspects of our everyday life, they have a lot of variety in access to our data. In this one, what feels private is not private all, with all these invisible hands observing our data and customizing what they show us on our behalf.

[SEA-DP] Week 1 Assignment

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Socially engaged art is art constructed with the intention towards political or social change, social critique, and/or created in collaboration with community members. When speaking of socially engaged art in the context of digital or networked technologies, it uses digital media as the medium or referring to it as its main subject matter.

Teaching as an art practice can also be a socially engaged art, in its effort to create safe spaces where people from diverse backgrounds, especially youth, can engage meaningfully and learn from one another. Hosting technical skill-building opportunities at a low cost lowers the barrier of entry. They emphasize the importance of democratizing the web, increasing access and representation to technologies. I wonder if SFPC (an experimental school grounded in empowerment through a deeper technical and political understanding of the tools we use) or POWRPLNT (a media arts organization that frequency hosts free workshops to elevate digital literacy and encourage expression via technology) could be strong examples. They are primarily online-based spaces of learning that facilitate the study of art, code, software, hardware, or critical theory at low cost or with scholarship. They provide spaces where people can share things they know and increase digital literacy so that people can protect or advocate for themselves better.