07/31/25
Recently I’m understanding that for the longest time, what I’ve been learning has been about the “narrative” or the “aesthetics”… that it’s when people talk about the “art” of something, whether it’s to deal with “power” and the telling of it, or to critique power itself. We have to realize that this subtle layer of the aesthetics is powerful—as power is usually felt—the means to augment power or to diminish it, which will both gradually turn into the power itself. Examples are feelings felt from censorship, self-censorship, to aesthetics of organizing, the aesthetics of “decentralization,” the aesthetics of storytelling. Tools of liberation or control are probably double-edged swords, influencing us everyday, mixing “reality” and the virtual. Other examples might be, one playing video games or participating in competitive sports would grant them agency in one way, but the violence and power gained might affect them elsewhere. The feeling of power is also fluid. We might feel powerless from some, which might turn into the powerful in another. Or, our agency lost from life experiences would be very hard to really pick up again to live life alternatively.
It is the subconscious layer of the senses, the sensible, that I’ve been dealing with. It is about a particular method chosen, whether it is a revolutionary one, or one that was once revolutionary but now has turned out to be controlling. We are all ultimately choosing very different methods. What would it be like to share and distribute all our methods? We must probably think independently first… always gonna be a reflection on thinking independently. The Distribution of the Sensible.
Perhaps for some, the ART is about “countering” it all—whether it is to reflect on the tough realities we’re living in (criticizing the current state of life that has built up to where we are today) or to use art to directly commenting and rejecting the advancement of both technology and the social construct. On one hand, the art could provide alternative “imaginations” through the development of the technology; on the other hand, art could probably offer some alternative methodologies for our imaginations of what technology we hope to build and create. Importantly, it is perhaps not to choose “political art” or cynical art which will end up in paralysis. Nor is it so celebratory that will end up in visual feasts of the abuse of technology and the same resource extractions.
Now I’m thinking towards: what could be the role of “art” in the socio-technological landscape today? Is it its criticality, reflection towards technology, while its “art-thinking” providing insight, honesty, aesthetics, imagination? The perspective of the “art and culture” could provide for the socio-tech empathy that will raise question from one to the other. We also need to realize that such use of the tool will have soft power—in other words, questions to consider are: what tools are we to use, including "tools" as both methodology of the art-making itself as well as the tech tools chosen. At the same time, the question is that how much is “art” participatory in the building and marketing of the technology? Are we helping with the promotion (Hollywood movies), or reflectively and sarcastically building narrative of the new using the problematics of the narratives itself?
And perhaps the “art” I am to make is not too far away from the lasting time and space, which will not be affected by one side of the politics to call for action or pushing towards any ideologies. However, it is also not to be in paralysis and say nothing. Ultimately it is for us to take a look within ourselves and the environments surrounding us. We are to see the simultaneity of the complexities all at the same time, the truth and honesty, both the soft and the hard.
06/19/25
-> visit and read on Uncommons (written in Chinese)
04/26/24
After camera, how do we spend time together, being-with, looking at and being-looked at? How to situate the methods where we let differences co-exist?
Here, we’d really need to be encrypted to circumvent, to stay anonymous, in order to contintue to un-expose and to connect.
With the internet, if the illusion is for seamless streaming and connection, what are we creating for this illusion after the persistence of vision? It is more than what we see and beyond the experience of continuity–holding hands all the time, not letting go. We want it all to live and exist at the same time.
I am not to build a staying community, but vines for different communities to exchange and connect with–as protocol is aesthetics. You don’t need to join me, but for a temporary or a long-term stopping by. Therefore, a protocol, an infrastructure.
The vines has been cameras. I couldn’t say anymore that I (or whoever behind the machines) would be the most important creator.. but this is for all who will be both behind and in the front. Camera connects the differences—instead of a curiosity machine, or a violence machine—and projects images back to both the side using the machine and the side being captured, both affected.
Now, we will be hand-making the vines, the virtual private networks, the encrypted masks, and more un-exposing devices, public or private. We’re setting up as an effort for the connection between differences in order for them to co-exist. We will not fall back into a settled group. We will stop by nodes, IP addresses, wallet addresses, ports and continue being fluid, knitting with the vines. It is for fluidity and floating, holding on to the reality of migrating, being in-between and suspending, turning which into the power of living. For power of the vines; also for power of the water, of tide…
01/24/24
-> visit and read on Matters (written in Chinese)
11/22/23
[these notes are more about using of the VPN while flowing in virtuality (rather than thinking in building the network of it)]
We have been relying on the use of Virtual Private Network for years. It is the place for me to travel online as if with changing masks and fluid identities (IP addresses).
It started with my metaphorical desire to be able to yell into the black hole, which I called the “virtual private network” as I was zooming myself. It was a closed loop. I yell to myself. No others needed to hear my first attempt to express my angst towards the unspeakable. It was virtual because, on the surface, as if no physical traces will be left, even if I knew it was a naive and fantasized story. I see it similar to when we make a post online (through the use of the VPN especially) to the other side of the GFW. The attempt of yelling is important as it is triggered by the projected and assumed feeling of no one listening, as they only listen to what’s allowed or the more fashionable. Then, I’d only yell into either the internet world of strangers or to my close friend circles. For that exact reason, I was not ready to participate in the public internet yet for discussions. Thanks to the “story” feature rather than a “post.” We believe it only stays up for 24 hours. We’ll see it until we forget. No need and no use to extend the conversation longer.
The use of VPN is daily reality. The status of being with the virtual private network is daily reality. People have given more more nicknames to such status these days, such as “climbing the ladder,” “scientifically surfing the net,” and of course, “climbing to the other side of the wall.” We’re aware and ought not forget that being able to use a VPN requires certain literacy, before we’re getting too comfortable living within virtual private networks. Being too used to lurking in virtual private networks can cause the inability to confront and act directly. It is the inability and unwillingness to expose ourselves. We always have a world to escape into. Surfing with virtual private networks is to surf in multiple languages, double-exposed societies and systems. Virtual private networks are invitations. They are the promised tunnel or the virtual intimacy, our imagined friend, girlfriend and boyfriend, that will always be there, even if having exchanged its emperor some layers of new clothes. There is always a fallback. We will always be in the virtuality instead of really seeing what our immediate surroundings are.
The reliance on the virtuality comes from the impossibility of making actions in the physical realities, at least that is the potential danger seen from another virtual screen. It is the temporary time gap in which I am no longer forced to fully and cautiously choose self-censorship. However, what’s already done is already done–even with the ride through the virtual private network I will perhaps be even more careful and concerned with the limitations of all borders. I am careful with what I say and post out there. However, the comfort zone is much needed. We rely on the promised internet protocol’s traffic to be sent to another land.
Virtuality is the addictive sweetener. Virtuality is displaced memories, virtually engaged; it is the connection and engagement with what’s afar. I wouldn’t simply call it an in-between space, a cross-cultural space, or third-culture as we used to romantically wrap it with. It is the virtual space for the potentiality to act or not to act, to lurk or to post, to participate or to stay silent. What world are we engaging with? We have all been talking about the benefits and privilege in between worlds. However, if virtuality comes from the premise of displacement, how can we really understand the place when we’re not physically there?
There is some cruel reality in this romanticized virtuality: the luck and the danger to free flow by either letting go or choosing the courage to confront and act with responsibility; the luck and the danger to adopt methods from one place to another without comprehensively understanding the needs of the local; the danger and the luck to know of the community codes and tactics of another without being able to apply to our physical communities here; the danger and the luck to cry for the greater pain afar while also shedding tears with loved ones here; the luck and the danger to be private in order to be public; the luck and the danger of feeling both privileged and ashamed.
We must confront this position of virtuality–if not having hold it already, adopt it. It is an important position to hold on to in order to understand the world we’re in today, for its best and its worst. Being in isolation and quarantining enhanced the reliance on virtuality yet kindled the reflection and the interrogation of this exact ability to be in the virtual.
Manifesto writing participated and published as part of the book "Our Manifesto II: Videography Documentary Impulse,"
a project initiated by Floating Projects Collective, Hong Kong (2020)
2020
But the outside of the window is not open sky.
Dirt-yellow brick wall is two meters outside the window frame.
The Outside is how the wall looks like.
Dirt-yellow brick wall is
the Textile Town, where grandma used to live:
fallen bricks of workers’ dormitory compound,
and the empty factories once packed.
Later these abandoned walls sticked posters,
providing renting and ID applications services,
witnessing plenty of people still going in and out.
By the end of the day, light, is not for everyone.
Learning from basement dwellers to repeat
the gesture of looking up,
Pulling and pushing the memory,
extracting light from inside the brain,
imagining,
warming.
Why buildings are so close to one another?
Light cannot penetrate through.
Luckily, what reluctantly spills in,
is the bounced spare light off metal frames from that side,
impoverishing,
punishing.
Brick wall then becomes my only imagination.
The wall on the other side absorbs light that cannot shine in,
So, I will hide under one corner of the window,
having peeked at the wall on the other side,
and this would be enough…