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EVENT DETAILS |
On December 23, 2020, the artist Suhyun Choi's laptop passed away. They realized that they had developed a racial-emotional affinity towards their personal tech devices, even though the manufacturing of such objects propagates techno-Orientalism - a theory which posits a dystopic technologically & economically dominant East that serves as an antagonist to the historically hegemonic & heroic West. The viralization of East-Asian bodies has been & is inherently connected to the West's fear of the East in technological advancement, as technological prowess has equated colonial & imperial brute strength. Suhyun Choi's Memorial for Laptop proposes a humanizing relationship to technology as a means of humanizing Yellow femmes who are inherently read as objects. What would it mean if we changed our relationship to technology to one of care & humanity? Can the care for our objects decolonize technology?
Join us for a full day-long convening that will delve into the ways in which relationship building - with ourselves, our communities, as well as our tech objects - has shifted, especially throughout the pandemic. The ways in which we build relationships mediated by technology accelerated, as social culture dramatically changed to be more insular. We will meditate on the ways in which the fabric of social culture has shifted, while making space to transform aspects of technological mediation that have negatively impacted our collective psyche.
1-2:15 pm How to be with Each Other
Through behavioral modification technologies, the way we interact with each other has been shaped through technology. Can we hack the way we develop relationships? For example, can we move at the speed of trust, informed by everyday Transformative Justice practices of being with each other? Inspired by Transformative Justice & Disability Justice practitioner Mia Mingus' techniques such as Apology Lab & how to have generative conflict, Accountability Mapping, & Consentful Tech project, this workshop will include a pod-mapping exercise from Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective as a distributed networks exercise.
2:30-4:30 pm Bring your Personal Device on Date <3
This dating session is a gesture of loving our technologies that were produced to oppress us. How do you personalize your technology? What technologies have you developed racial-emotional affinity to? Tech self-care is not only about boundaries, but conscious connection. In this session we will be decorating our personal devices, writing love letters to them, & taking them out on a cute & well-deserved date!
4:45-6 pm DIY Personal Device Zine Making
Computers & phones are our portals to collective consciousness, memory, & memory-making. They can be expressions of our individual Indigenous ancestral memory technologies, as part of earth memory. This workshop asks: What do you want to remember? Forget? What are the memory technologies that we tap into every day that moves us towards life, our understanding of our humanity (i.e. prayer, gratitude, writing love letters, etc.)? Technology today composes us, for us, through algorithms produced by systems of oppression. How do we want to co-evolve with technology, in order to produce ourselves? Through this zine making exercise, we will design our own memory technologies as personal devices.
Memorial for Laptop is part of Recess's program, Session, which invites artists to use Recess's public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist's project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists & audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision & the above proposal is subject to change.
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