︎

Assemblage


(of 48 themed things, with short thought captions.)

Historical Events:
The transfer of cultures, which I initially highlighted with the discussion of third culture people, is often prefaced by more than the immediate daily lives.
The US’ involvement and abrupt retreat in the Vienam War, as well as the official UN recognition of China (People’s Republic of China), and the consequential expelling of Taiwan (or Republic of China), required immediate evacuation of US personels and their family from Vietname and Taiwan.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758  
/
Vietnam War
Socio-Political Events:
Greta Thunberg
Greta Thunberg effectively started the first unanomous global action towards a single goal, which also brought to surface the question of cross-cultural communications.
/
The Rise of China
By changing the global political and economic landscape, the rise raised questions of power of narration and challenged pre-conceived notion between power and identity, opening up rooms for conversation about it, which is a space my thesis is in.
Subcultures:
People of cross-and-mixed cultural identities may find less daily connections with whom they feel the understanding is mutual, but they find ways to connect.
Subtle Asian Traits
A Facebook group that uses the platform to give Asians abroad globally a sense of community, as a chance to highlight both gross Asian archetypes as well as proud commonalities that unite Asian presence in non-asian cultures.
/
Taiwan Says
An instagram account that, perhaps riding the growing global attention on Taiwan’s token position between China and the US, highlight unique Taiwanese cultural intricacies through analogies With English sayings.
Mainstream Cultures:
Crazy Rich Asians
Representing the Asian cultures beyond its popular western stereotype is a sign of the first significant step to deeper understanding.
While I have heard non-Asian peers speculating the movie to be a gross representation of Asians, many cultural details portraited —— however astounding through the US’ cultural lens　—— were accurate and have created a strong sense of cultural recognition and pride amongst Chinese in the US.
/
The Moving Black Lives Matter
I was late to the recognition of Black supression in the United States, and still do not persume to understand it now, but in this study the public’s support for the movement is graphed, and it gave me faith that a radical but collective opinion shift is achievable.
Designers:
Studio Mumbai
This work, “Bridge by the Canal” provided a first inspiration for me into ways to construct speculative models of a Bridge outside of its expected function, into a more diverse and fluid existence.
/
Maya Lin
This particular background story on how Maya Lin won the selection for the Vienam War Memorial competition against the odds, and how all public criticism ceased the moment the monument unveiled goes to show the power of experiencial design in transforming people’s perspective, literally and figuratively, which is something I hope to experiment with.
Artists:
Michelle Watt
This is a personal example of someone who has claimed her own version of her identity. A personal acquaintaince, I’ve known Michelle not just as an accomplished photographer but also as a strong willed and disciplined climber, a fact that made this interview about her Asian identity all the more moving. She talks of moment in the past when she “betrayed” herself in order to belong and regretted for that. Her break through came as she started to shoot in the style that is not commercial but true to her cultural identity and her own aesthetic beliefs.
/
JR
A great influence to me in regards to creations that enable fundamental perspective change, that shifts one’s perception. A French artist and social activist whom I have always admired. He employs the medium of photography, printed in monumental scale and on basic paper in black ink. What moves is the locality of his works as well as the social change they induces as the works always engage communities of people, for the various reason of calling attention, bridging cultural biases, and giving people a means to express their points of view.
Poets/Poems:
Edgar Allen Poe
I am horribly lacking in terms of poets and poems, but Edgar Allen Poe is an American poet whom have left a strong impression with me since High School. I happened to find that he has written a poem about identity, “Alone”, when he was 21, questioning the validity of his view of the world which was alien from that of most people around him. Poetry is a peculiar form of writing in which the meaning derived holds potential for inumerable ways of interpretation; a fluid experience. There is also something to be said about the expression of someone freshly out-of-teens; that moment when sense of others rose to conflict greatly with the sense of self.
/
Poetry of Migration
I came across this event hosted by the Migration Museum in London in 2016. Apart from the reading of artist poetry, the floor was opened for audience to go up and share their own poetic accounts of their migration stories. The recollections and the accompanying illustrative records just created such a moving account of the moment. It reminded me that humans are moved by stories AND faces, not facts.
Writers:
Gertrude Stein
Her autobiographical work, Paris, France, is pivotal to the development of my thesis, in the sense that her writing provided an acclaimed example of how one could be free to make accounts of the cultural environment in one’s own voice and in accordance to one’s identity, albeit a mixed one, and not be burdened by the need of meeting any given external expectations. The fact that her Paris Salon was the crib for cultural greats like Picasso and Hemingway makes this reference all the more significant.
/
Peter Buwert
Not so much about Buwert as a writer, but a specific essay he has written that analyzed  Bertolt Brecht’s theatrical contribution to creating critical citizens. It adds a critical pin to my research and investigation, to discuss in similar light: my research on cross-cultural dialogue is not just about self identity, but also about creating a critical communications methodology.
Ideologies:
Neologism
If a word can be considered representative of an ideology: neologism refers to the invention of a new term under the circumstance that existing vocabulary or terminology no longer accurately reflect the current notion. This is part of what I intend to achieve in the investigation of my thesis.
/
Dark Forest Hypothesis
Taken from the famous science fiction trilogy, The Three Body Problem, written by Chinese author Liu Cixin. The hypothesis highlights the paradox of cross-cultural communication: is it really achievable given the time and space elapsed in the individual developments of cultures and languages? The hopeful thing in light of this reference is that, the paradox is hopeless here because it relates to extraterrestrial speicies; however diverse, at least I am dealing within a single species.
Tools:
Design Fiction
The article linked here validates my fascination with design fiction, or speculative design, as a means to innovate. While fiction is sometimes considered an escape from reality, if we consider it from the perspective of how science often employs speculation when developing leaping hypothesis, then it is perhaps not so foolish and irrelevant.
/
ROCI
Rauschenberg’s ROCI project series takes the form of image memory of each nation-location he visits. Whereas he takes a purely artistic interpretation (his own collection) of the place, I want to take his approach and mix it with that of JR, who largely let the people in focus do the selecting.
Giant Things:
The Bridge to Nowhere
Another example of bridges out of their original intent, these remnants of bridges that no longer serve a connecting function now provide the local residents with a new dwelling space. Or sometimes they are decayed to a state of unstability, which raises the intersteing analogy to a broken and outdated means of “connection.”
/
Mars
Continuing my sci-fi rampage, giant things reminded me planetary scale. To me, nothing marks the necessity of human unity as much as the Mars expedition currently spear headed by Elon Musk. The project just casts such a long term perspective in our current consideration for humanity, that I think both our political and social agendas can take a moment to consider.
Tiny Things:
Quantum Realm
My latest fascination with the very small is quantum realm and quantum state. But also that idea that within our physics speculation, there is a realm in which our current understanding of the laws of time and space may all be altered. If we can accept that kind of varied reality, then perhaps it isn’t so crazy to consider a shift in concept to accepting a varied sense of self.
/
Why We Love Tiny Things
This article remarks our fascination with tiny things to the need for control. Perhaps just another example of our need for having agency in our daily lives.
Necessities:
Both of these are literature that I still need to get into, but the idea that “necessity” means something essential, and that naming and autonomy are essential, will serve as an important angle in my thesis narrative.
Necessity of Naming
/
Autonomy and Necessity
Archives:
Museum of Food and Culture
So much of our cultural memory is highlighted by the distinct foods we encounter. In 2019, the MoFAD put up an exhibition: CHOW-Making the Chinese American Restaurant. Although I have not focused on it so far, can food be one of the next avenues I go onto explore mixed culture identity stories?  
/
MIT Design Fiction Archive
A good collection of past speculative design in either stimulation or prototype phases made by the MIT Design Fiction Group.
Values:
Found Education
A concept first introduced by the Eames, Found Education and its participatory nature is something that I’ve always aspired to, including for my thesis development. Having worked in the Education Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I learned that even mass public facing programming can be designed to focus on allowing personal internalization of knowledge and concepts.
/
Reification
Another word association. It again echoes my aspiration to create something that is new and points to a future and not just dwell in the past.
Power Structures:
Politics of Borders
I have always been fascinated by maps, particularly the types that are unconventional. This article highlights an important angle of my fascination: the drawing of boundaries essentially is an assersion of power, which when in the hands of the individual is an ever powerful tool. This reconigtion of automony is relevant to my thesis.
/
Power of Naming 
It took me some years before I made the connection that every intriguing English last name has an immigration story of how a culture-inspired original name was adapted into an “acceptable” or “convenient” English form. There is certainly a display of power in that, and opportunity for agency in the reverse.
Food:
General Tso’s Chicken
While I knew General Tso’s Chicken was a wholly American invention, I didn’t expect there to be a moving Chinese immigrant story about finding place and belonging on the foreign land.
/
Instant Ramen
Following a similar trend of thought, I looked up “cross-culture foods,” and came to the realization that all fusion cuisines are essentially cross-culture. Before condemning it for the gross culturural appropriation it may be guilty of, there seems to be a story of a desire for cross-cultural understanding that echoes with my thesis.
Films:
Arrival (2016)
My favorite film in the last five years, it is the first daring creative speculation of how language may inspire conceptual change in people’s cognition to the point that even perception-and-therefore-experience with time changes as well. It also led me to Ted Chiang’s short story collection, which I am forever grateful for being introduced to for his wide array of subject-based speculations.
/
Ellis (2015)
A short film made by the artist JR (featured above) in collaboration with Robert De Niro. It is a docu-fiction that brings the history of Ellis Island, where immigrants landing on the East Coast of the US must congregate, get their American names and approval before beginning their lives in the US. It combines oral narration of historical accounts, as well. as film footage of the present day fascility with JR’s photography showing ghosts of the immigrants. Its portrayal methods tells a speculative story in light of known histories, and that is a powerful output.
Trends:
The Demise of the Nation State
Part of this era’s many radical and violent outcry for cultural agency, I think, comes from the ending of the nation state. Globalization is at a point where we are moving on from identifying ourselves by our nation, and any existential transition is  bound to cause panic and fear. All the more reasons to aid the process by creating a new communications language that helps to bridge across this transient moment in history.
/
The Era of Antisocial Social Media
Social media to me has always been an important tool for mixed-culture people to stay connected — sometimes superficially — with old friends and family all over the world. However I am aware of the popular sentiment for generations after the millennials to swear off these platforms. In this Harvard Review the writer took a very serious approach of giving social media businesses tips on how to survive this anti sentiment, which I find intriguing.
Styles:
The Happy Film
Stefan Seigmeister continues to be an inspiration for me as a designer artist. The Happy Fim — and the subsequent Happy Exhibition — was a four year project he understook while still practicing as designer. The very intimate way of narrating and the documentation style is something I think I can utilize in my own thesis.
/
Lunar Geisha
The photography project by Michelle Watt (featured above), who explored the changing expectations of an Asian woman through phases of her life. Michelle did so in a surreal visual style, and I like how that adds a fantastical air to the portraits and gives room for imagination because of that.
Forms of Oppression:
Institutionalized Oppression
This is a concept I only come to learn and understand a little through my attempt to understand the Black Lives Matter movement back when it gained tracktion through the thick of COVID19 in 2020. Knowing that a bias is not only in the immediate minds and culture of the people, but also ingrained in the established institutions, it begs the question of what can — and needs to — be done in terms of changing perspectives fundamentally.
/
Social Privilege
I am not oblivious to the idea that as I talk about a demographic who moves freely across cultures/nations, I am also talking about a demographic with priviledge. It is, however, to my surpise to find social priviledge as a form of oppresion. I believe this is something I need to address and acknowledge.
Forms of Resistance:
Handmaid’s Tale
While I initially associated the story with the genre of distopian futures, this article discusses Handmaid’s Tale from the perspective of silent but personal forms of resistance in the face of overwhelming oppression. I find something quite poetic about that analogy, and even familiar to the ways cross/mixed culture people silently and in solitude negotiate for their own representation.
/
Cultural Resistance
The most direct relationship here may be the word “cultural”, as well as the concept of one’s grief on a foreign land. In my independent reserach during college, I once wrote a paper on art making as a form of escape mechanism. It is enlightening to now associate that idea with forms of resistance. The most important lesson here for me is that this is a constructive kind of resistance.
Forms of Liberations:
About Braleessness
While I am serious about my thesis topic and contribution, it is not in my intention to make it wholly dry and dull. The discussion of bralessness as a way of manifesting liberation is very relevant and intimate, and I wonder how I may adapt that in forms of participatory design.
/
Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberations Front
In search of examples of manifesto as a form of liberation, I came across this interesting piece written by Wendell Berry. Apart from being an American poet and novelist, he also idenfies as being an environmentalist and a farmer. This manifesto served as a humorous manifestation of his disapproval of contemporary human’s disconnection from nature. It probably could have qualified as a form of resistance as well. More importantly, is there something to be learned here as a form of research through making? How would a “Manifesto of the Self-proclaimed Autonomous Culture 3.0” read?
Random Things:
Tesla Bot
The latest technological news that sparked my interest. Elon Musk was actually an advocate against advancement of A.I., so in the Testla Bot announcement he took particular note to specify that it can be “outrun” and “outarm” if it ever comes to it. The launch however still garnered him attack by media that Tesla is just desparately finding all avenues to make money (I personally think that the reporter has missed the entire point.)
/
Extraordinary Popular Delusions
A book that I bought in its Chinese translation from Taiwan, where the editors took the approach to make humorous this 1841 collection of historical accounts. In any time in history, we always find humans undergoing collective popular madness over certain things. Perhaps 100 years from now future humans will look back on us the same way. Hopefully not for anything too embarrassing.