To commemorate the year that was, we invited an array of artists, writers, filmmakers, designers, and performers to share a list of the most noteworthy ideas, events, and objects they encountered in 2019.
Taeyoon Choi is an artist, organizer, teacher, and cofounder of the School for Poetic Computation. He makes art through painting, drawing, computer code, and hardware, performance, and video. In 2019, he spoke at the World Summit on Arts and Culture in Kuala Lumpur, Decentralized Web Camp in San Francisco, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Happy Family Night Market, Refiguring the Future, and the Creative Time Summit in New York. He was an artist in residence at the Pioneer Works in New York and the Centre for Heritage and Textiles in Hong Kong. He taught at ITP, New York University, and the School for Poetic Computation in Detroit, Yamaguchi and New York. He likes cooking vegetarian food, ice skating, and reading. His resolution for 2020 is to eat slowly, less busy and more organized. He can be found on Instagram where he posts a “practical guide to everything.”
This is a love letter, not a listicle or a manifesto. I would like to share what I learned in Hong Kong at the height of protests. In October 2019, I arrived in Tsuen Wan, a satellite city of Hong Kong’s New Territory. It’s my third time in the city in the past year, but my past experiences were limited to the contemporary art community and the film 甜蜜蜜 Comrades: Almost a Love Story, a 1996 masterpiece on the stories of migration and displacement, which I watched many times. This fall, I had a residency at the Centre for Heritage and Textile and taught a workshop to high school students who are blind and visually impaired students. I had a series of intense encounters and experiences and came back as a different person. I’ve been careful about sharing my thoughts, in respect to the people I met there and in fear of retaliation. I want to take this opportunity to carefully share some questions.
1.
Care
The day I gave a talk for the Microwave Festival, at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, a university student passed away after falling from the parking lot during a police operation on the demonstrations. The next day, university campuses in Hong Kong became the battleground for protesters and police. It was heartbreaking to see young protesters risk their lives. It was infuriating to witness the police’s violation of the human rights of citizens and journalists. It was difficult to hear disabled person’s experience of the protests.
I asked myself the following questions. How can I speak a language of care and unlearn the language of apathy? What does interdependence among people with opposing ideas look like? What is the act of transformative social justice in everyday life? It may begin with care, a commitment to others. I don’t believe a revolution will change the world. I believe in smaller, messier social change that begins from engaging with our families, loved ones, those who are close, but far away in our values. I believe in intersectional solidarity across class, genders, and nationalities. I believe in nonviolent act of social change through art, education and restorative justice.
2.
Radical Love
If radical love is a commitment to transgress the boundaries of norms, is it possible to have solidarity across the boundaries of beliefs? Let’s begin with the controversy around violence and use of force. There have been numerous civilian deaths and casualties due to police operations. There have been a few deaths and injuries by the protesters using force against the police and other civilians. Why are the Hong Kong protesters, those who championed nonviolent actions in the past, tolerating extremism and violence now? In response to my question, one protester told me about their disappointment after the Umbrella Movement, the exhaustion of hope, deep anger at the police, and that it’s mostly for self defense: “They started it first.” I can sympathize with their frustration. However, it feels counterintuitive, as the few cases of protesters’ violence against other civilians is blown out of proportion in the news media, and the police use the evidence to justify crackdown of a largely peaceful demonstration and social movement. Walking by burned out convenience stores and roadblocks, I thought democracy could feel more like farming, a rigorous act of labor and paying attention. I want to practice radical love, growing my ability to see others as dignified people, even if they disagree with my most fundamental beliefs. On that note, I’m inspired by Press Press, a publishing, organizing, and design initiative based in Baltimore that celebrates the possibilities for solidarity through both tenderness and rigorousness.
3.
Tiny tornado
New types of wars are happening, not on the remote borders but in the shopping malls. One afternoon, I found myself with a crowd heading to city hall from the Causeway Bay. The city center looked like a war zone, Safariland Tear Gas fuming over Chanel and McLaren stores. With a few friends, I jumped into a stylish hotel bar to escape the riot police. We met a groom with his groomsmen holding flowers in an elevator. We smiled at him, congratulating him on his marriage. At the hotel’s rooftop bar, a group of artists and curators, with cocktails in hand, watched the standoff between protesters and riot police unfolds slowly, like a choreographed scenes from a dystopian opera. This is a tiny glimpse of the context collapse that unfolded during my time in Hong Kong. I recommend Elvia Wilk’s essay that captures the experience of radical generosity and possibility for an ongoing movement. I also recommend Jiayang Fan’s essay that unpacks the diversity of voices in Hong Kong.
4.
Network theory
In the circle of technologists, it’s common to compare “centralization” and “decentralization,” favoring the latter as a more democratic and egalitarian form. From blockchain, peer-to-peer protocols, and algorithmic governance, decentralization is presented as a less oppressive alternative to a centralized system. I’d like to complicate this binary comparison. Decentralization, on its own, is not less oppressive than centralization. It requires accountability of people involved and stewardship to prevent misuse of freedom. I’m inspired to think beyond decentralization, towards distribution and interdependence. I’ve been learning from artists and activists who are building alternative networks of creative practice and knowledge production that are more equitable and non-oppressive. To name a few, Simone Leigh and Saidiya Hartman’s ongoing conversations and BUFU’s organizing for the QTPOC community and those whose lives have been “impacted politically and socially by white supremacy, while decentering whiteness and resurfacing our deeply interconnected and complicated histories” have influenced me in 2019.
5.
Pattern recognition
Despite Hong Kong’s uniqueness as a postcolonial city, the underlying issues of class struggle and democracy resonate in other cities I visited in 2019: Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Detroit, San Francisco, and Yamaguchi. There’s a growing pattern of regionalism, insularization, making of the “other.” Good news. There are people who resist the de facto patterns of Capitalism, building resiliency, inventiveness, and intuitions for our collective future. I’m inspired by the artists and organizers I met when the School for Poetic Computation ran a workshop in Detroit, especially Detroit Community Technology Project, Talking Dolls, Room Project, Book Suey, Teikaut, and Work Department. adrienne maree brown’s suggestions and provocations from “Emergent Strategies” resonated everywhere we went. I’m thankful to Taylor Renee Aldridge, who is a cofounder of ARTS.BLACK along with Jessica Lynne, whose groundedness and generosity welcomed us into their city. If we consider interdependence as the new pattern, I think there’s a possibility to build a post-capitalist society, reconcile the class divides, and a community of dignified individuals. To read about the school’s work and learning from Detroit, please check out the project website.
6.
Defiant voices
As a US-based academic, activist, and artist, it’s extra important that I avoid a flattening view of another country, or “othering” of a society that’s complex, just like my own. In learning about what’s happening in Hong Kong, Iran, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, and Honduras, we need to respect their specific contexts. Appreciating their contexts and history motivates me to pay attention to what’s happening in our borders, in our cities, and in our institutions. If you are wondering what you can do, notice the protests near us. Listen to their defiant voices. I want to share a few defiant voices opposing structural violence in the US who changed how I think about complicity and responsibility. I heard about Nan Goldin’s P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) protests against the opioid crisis and the Sackler family’s influence in art institutions and academia. I read Arwa Mboya, MIT Media Lab Graduate Researcher at the Center for Civic Media, who spoke up to demand the ethical accountability in academic sponsorship. I heard Shaun Leonardo speak about Primitive Games and Recess Assembly, whose work is a reminder that the most powerful social change can be the most tender and intimate transformation within oneself and between people with different values. I’m inspired by everyone who spoke up against Warren Kanders, a former vice chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art, including the staff members who signed an open letter, and especially Michael Rakowitz, one artist to withdraw from the biennial before opening. The absence of his artwork at the biennial was a defiant act of non-participation, an exercise of principle against the atrocities that are normalized in our time. Learning from them, I hope to build the capacity to speak up against against injustice and choose to participate or not, based on my principles. We should not retreat to passiveness and complicity by saying “everything is messed up and nothing will change.” We need to see the worlds in their connections and interdependence. We need to understand the nuances and subtleties with a sense of urgency. We need to engage with the messy reality and our place in it. This may sound overwhelming. We can start small and in a loving way. On that note, I want to share Arwa Mboya’s “36 Questions that Lead to Love: Civic Edition.”
7.
Radical visibility
I was in Hong Kong this year to teach students who are blind. I started to work with and for the disability community a few years ago at the invitation of friends who identify as a Deaf or disabled. I love them and their work. I’m happy to live in a moment when their art is getting the attention, respect, and context it deserves. Christine Sun Kim’s massive installation If Sign Language Was Considered Equal, We’d Already Be Friends is a landmark celebration Deaf language and a provocation to consider sign language as a respected form of communication. She co-curated an exhibition, Disarming Language: disability, communication, rupture, featuring an exciting group of artists and researchers. Shannon Finnegan’s Alt-Text Poetry workshops reshaped how I think about online accessibility. I wanna be with you everywhere at the Performance Space was a three-day festival created by and for disabled artists and their community. It was an aesthetically explosive and politically progressive show, which expanded the notion of beauty, pain, pleasure, and delight. I was especially touched by DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark‘s captivating performance. More recently, I was blown away by Sky Cubacub’s Rebirth Garments fashion show of “gender non-conforming wearables and accessories for people on the full spectrum of gender, size and ability.” I have a feeling, and hope, that Sky’s practice, which is coined “Radical Visibility,” will hit the mainstream consciousness in 2020 and onward. In South Korea, Minkyung Bae’s 영인과 나비: 끝의 입자 연구소에서 온 편지 exhibition was a powerful examination of illness. I’m thrilled by Pixel Hyunwoo Kim‘s growth as an artist. This celebration of disability as identity and culture is a high note, a moment a few decades in the making. I’ve learned about the history and future of disability justice and arts from friends and mentors, including Alice Sheppard and the Kinetic Light, Eliza Chandler, Elizabeth Gunffrey, Chancey Fleet, and Mara Mills. Sunaura Taylor’s book Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation is a fantastic study of the intersection in disability and animal and environmental justice. I can’t wait to read a new book, What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World by Sara Hendren, that will come out in 2020. Sara’s research about adaptation and normalcy has been a major influence for me to learn about accessibility, beauty, labor, and disability culture. We are just at the beginning of a societal shift towards radical visibility and empowerment of disabled, Deaf, and chronically ill people. I’m so happy for this moment. I want to invite others to make this moment into a lasting movement.
8.
Habitat
Global solidarity is co-creating a habitat for ourselves, our kin, animals, and nature. Global solidarity is co-creating a habit of accountability, transparency, and honesty. Global solidarity is radical optimism grounded on staunch pragmatism, with a sense of urgency, love, and care. I’ve been thinking about the environmental impact of my work. In Code Ecologies, a conference I co-organized with Nabil Hassein and Sonia Boller, we explored the negative environmental impact of technology. I’m inspired by Neema of Radical Love Consciousness to reindigenize through remembering, reflecting, revolutionizing. I’m also inspired by Kamonnart Ongwandee of Fashion Revolution Thailand. I had the pleasure of hearing Laniyuk, an indigenous writer based in Melbourne, who will have a few publications coming out in 2020. These are a few of the people I know who are building global solidarity for a better habitat. I hope to contribute and engage with them in the future. Every social movement is a fight against time, erasure, and disappearance. The archiving of the ephemeral present, recontextualizing of the past, imagining the far-away futures, these are the tactics of a witness of fast time and space. DIY publications provide meaningful counter-narratives to the mainstream media. I’m happy to learn about Hong Kong Zine Coop, a collective of writers and publishers documenting the movement; Lausan, a collective that’s sharing decolonial left perspectives on Hong Kong; and Speculative Place, an experimental and independent project space in Hong Kong hosting residents working on film, writing, and art.
9.
School for Poetic Computation is
turning 7 years old.
It was an exciting year for the School for Poetic Computation. I’d like to share updates on a few of our alums and teachers. Lauren Gardner organized the fall session. A group of students, including Zainab Aliyu (pictured) made an incredible installation and zines. We had the youngest student to date, Olivia Ross, who joined the fall program after finishing high school. We had the first remote-participation student, Joseph Wilk, who joined us from the UK thanks to the Disabled List. Our teachers have been busy. Nabil Hassein has been working with No New Jails. American Artist had a show at the Queens Museum. Zach Lieberman showed his project at the Cooper Hewitt. Ann Haeyoung wrote a beautiful guide, “How to work within power structures that don’t work for you.” Melanie Hoff created a Peer to Peer Folder Poetry class. We had a fun summer program in collaborators in YCAM, who opened up to create a safe space for art and education. We submitted our zines to the MoMA library.
10.
Paintings – Poems
While I work with technology and performance, paintings and poems are the media I love the most. Ritu Ghiya created a new website Paintings & Poems for me. I invited various collaborators, including Jenny Odell, Jessica Lynne, Xuan Juliana Wang, Minwhee Lee, Allyson Paty, Everest Pipkin, Nick Montfort, and Allison Parrish, to creatively interpret my paintings. This website is designed with accessibility for the Blind and visually impaired audience in mind.
Thanks to the Walker Art Center for inviting me to make this list. If you want to support my work, please check out this webpage.
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