User:Michel W/Final presentation
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Special⊹Issue
Special Issue22🥀
⊹ Throughout Special Issue 22: Radio Worm: Protocols for an Active Archive, I had the opportunity to explore and participate in various forms of "publishing". For instance, I gained insights into creating experimental radio shows within small groups. On October 10th, Alessia, Zuzu, and I broadcasted a radio show titled "Destroy the Protocool(酷)" at Worm. Additionally, I organized a ⊹Protocol Meditation⊹ online event, guiding participants on achieving peace of mind while contemplating the true essence of archives through therapeutic methods. Furthermore, we incorporated the sharing of a beautiful poem by Marissa Micah Schut titled My Body is an Archive into our program.
I've always been interested in the relationships between the body, soul and mind. Also, themes like vulnerability, intimacy, sensation, and connecting to the spiritual aspects.
Durning SI 22, I realize that I'm eager to explore cyberfeminism further in my future practice.
⊹ For SI22 Signal Lost: Archive Unzipped, I created an artistic installation using recycled materials such as tape, wire, earphones, and vinyl records. The installation does not adhere to a specific design or shape; rather, it is loose and improvisatory, mirroring the chaotic nature of an apocalypse catching us unprepared. The predominant colors are black, grey, and neo-green/yellow, akin to the tones found on Worm’s website. Within the installation, the audience can peruse paper notes containing snippets of the narrative and take them away if they resonate. Additionally, a space is provided for visitors to leave messages by writing texts and placing them within the installation.
Special Issue23🕸️
⊹ At Special Issue 23: Quilting infrastructures, I have always been fascinated by the concepts of quilting and feminism, which involve weaving, sewing, networking, and the combination of different projects and topics. I am particularly drawn to the idea of drawing parallels between the intricate patterns of quilting and the complex codes and networks of digital spaces, while also exploring the significance of seams, both digitally and physically. Quilting also evokes associations with craftivism and feminist methodologies, prompting me to ponder how these approaches can be creatively integrated.
⊹ During a prototyping class, Senka and I decided to embark on creating a "digital quilting game" using Python. The game operates within a terminal interface, allowing players to weave a digital quilt using ASCII art characters and emojis. Fabric is used to create patterns, resulting in a quilt, while scissors are employed to cut it in half. My enduring interest in integrating physical and digital formats into artistic projects led to the concept of being able to print out the completed quilt from the terminal, resulting in a physical outcome adorned with quotes, decorations, and cutouts.
⊹ For the SI23 launch, Riviera, Wang, and I formed a "Var/kitchen" group because of our shared interest in exploring the connections between serving and service. The Var/kitchen concept is rooted in the file system paradigm. Users can interact with the file system by moving ingredients from the fridge to the bin or stove directories using the 'mv' command. Additionally, within a Python interface, users have the opportunity to prepare a chickpea curry recipe. The zine itself draws parallels between the ingredients in the recipe and feminist servers and data centers. For instance, tomatoes are likened to web servers, chillies to firewalls, and onions to VPNs.
The original concept entails providing a chickpea curry recipe with ingredient lists and cooking methods. My goal is to establish a parallel between feminist servers/data centers and ingredients, enabling individuals to engage with the cooking Python game and terminal food file system through both digital and physical interactions. To enhance the zine's appeal, I have incorporated various ASCII art graphics representing these ingredients. In my view, visualizing the concepts is essential for diversifying the content and making it more captivating.
Special Issue24⛸️
INTIMACITY is an installation art piece that explores the relationship between people and the intimacy of the city. It blurs the boundaries and distinction of public and private spaces.
The installation is composed of a semi-transparent mesh mosquito net, stitched together with various materials and fabrics. One section of the net has a hollow opening designed for people to experience observing in a city/public area while maintaining a hint of privacy/intimacy. This setup might provide new perspectives or sources of inspiration and encourage contemplation on the importance of art in everyday life.
Lauren Berlant once wrote, “Rethink intimacy is to appraise how we have been and how we live and how we might imagine lives that make more sense than the ones so many are living." Here, I want to invite you to explore the possibilities of intimacy within this city with me.
🎶 Part II. Zine and Website (for personal feedback) - share about personal experience, photos, thoughts regarding intimacy and the city.
Practice development
Reading⊹writing
⭑A Cyborg Manifesto - Donna Haraway: Explore the possibilities of hybridity and seeking the connections between my self identities and this manifesto. In The Cyborg Manifesto, it’s mentioned that the "sex" of cyborgs revives some of the interesting, nontraditional reproductive methods of ferns and invertebrates. I find this fascinating; cyborgs do not rely on reproductive politics but rather focus on "regeneration", a process of healing trauma and reconstructing the self. For me, self-healing and regeneration are very important because they acknowledge vulnerability and imperfection while embodying resilience and strength. I feel a strong connection to the cyborg through the themes of regeneration, self-healing, and feminine power.
⭑Craftivism: A manifesto/Methodology - Tal Fitzpatrick: Work as a craft-based traditions and activist practices is one of the main core of craftivism, to question the prevailing of codes of mass consumerism. It is a way to take empowered action for people who feel the need to do something and find voice (another important element of human identity) when moved by injustice in the world. I would like to demonstrate this concept not only into my practices also into my daily life.
⭑Walk Through Walls: A Memoir - Marina Abramovic: I admire her courage and belief for the performance of uses her own body and tests the limits of her physical and mental endurance, including the transformation to spiritual healing. Once she said, 'The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.'
⊹I realized that being an artist means having limitless freedom. What we obsessively talk about is a way of going beyond the canvas—a way of infusing the essence of life into art.
⊹I believe that art must provoke, must raise questions, must anticipate the future. Only art with rich and complex meaning can endure over time—this way, society can move forward while still drawing what it needs from art. I’m only interested in art that can change the ideology of society… Art that focuses solely on aesthetic value is incomplete.
⊹Even now, I still ask myself: What is art? I believe that if we see art as something separate and isolated, something sacred and removed from everything else, then it is no longer life. Art must be a part of life. Art must belong to everyone.
⭑Orlando - Virginia Woolf: Orlando, who changed his gender from man to woman in 36 year-old, and explores herself in gender fluidity, self identities, relationships with women and men, and lived for 400 years.
It is interested to thinking about the genders and identities. For my perspectives, I believe that there’s not only one gender in a person. So I'm fascinated by this book and would like to dig into it.
⊹I love reading and exploring the worlds within books, drawing inspiration from them to fuel my own creative work. Writing, however, has never been my strongest suit. I’ve always been more used to and more comfortable with—creating and documenting through visual mediums. But during my second year of XPUB, writing my thesis helped me discover the power of language and self-empowerment.
It also reminds me of what Donna Haraway wrote in A Cyborg Manifesto:
“Writing is pre-eminently the technology of cyborgs, etched surfaces of the late twentieth century. Cyborg politics is the struggle for language and the struggle against perfect communication, against the one code that translates all meaning perfectly.”
For me, writing became a way to express a personal position—an act of resistance and creation. I'm really grateful for this opportunity to explore writing as a creative practice. It opened up a new possibility for me, giving me the courage to try.
After completing my thesis, I wrote a poem as part of my graduation performance. It tells the story of a hybrid mythological creature—one never recorded in history—on a journey of self-discovery and inner dialogue.
Prototyping⊹
❥Touch Designer
❥Cyborg dress/installation
❥Metal corset
Thesis⊹overview
⊹In my Thesis The Healing of Becoming: queer hybridity, cyborg flesh, and the reimagining of belonging in Asian futures aims to examine the connection between cyberfeminism, the metaphor and aesthetics of cyborg, and Asian queer communities. Moreover, exploring the potential of these connections for building a positive, open, friendly and inclusive queer future world in Taiwanese context, based in reality that allows for imagining broader possibilities.
In Chapter I., I discussed how artistic representations visualize and express queer experiences through the cyborg concept. In Chapter I.II, I explored the concepts of self-healing and regeneration. Self-healing emphasizes the personal agency, sometimes guided by instinct. It is more like a spiritual journey during which you spend time with yourself. It also acknowledges vulnerabilities, allowing space for imperfection and incapacity while embodying resilience and strength.
Chapter II explored Asian artist and localized queer narratives. Moreover, I am interested in exploring cyberfeminism within an Asian context. In II.II, there is a section about localized Asian queer narratives.
In conclusion, I explored the relationship between my research and practice, connecting it to the project, and also reflect on these themes.
I want to rewrite a cyborg narrative from the perspective of an Asian subject. For example, What might a non-white, non-Western cyborg look like? What are their body, emotions, language, and forms of resistance?
I also include a reflection and documentation of the workshop I hosted: Fabric Repair + Story Sharing Workshop for NB/Queer/LGBTQIA+.
The thesis and my graduation project support each other—they go hand in hand. The materials and inspiration for the installation came from both the workshop and the content of the thesis, and at the same time, the thesis helped shape the structure and aesthetics of the dress/installation.ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*I'm glad to achieved the goal of 80% in my references came from women and gender-diverse people ;) And I will translate my thesis into Traditional Chinese in the near future.
𝓕𝓘𝓝𝓐𝓛
Work and research⊹second year
November 14th at Piet Zwart Institute
March 24th at Leeszaal
🥀 How did your practice change from entering XPUB in comparison to 'leaving' XPUB?
Michel: Wow, it's a lot ;) My practice has become more critical and now involves various mediums—like coding, Arduino, and other different kinds of software, especially related to open source. These digital tools were something I had never tried before, and I also learned different creative methods and ways of doing research.
Moreover, I’ve come to understand that making artwork with my own hands is really therapeutic, and it also brings me self-healing! This feels super meaningful, and I’ll continue expanding my graduation project into a whole universe ✨ I feel like I’ve gone from being a fashion stylist to becoming an interdisciplinary artist :) And I LOVE IT! I’m really happy about this shift and hope to keep creating in a multimedia, cross-disciplinary direction.
Publication and grad show⊹plan
The Healing of Becoming is a hybrid performance that intertwines poetry, choreography, and wearable art to explore themes of identity, self-healing, and regeneration.
The performance begins with a live reading of a poem in Mandarin — a self-dialogue of an unnamed mythical creature. This hybrid being contemplates existence, identity, soul, freedom, and consciousness. As the poem unfolds, my collaborator and I perform a choreography that embodies this journey of becoming.
My collaborator Yen will wear a Cyborg Dress — a wearable installation composed of various recycling materials and interactive elements. Feathers embedded in the fabric respond to movement, activated by Arduino and motors, symbolizing sensitivity, responsiveness, and metamorphosis.
This creature carries fragmented identities, seeking to reassemble and reclaim them. As the performance progresses, the creature enters a moment of stillness, sits and begins to weave — a meditative act of self-regeneration and becoming. The piece concludes with the unfinished weaving, and I will end the performance just before reading the English version of the poem.
For the sound elements, I included my voice reading the poem in both Chinese and English. I also recorded the sound of jade and asked the sound artist Lena C. to help me turn it into music. The content of the poem runs through the performance, but I want it to feel slightly abstract and experimental.
Performance short demo by Lena C.
Mandarin version of poem
English version of poem
Jade sound recording I
Jade sound recording II
Jade sound recording III
台灣，亞細亞的孤兒？
賽博格，一則神話？
不過是一個混種生物。
酷兒，不全然天真，
未曾擁有祖先的牽繫，
諷刺而破碎，矛盾而不完整，也完全沒有純潔可言。
混亂與親密交纏共存，
性別早已化作銀河系的光譜，
閃爍著無數未被命名的星辰。
我，帶著零碎的身份與自我認同，
漫無目的地，在混沌之中漂流、沉浮、再生⋯⋯
彷彿在尋找，亦或是在回聲中輕聲問著：
我是誰？
我的根、我的祖先、我的家、我的歸屬
如何界定我的存在？
有時候，我覺得自己並不完全是人類。
我喜歡與自然萬物一同呼吸，
感受世間所有細微的一切。
美麗與哀愁、愛慾與苦痛、夕陽與星星、海浪輕拍的聲音
總能安撫我的靈魂。
我時常想著，
或許我是精靈、海妖，
或某種未被記載的神話生物，與人類的混血形體。
編織，是我自我療癒的本能。
如今，我帶著支離的自我，
漂泊於此，試著拾起被遺忘的歷史，
重新拼貼出我所是的模樣——
我想，我正在經歷一場自我再生，
這就是蛻變的療癒。
何謂靈魂？
何謂肉身？
何謂自我意識？
何謂自由？
此刻，我還在路上，探索著。
但願這個世界，已如我夢中的模樣，
突破了冰冷僵硬的二元邊界。
Taiwan, the orphan of Asia?
Cyborg — a myth?
Perhaps, simply, a hybrid being.
Queer — not entirely innocent,
unbound by ancestral ties,
ironic, incomplete, and full of contradictions.
Purity has never belonged here.
Chaos and intimacy coexist,
and gender has long melted
into the spectrum of galaxies,
glimmering with stars
that have yet to be named.
I carry fragments of identity,
of who I am and might be,
drifting without direction — floating, sinking, regenerating in the chaos…
as if searching,
as if whispering into the echo:
Who am I?
My roots, my ancestors, my home, my belonging —
how do I define my existence?
Sometimes, I feel I am not entirely human.
I breathe with all things in nature,
sensing every trembling thread of the world:
beauty and sorrow, desire and pain,
the setting sun, the stars above,
the gentle rhythm of waves —
they soothe my restless soul.
I often wonder,
perhaps I am a spirit,
a siren,
a creature born from unnamed mythic being.
Weaving is my instinct,
a ritual of healing from within.
Now, carrying my fragmented self,
I wander here,
gathering pieces of forgotten histories,
trying to reassemble who I am —
I believe I am undergoing a regeneration.
This is the healing of transformation.
What is a soul?
What is a body?
What is consciousness?
What is freedom?
In this moment,
I am still on the journey, still searching.
And I wonder
has the world, perhaps,
become as I dreamed —
a place beyond the cold and rigid borders of binaries?
❥Installation
❥ Rehearsal for the performance
