Jaye Cho

I attended the extra session on Tuesday night today with Sarah, Ai, Zaida, Ada, and Yinyi.

 

As always, just hearing and discussing thesis concepts with others is incredibly helpful. I did not really share my thesis this time, but I actively listened and gave feedback to each classmate, which I found I benefitted from as well.

Ai’s altruism and gaming thesis is so intriguing and got me thinking of a lot of great memories from my old gaming days. The conversation also led me to think about the meaning of being a part of a community. Zaida’s coffee shop and Salsa is a fun thesis project that helps activate space and foster conversation exchange. It reminds me of the project she built last summer, a simple gaming device with a huge impact. Yinyi’s topic got us into a discussion about productivity and usefulness in this technology-driven, capitalist world. Ada’s thesis concept on the fear of aging and death also opened a fascinating wormhole of discussion on what each of us is afraid of, the former or the latter. Also, should we be the concept focus or output format focus for this thesis project?

 

Overall, a lot of thoughts. Hopefully, I will have more to share on my thesis project with the group next time.

I had a great hour talking with Sarah. Just gonna put down a bunch of notes I wrote down during the meeting here. It can be a little all over the place.

We started with some discussion on the final proposal we just submitted. It was enjoyable to read, don’t worry about the output format of the thesis yet. Focus on how I would like to narrow down the question so it can be made into experiments. Right now, it’s more like a lifetime question to answer.  As for the feedback from other reviewers that will come back in two weeks, like all feedback, take it or leave it is fine.

 

How am i going to launch into the production of some sort?

-Set up 2 chunks of time per week; whatever I conduct during those two timeslots is the thesis project itself. Tie myself doing it, even if it’s painful or I do not believe in it. (Social Media exploration, many screenshots “for you” pages?)

 

Intrigued by the impact of geopolitical events. As for the thesis, what aspects of social media am I talking about? Can the thesis project open a group of people with different perspectives into an inviting conversation? The project aims to foster engagement, not critique. An actual activation space to think about how you are going to act.

 

Maybe it will help by think I will have to show some things during class meetings. Use assignments to conduct experiments.

 

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Also, some recap on the first meeting talked about the complicated history of symbolism and really made me think about how I delivered my projects in the past. My imaginary enemy doesn’t aline with the actual audience of my project. Sometimes project itself might not feel like it takes into account and respect the different perspectives.

punching down vs. punching up; it’s all about positionality.

 

Revisit the reading on public and counter-public.

 

Artists / Works to look at (agree or not, touch on a similar topic):

Strategic Transparency Collective: https://strategictransparencycollective.net/

ITP class, social hacking: https://github.com/lmccart/SocialHacking/blob/master/readme.md

Manifestos for Creative Resistance: https://strategictransparencycollective.net/manifestos/

Jens Haaning: https://artmap.com/jenshaaning/chapter/images#_o3z6b

 

Was at the session with Jason and Jheanell today mainly to listen and support, but was able to learn a lot and reflect back on my own thesis project.

I think I should straighten my research more along the way while start making prototypes. Also want to do better at summarizing my project.

 

It was a really pleasant and relaxing meeting.

I missed the official first group session last week, so will be making up for another one next week.

 

This group session was really helpful to me, a lot of useful feedback from Ai, Chelsea, Jheanell, and Beth.

I discussed my crisis in finding a focusing point to dive in for a thesis, and started with talking about the previous project on Swastika symbol. During my presentation of the previous poll project this time around, I realized I got a little better in presenting the project, and really telling what the project is about, without intended to misdirect audiences. I have a tendency to misdirect people in reading my work in the past, it’s unclear to me why and when it became a habit, but I have to constantly reminded myself to stay sincere and honest when I present. I’d say I did a decent job this time around.

 

Some feedbacks I got is that they appreciate how my works invite difficult conversations into the room, topics like this can easily gone wrong, be careful of creating  “dog whistling” unintentionally. The humanity and acknowledgement of ignorant are also what’s appreciated in my previous works. As for participants, it’s also fun to learn about the different reactions based on the same project.

 

Another interesting point is how I describe things, the amount of self-analysis and criticism in front of the audience is almost a project idea itself. Can maybe look into that. We also got into some discussion on the confederate flag usage in the south as an example of how symbols mean very different things for different people.

Thoughts from the meeting:

-Need to block out existential crisis in this thesis space, need to somewhat believe in what I’m doinnnnn

-Content warning should be clearly in place for sensitive materials

-Do I like to shock people, do I like to be a troll? What do I want audience to feel? (Perhaps I want them to feel “not sure how to feel”)

-Acknowledge the tendency to undervalued my own credential or knowledge of things; do not set the stage right when presenting work(s)

-Consider becoming a master of a certain topic and then own the project with confident

-Do not want a project to be moralising

 

Direction of the thesis:

-Some jargons to start with: cultural chauvinism, cultural hegemony, symbolism, colonial history…

-Not sure about a specific thesis topic still, but for sure not planning to make fun or secretly troll the Chinese Government because I’m planning on an exhibition in Shanghai…and my personal action might damage the name of NYU and the program.

 

Assignments:

1. Study Lauren Lee McCarthy & Sam Lavigne, list parts I like and parts I don’t like
2. Watch artist talk of the two artists above, learn the way to or not to talk about my own work
3. Work on describing that whole “I once ask a friend to walk the commencement for me just to see if all Asians look the same” thing to people
4. Email Sarah if I find some new topics interesting to investigate in