Asterisk as a life form presentation, 2023 Spring
Asterisk as a life form: Timeline reconstruction in developing self-identity
This project focuses on the formation of queerness within everyday movements, kinship (especially between my mother and me), and self-creation(zine-making as a sense of belonging). Using the asterisk as a metaphor for the liminality and multiplicities in personhood, I aim to propose an epistemological approach to a timeline that wanders between self, translation, and nation, that can not be “tamed” by the linear, canon history, which flattens and omits the complexity of lives.
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This project focuses on the formation of queerness within everyday movements, kinship (especially between my mother and me), and self-creation(zine-making as a sense of belonging). Using the asterisk as a metaphor for the liminality and multiplicities in personhood, I aim to propose an epistemological approach to a timeline that wanders between self, translation, and nation, that can not be “tamed” by the linear, canon history, which flattens and omits the complexity of lives.
以星號作為一種生命形態：在認同轉換中的時間改建
《在認同轉換中的時間改建》是一系列的設計實驗，專注於酷兒性如何在日常生活中、家庭關係（例：母女之間）、以及自我創造（例：製作小誌作為歸屬感）中形成。藉以星號作為生命形態的比喻，以及一系列的設計迭代，我希望提供一探索方法，來呈現遊走於自我、名詞翻譯和國家之間的時間軸。一個不穩定的、跟隨推演者不斷演變的，且無法被線性的正典歷史所“馴服”的時間軸。
《在認同轉換中的時間改建》是一系列的設計實驗，專注於酷兒性如何在日常生活中、家庭關係（例：母女之間）、以及自我創造（例：製作小誌作為歸屬感）中形成。藉以星號作為生命形態的比喻，以及一系列的設計迭代，我希望提供一探索方法，來呈現遊走於自我、名詞翻譯和國家之間的時間軸。一個不穩定的、跟隨推演者不斷演變的，且無法被線性的正典歷史所“馴服”的時間軸。
Background story
As a queer person born in Taiwan, I struggled with self-recognition of my body and gender. At the beginning of my memory, I identified myself as a trans. I used to post postures of Japanese superheroes, such as Ultraman or Sentai warriors, in childhood photos. In secondary school, I had my first crush on my best friend, who identified herself as a straight female, and I went through a self-doubting status, asking myself: who am I, and why am I different? Since then, I started my journey of defining and redefining myself as a person, as a human being outside of binary genders. How do these redefinitions and evolution relate to my personhood?
For me, the asterisk is like a language ghost, appearing on pages as a reminder of omitted matters or footnotes. It is an unpronounceable symbol indicating the unsteady, unfinished context hidden outside the linear narrative. In Jack Halberstam book Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability, he uses the asterisk to recognize trans identity as a constantly unfolding project, challenging the explanatory power of gender. Growing up as queer in Taiwan, I heard upper generations using non-descriptive pronouns such as "this" or "that" when referring to queer communities, who are the outsider of their linguage and ideologies.
In this project, I use the asterisk as a design concept to develop my design practices for people to share and communicate their life experiences; to add information and descriptions from the margin to the main conversation; to broaden the context of Taiwanese queerness and nationality.
As a queer person born in Taiwan, I struggled with self-recognition of my body and gender. At the beginning of my memory, I identified myself as a trans. I used to post postures of Japanese superheroes, such as Ultraman or Sentai warriors, in childhood photos. In secondary school, I had my first crush on my best friend, who identified herself as a straight female, and I went through a self-doubting status, asking myself: who am I, and why am I different? Since then, I started my journey of defining and redefining myself as a person, as a human being outside of binary genders. How do these redefinitions and evolution relate to my personhood?
*
The asterisk symbol, which comes from the Greek word "asterisks" meaning "little star," was originally used to mark passages in Homer's text that were believed to stem from another source. In writing, the asterisk served as an editing tool to notify readers to read cautiously and as a sign of return, indicating where a correction or insertion should be made.For me, the asterisk is like a language ghost, appearing on pages as a reminder of omitted matters or footnotes. It is an unpronounceable symbol indicating the unsteady, unfinished context hidden outside the linear narrative. In Jack Halberstam book Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability, he uses the asterisk to recognize trans identity as a constantly unfolding project, challenging the explanatory power of gender. Growing up as queer in Taiwan, I heard upper generations using non-descriptive pronouns such as "this" or "that" when referring to queer communities, who are the outsider of their linguage and ideologies.
In this project, I use the asterisk as a design concept to develop my design practices for people to share and communicate their life experiences; to add information and descriptions from the margin to the main conversation; to broaden the context of Taiwanese queerness and nationality.
I. The asterisk as complex personhood
Drawings, place, events
In project 100 ways: Drawing ↔︎ Complex Personhood, I reviewed my drawings and categorized them into time, event, space, and character. For me, drawing is a way to express and document complex personhood with personal life experiences. Since I started drawing, it has become a way to heal myself; I am freed and able to archive myself through drawing, turning them into tangible files. In the project’s first phase, the drawings were categorized, forming a series of events. While viewing the drawings as instinctual reflections of feelings, I coded the emotions and the haunting memories behind them through colors, writings, and paper structures.
Drawings, place, events
In project 100 ways: Drawing ↔︎ Complex Personhood, I reviewed my drawings and categorized them into time, event, space, and character. For me, drawing is a way to express and document complex personhood with personal life experiences. Since I started drawing, it has become a way to heal myself; I am freed and able to archive myself through drawing, turning them into tangible files. In the project’s first phase, the drawings were categorized, forming a series of events. While viewing the drawings as instinctual reflections of feelings, I coded the emotions and the haunting memories behind them through colors, writings, and paper structures.
By writing and filtering those moments, place becomes the area of intra-related events from past and present, forming a temporary experience field that keeps unfolding and shifting toward the future.
Besides the relation between event and place, the characters in self-zine are the bodies that operate the intra-relations; thus I further observed and imitated the posture of these figures. By posing my body and pretending to have the actual hair ties, I immersed myself into the characters, and somehow experienced a sense of sorrow, appreciation, and calmness.
Body of personhood
Besides the relation between event and place, the characters in self-zine are the bodies that operate the intra-relations; thus I further observed and imitated the posture of these figures. By posing my body and pretending to have the actual hair ties, I immersed myself into the characters, and somehow experienced a sense of sorrow, appreciation, and calmness.
II. The asterisk as the Other in life experiences
Life*
In project Life*, I dug into the concept of minority stress, and coded its elements and the ruptures I’ve undergone in my family. In Life* model, life stages become the strokes in the asterisk, carrying turning points and events. Life* opens the chance and platform for audiences and communities to share their life experiences, and furthermore to code their own catalog*, that can be shared with others.
The ruptures in Catalog* are deeply related to rooted values and Taiwanese culture, to be more precise, how are the experiences for Taiwanese queers? How can I, as a designer, evoke and interfere with the conversation in queer experiences in Taiwan?
Life*
In project Life*, I dug into the concept of minority stress, and coded its elements and the ruptures I’ve undergone in my family. In Life* model, life stages become the strokes in the asterisk, carrying turning points and events. Life* opens the chance and platform for audiences and communities to share their life experiences, and furthermore to code their own catalog*, that can be shared with others.
The ruptures in Catalog* are deeply related to rooted values and Taiwanese culture, to be more precise, how are the experiences for Taiwanese queers? How can I, as a designer, evoke and interfere with the conversation in queer experiences in Taiwan?
Dear Family
Based on the data from the 2020 School Climate Survey on LGBTQ+ Students in Taiwan (conducted by Taiwan LGBTQ+ Hotline Association), I surveyed the conversation space of sexuality in Taiwanese families, through social listening and in-person interviews, in my side-project Dear Family. Why do family spaces become so awkward and sometimes full of fears when it comes to sex and sexuality? My research shows that family relations often come with the default normativity that excludes fear, vulnerability and multiplicities in each of us. The normativity affects the queer youths and their parents, causing them to develop minority stress.
Based on the data from the 2020 School Climate Survey on LGBTQ+ Students in Taiwan (conducted by Taiwan LGBTQ+ Hotline Association), I surveyed the conversation space of sexuality in Taiwanese families, through social listening and in-person interviews, in my side-project Dear Family. Why do family spaces become so awkward and sometimes full of fears when it comes to sex and sexuality? My research shows that family relations often come with the default normativity that excludes fear, vulnerability and multiplicities in each of us. The normativity affects the queer youths and their parents, causing them to develop minority stress.
See more in: Redefine kinships, before we talk about sex.
III. The asterisk as translation
In order to understand the historical context of Taiwanese queerness, I start by investigating the narratives, places, and people that affect the continuous formation of my identity. By diving into the translations of identities, I found that the timeline of self is weaving with Taiwanese identity, post-text movements, and cultural making and communities.
In order to understand the historical context of Taiwanese queerness, I start by investigating the narratives, places, and people that affect the continuous formation of my identity. By diving into the translations of identities, I found that the timeline of self is weaving with Taiwanese identity, post-text movements, and cultural making and communities.
See more in: Translation ︎︎︎ Self
Ongoing conclusion
IV. The asterisk as relatedness
In Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History, the angel of history turned his face toward the past with piling wreckage and hurls. Though trying to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed, the storm we called ‘progress’ irresistibly propels the angel into the future while the piles of debris grow skyward. Queerness is the angel of history who walks back and forth among the piling wreckage and tries to find a way back home or a place called home; Queerness is also the asterisk that never became a complete, stable whole.
For me, queerness is an everyday process formed within movements, traveling and developing kinship (especially between my mother and me), self-creation (zine-making as a sense of belonging), and mobility between cities and places. How can designers deal with the ambiguity in queerness? How can designers practically practice the empowering of queerness, which involves queering the tools and destandarizing the experience? This project was first inspired by Avery F. Gordon’s Ghostly Matters, which expands the statement, “life is complicated” regarding gender, race, and everyday lives.
“... Haunting is a shared structure of feeling, a shared possession, a specific type of sociality. I might even suggest that Haunting is the most general instance of the clamoring return of the reduced to a delicate social experience struggling, even unaware, with its shadowy but exigent presence. Haunting is the sociality of living with ghosts, a sociality both tangible and tactile as well as ephemeral and imaginary.” (Avery F. Gordon. 1997: 201)
Through tackling the intersections of these aspects, I aim to propose an epistemological approach to a timeline that wanders between self, queerness, and nation, that can not be “tamed” by the linear, canon history, which flattens and omits the complexity of lives. Besides, I want to suggest that designers should be the interfaces between the haunting of social living and audiences; By centering the transition of identities, the conceptualization of time and space becomes fluid and further returns the visibility of personhood and self. By designing the “interface,” designers can create a communication space addressing haunting in self and society. “Ultimately haunting is about transforming a shadow of life into an undiminished life whose shadows touch softly in the spirit of peaceful reconciliation. In this necessarily collective undertaking, the end, which is not an ending at all, belongs to everyone.”
Bibliography
Gordon, A. (2011). Ghostly matters: Haunting and the sociological imagination. University of Minnesota Press.
Ji, D. (2017). Tong Zhi Wen Xue Shi: Tai Wan de Fa Ming = a queer invention in Taiwan: A history of tongzhi literature. Lian jing.
britsoci. (2020, January 15). Trans* – beyond a politics of recognition with Jack Halberstam. YouTube. Retrieved November 28, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZa9VqZVibc&t=532s
Eve Kosofsky, S. (2003). Paranoid reading and reparative reading, or, you’re so paranoid, you probably think this essay is about you. Touching Feeling, 123–151. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822384786-005
Gloria, M. C. and A. (n.d.). Bridge called my back. Kitchen Table.
Liou, L.-ya. (2005). Queer Theory and Politics in Taiwan: The Cultural Translation and (Re)Production of Queerness in and beyond Taiwan Lesbian/Gay/Queer Activism. NTU Studies in Language and Literature, 14 , 123–154.
SHIH, S. M. (2011). The Concept of the Sinophone. PMLA, 126(3), 709–718. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41414144
Liu, W. (2021). Boundless China and Backward Asians: Hegemonic Confucianism as epistemological violence in queer psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 56(2), 491–505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-021-09657-1
Lin, S.-fang. (2008). The Legal and Historical Denial of Female Same-sex Intimate Relationship in Taiwan History.
Linda Hutcheon. (1998). Interventionist Literary Histories: Nostalgic, Pragmatic, or Utopian?
Harootunian, H. (2004). Shadowing history: National narratives and the persistence of the everyday. Cultural Studies, 18(2-3), 181–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950238042000201473
Amy Brainer. (2019). Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan
Gordon, A. (2011). Ghostly matters: Haunting and the sociological imagination. University of Minnesota Press.
Ji, D. (2017). Tong Zhi Wen Xue Shi: Tai Wan de Fa Ming = a queer invention in Taiwan: A history of tongzhi literature. Lian jing.
britsoci. (2020, January 15). Trans* – beyond a politics of recognition with Jack Halberstam. YouTube. Retrieved November 28, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZa9VqZVibc&t=532s
Eve Kosofsky, S. (2003). Paranoid reading and reparative reading, or, you’re so paranoid, you probably think this essay is about you. Touching Feeling, 123–151. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822384786-005
Gloria, M. C. and A. (n.d.). Bridge called my back. Kitchen Table.
Liou, L.-ya. (2005). Queer Theory and Politics in Taiwan: The Cultural Translation and (Re)Production of Queerness in and beyond Taiwan Lesbian/Gay/Queer Activism. NTU Studies in Language and Literature, 14 , 123–154.
SHIH, S. M. (2011). The Concept of the Sinophone. PMLA, 126(3), 709–718. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41414144
Liu, W. (2021). Boundless China and Backward Asians: Hegemonic Confucianism as epistemological violence in queer psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 56(2), 491–505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-021-09657-1
Lin, S.-fang. (2008). The Legal and Historical Denial of Female Same-sex Intimate Relationship in Taiwan History.
Linda Hutcheon. (1998). Interventionist Literary Histories: Nostalgic, Pragmatic, or Utopian?
Harootunian, H. (2004). Shadowing history: National narratives and the persistence of the everyday. Cultural Studies, 18(2-3), 181–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950238042000201473
Amy Brainer. (2019). Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan