Collective v. individual, politics v. design, formats: from text to visual to public space

Language creation was the direct impetus for the first revolution in human communication (Renpei, 1996). In a rough approximation, there are about seven thousand languages in the world today (Russ, 2012). People communicate with each other, construct social ideologies, form nations and realize globalization with the help of words and language. It carries with the ideals of humanity, but today, these ideals have to be under scrutiny by a critically aware community (Nawar, 2020). While where there is opposition, there is resistance (Engles, F). This essay will argue the irrational and self-defeating nature of censorship. It will also provide a concise overview of how designers and artists use design practice to present and criticize the controversies and deficits in social politics and fight censorship. Through two examples, “THUNDERCLAP” (by Amy Suo, 2017) and” Princess Studies” (by Jocson, 2017) of combining the language of words with public space to shows how individuals can use visual culture to provide a tool for the masses to believe or question and drive and appeal to collective ideologies.

Many countries such as China always has a near-stringent censorship system for politically sensitive related content, for example, TOM-Skype's list includes " 中国人" (" Chinese ") and " 互联网 " ("Internet") and a host of other highly generic terms. Therefore, the risk of being blocked is still fraught if the 'text' is converted from screenshots to images for storage and distribution. However, these systems are still largely dependent on big data collection and human intervention, making them inflexible and difficult to monitor in real-time through surveillance devices, much less by government supervisors in reality. Therefore, as '#404' becomes the norm, thinking outside the box and using emerging media can be an excellent way to circumvent it (Xiaoyu, 2020).

Designer Amy Suo Wu who is good at literal and metaphorical approaches of mending has taken advantage of its characteristics to create a series of design practices. Her 'THUNDERCLAP' project in 2017 is a way of quietly spreading the writing of Yinzhen (a crucial female theorist in the early days of Chinese feminism) into the public domain through the instrumental use of fashion accessories. The project, using fashion accessories similar to the cloth patches and sashes used in traditional Chinese clothing, attempts to disseminate ideas and statements about feminism and female freedom consciousness and critique and respond to this issue. It is a brilliant concept as supplements are more accessible than books, and "THUNDERCLAP" thus becomes a "walking magazine", which also brings the graphic text into the public space, maintaining a very intimate relationship with the wearer. It also brings the printed word into the public space, keeping a close relationship with the wearer while allowing people to receive the information naturally. The accessories are printed with excerpts of Yinzhen's text in English and a QR code to download the original Chinese text. English transliterated text is a 'refined' expression of Chinese fashion's aesthetic response to Western culture (Amy Suo). It is also an indirect and covert vehicle, similar to the use of QR codes in the project. It is a form of encoding that has become super popular on mobile devices in China in recent years (Baidu, 2020). Therefore, the inertia of this popularity has made it unquestionable trappings. This work reintroduces feminist historical writing to the public intellectual sphere as a reminder that feminism is not just a contemporary (Western) consciousness but has been voiced in pre-imperial China. Not only this is rare for a human history that rarely speaks of women (Woolf), but also it provoked reactions and thought, with many people learning about its connotations by scanning the QR code. Yet, all of this was undetectable by censorship, which was flexible and covert.

Above: THUNDERCLAP. (2017) Available at: https://amysuowu.net/content/thunderclap(Accessed in Dec, 2021)

Access here to watch the video: https://vimeo.com/249856321

If Amy Suo's work encrypts words through creative counter-searching, presenting honest thoughts through the conglomeration of body and language into performance art can similarly baffle censorship. In Princess Study (2017), artist Eisa Jocson let two Filipino performers (one female, one male) cosplay as Snow White, placed in a specific space, performing synchronised movements and speaking (mostly) in unison. They say and act like some sinister rehearsal, repeating classic Disney Snow White lines such as "What happens if something goes wrong?", "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you; it's just that you don't know what I've been through. And it's all because I'm scared ...... I'm ashamed of the fuss I've made ......". Because the performance is set in an outdoor public space, attracting many visitors and pedestrians. The fearless performance art explores the politics of the gendered body, labour migration, the cultural impact of the 'happiness industry' and the condition of the Filipino diaspora. By linking the Western ideal, packaged in princesses, to the work of Filipino migrants performing in theme parks for money, The Princess Study dramatises the sensitive political issues surrounding Filipino identity in its performers' efforts to "double down". Ironically, 'Happyland' refers both to the Disney theme park's slogan and the slums of the Philippine capital, Manila. In this context, Disney is a symbol of aggressive American cultural imperialism, exporting its ideals of femininity and beauty to the world through characters such as Snow White. Still, it also represents how Western powers perpetuate global economic injustice. This kind of performance art is influential and new to contemporary art because it relies on the presence of an audience in a way that other art does not（Butt, 2008）. The work contains language but does not directly express but transforms it into a fully engaged emotion that is presented to the viewer at zero distance in a public space, where the viewer's immersion in the space of the work is seen as heralding the dissolution of the conditions of criticism and censorship. As written before, the existing censorship systems in any country have difficulty penetrating daily life. They do not understand the language and words that have been 'encrypted' at a high level.

Above: Princess Study. (2017) Available at: https://eisajocson.wordpress.com/about-2/ (Accessed in 15 Dec, 2021)

Access here to watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br_V_iOmE_Q

This paper has provided a synopsis of views that many designers and artists have joined the politics game nowadays. They are seemingly becoming artefacts in various experiences, perceptions and cultural contexts, becoming holders of discourses and agents, constructing themselves and appealing to the collective through a single design example, while participating in a series of human cultural processes through conscious obedience, compromise and rebellion (Yifang, 2018). In this way, they contribute to the challenge of conservative and stubborn social censorship, just as the two above bring language and words into public space through clever transformations, making them "fish out of water" under censorship. And these examples may indicate a more significant change in the attitude of contemporary artists and designers towards criticism - the increased status and importance of art in cultural and political life. (Butt, 2008) Though the game of censorship will continue for a long time to come, with the expectation that more possibilities will emerge to satisfy the illusory desire to actually 'view' and 'know'.

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Bibliography

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