The Healing of Becoming Performance⊹
Asian Queer narratives⊹ Thesis ⊹ The Healing of becoming:
queer hybridity, cyborg flesh,
and the reimagining of belonging in Asian futures
Introduction
I aim 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 will discuss how artistic representations visualize and express queer experiences through the cyborg concept. A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. It is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity (Haraway, 1985). Within the cyborg concept, there’s a focus on binary blurring and the ambiguity of identity and boundaries. In this world, there are no clear boundaries between humans and nature, machines, materials, and animals. The inspiration comes from 'Cyborg Manifesto' by Donna Haraway. Similar to queer and non-binary people, Cyborgs liberate gender, break free from binary-centered, and actively embrace a future of diversity, heterogeneity, and hybrid identities.
I also want to explore the concepts of self-healing and regeneration, which connect to an idea Haraway mentioned: '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 traditional reproductive politics but rather focus on 'regeneration', a process of healing trauma and reconstructing the self. I will discuss these topics in Chapter I.II. From my perspective, there is a distinction between healing and self-healing. Self-healing emphasizes the personal agency, sometimes guided by instinct. It is more like a spiritual journey during which you spend time with yourself. However, healing might involve external support from others or external influences. Self-healing also acknowledges vulnerabilities, allowing space for imperfection and incapacity while embodying resilience and strength.
Chapter II will explore Asian artist and localized queer narratives. Moreover, I am interested in exploring cyberfeminism within an Asian context. As someone who identifies as a non-binary queer person, I’m passionate about advocating for these marginalized topics in Taiwan and supporting the community, raising awareness and attention through public events.
In conclusion, I will explore the relationship between my research and practice, connecting it to the project, and also reflect on these themes.
In addition, I plan to create a Cyborg collection for my project, drawing inspiration from my thesis and a workshop I organized. This workshop will serve as a platform to generate materials and processes that will shape the final work. 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?
Last but not least, I will also try to achieve gender balance in my references and annotations, aiming for over 80% of my citations come from gender-diverse people and women. I hope to contribute in my way to addressing the gender imbalance in academic citations.
In Chapter I., I will discuss how artistic representations visualize and express queer experiences through the cyborg concept. A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. It is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity (Haraway, 1985). Within the cyborg concept, there’s a focus on binary blurring and the ambiguity of identity and boundaries. In this world, there are no clear boundaries between humans and nature, machines, materials, and animals. The inspiration comes from 'Cyborg Manifesto' by Donna Haraway. Similar to queer and non-binary people, Cyborgs liberate gender, break free from binary-centered, and actively embrace a future of diversity, heterogeneity, and hybrid identities.
I also want to explore the concepts of self-healing and regeneration, which connect to an idea Haraway mentioned: '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 traditional reproductive politics but rather focus on 'regeneration', a process of healing trauma and reconstructing the self. I will discuss these topics in Chapter I.II. From my perspective, there is a distinction between healing and self-healing. Self-healing emphasizes the personal agency, sometimes guided by instinct. It is more like a spiritual journey during which you spend time with yourself. However, healing might involve external support from others or external influences. Self-healing also acknowledges vulnerabilities, allowing space for imperfection and incapacity while embodying resilience and strength.
Chapter II will explore Asian artist and localized queer narratives. Moreover, I am interested in exploring cyberfeminism within an Asian context. As someone who identifies as a non-binary queer person, I’m passionate about advocating for these marginalized topics in Taiwan and supporting the community, raising awareness and attention through public events.
In conclusion, I will explore the relationship between my research and practice, connecting it to the project, and also reflect on these themes.
In addition, I plan to create a Cyborg collection for my project, drawing inspiration from my thesis and a workshop I organized. This workshop will serve as a platform to generate materials and processes that will shape the final work. 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?
Last but not least, I will also try to achieve gender balance in my references and annotations, aiming for over 80% of my citations come from gender-diverse people and women. I hope to contribute in my way to addressing the gender imbalance in academic citations.
Chapter I. Cyborg Aesthetics and Queer Identity
In this chapter I want to explore how cyborg aesthetic and cyberfeminsim ethics enhance the understanding of queer and non-binary identities.
I.I Artistic representations of the Queer-Cyborg
How do artistic representations visualize or express queerness through the cyborg
In this chapter I want to explore how cyborg aesthetic and cyberfeminsim ethics enhance the understanding of queer and non-binary identities.
I.I Artistic representations of the Queer-Cyborg
How do artistic representations visualize or express queerness through the cyborg
There are various mediums to embody the cyborg aesthetic, with fashion being one of the most prominent. Manfred Thierry Mugler perfectly transformed this aesthetic into his FW95 haute couture collection, featuring his iconic robot-style metallic suit combined with silver armour, and transparent perspex cut-outs at the bust, belly and legs. It amplifies the fusion of human and machine, draws inspiration from 'Maschinenmensch' (Maria), A chimera-like character from Thea von Harbou's novel Metropolis, later adapted into the sci-fi silent film Metropolis by Fritz Lang. Recently, this fembot suit regained attention when the actress Zendaya wore it at the Dune 2 premiere in London in February 2024, showing that the concept of merging the human body with machine or metal remains timeless.
Harbou, H. v. (1926), Metropolis Maschinenmensch
Luckily I had the chance to see this iconic robot suit in person at the Thierry Mugler: Couturissime exhibition at Kunsthal Rotterdam in late 2019. I still remember these astonishing and truly amazing sensations when I saw the exquisite craftsmanship and empowered by the bold statement of the design. From his various collections there's frequently a metaphor for 'Women as a powerful weapon, beautiful and fearless.' He emphasized strength and resilience, a mix of femininity with futuristic elements. Thierry Mugler once said, "I made clothes because I was looking for something that didn't exist. I had to try to create my own world." This resonates deeply with me. When I make clothes or artistic projects, I often think about creating my own aesthetic world. I see this as a way to make a statement, to expresses myself and highlights the topics I want to advocate for in public.
Luckily I had the chance to see this iconic robot suit in person at the Thierry Mugler: Couturissime exhibition at Kunsthal Rotterdam in late 2019. I still remember these astonishing and truly amazing sensations when I saw the exquisite craftsmanship and empowered by the bold statement of the design. From his various collections there's frequently a metaphor for 'Women as a powerful weapon, beautiful and fearless.' He emphasized strength and resilience, a mix of femininity with futuristic elements. Thierry Mugler once said, "I made clothes because I was looking for something that didn't exist. I had to try to create my own world." This resonates deeply with me. When I make clothes or artistic projects, I often think about creating my own aesthetic world. I see this as a way to make a statement, to expresses myself and highlights the topics I want to advocate for in public.
Newton, H. (1995), Claudia Lynx, Image courtesy of the Helmut Newton Foundation and the Brooklyn Museum.While Thierry Mugler's designs empower women and embrace the beauty perceptions with campness and extravaganza, I believe they also resonate with non-binary and fluid identities. In my opinion, femininity is not only for a single gender; it is a spectrum of personal traits that can be embraced and express by anyone. Although this iconic robot suit powerfully represents the cyborg aesthetic and human-machine ideals, it lacks the exploration of blurred gender boundaries. However, an interesting shift has occurred when Casey Cadwallader became the creative director of Mugler since January 2018. He is famous for challenging traditional gender norms through the Mugler collection. As a queer person, Casey views femininity as diverse and inclusive. His work reflects this belief and using fashion to give voice to gender-diverse people. Fashion could also be a statement for people to claim their identities and raise the awareness of LGBTQIA+ themes. For example, there was a collaboration with H&M in 2023, which included pieces like corset hoodie, razor-shoulder leather jacket, rhinestone-embellished mesh top, and bodysuit. All items were designed to be wore and styled across genders, reflecting his desire to redefine 'sexy' in unique ways.
Casey once said in the interview (Külec, 2023):
Mugler is always about celebrating yourself and celebrating the people around you. The core messages are about openness, freedom, imagination, and, as you say, diversity and inclusivity when it comes to different forms of beauty and body types.
Casey once said in the interview (Külec, 2023):
Mugler is always about celebrating yourself and celebrating the people around you. The core messages are about openness, freedom, imagination, and, as you say, diversity and inclusivity when it comes to different forms of beauty and body types.
I remember visiting the H&M store, looking forward to seeing and trying on the clothes designed by Casey Cadwallader. I was thrilled to see so many gender-diverse people there in Taipei. It was fulfilling to see that people choosing clothes based on their personal preferences rather than traditional gender categories, especially in this Mugler collection. I feel that the brand has become increasingly popular in the LGBTQIA+ communities in recent years.
From an article Is Mugler Carrying Trans Representation in Fashion Right Now? Macaulay (2021) mentioned,
Cadwallader’s usage of the queer and trans community can be considered as genius for many reasons. For one, it pays homage to Thierry Mugler and his spring/summer 1992 show in which he worked with drag artist Lypsinka, an iconic collaboration with fashion and the drag community. Also, it introduces a conversation about queer and trans visibility in the industry, ranging from the casting to the music used in the video, giving a platform for queer artists as well as normalising trans women in high fashion runways.
I believe that this series of collaborations is a great opportunity for the public to purchase iconic Mugler design at a relatively affordable price. It offers signature items from fashion house with recycled materials and also promotes gender fluidity and body positivity.
There is also an interesting connection between this collection and the cyborg concept. The queer and trans Venezuelan musician and record producer Arca is one of the models featured in the collection. Her music video Reverie portrays a wounded matador with mechanical legs, struggling to find balance before ultimately collapsing onto a bed of flower petals. To me, this video explores themes of death, desire, love, and the process of healing from personal trauma and struggles. Especially there's a haunting scene shows Arca holding a genital-shaped object before bleeding, her face contorted in pain. This moment feels like a powerful metaphor for selfhood, gender, and sexual identity.
Arca describes the work as a statement: 'Bullfighting is a piercing metaphor: you are fighting a bull, and at the same (time) yourself. You are not the victim or the oppressor, you are both – animality and bestiality are conflated. Evoking sex invokes our animality. And evoking our animality, in turn, invokes spirituality.' I believe this is a poetic and sorrowful fusion of hybridity, with queerness, animality, and machinery into a beautiful expression.
⊹
In relation to cyborg representation in performance art, German contemporary artist Rebecca Horn's early piece Finger Gloves (1972) express the body extension and cyborg aesthetic features the five-meter-long gloves made from balsa wood and cloth, allowing the wearer to reach objects meters away. It also explores the relationships between body and space, boundaries, isolation, and the tactile sensation of touching. This work inspired by her personal experience of isolation during a 12-month hospital stay between 1968 and 1969 due to a severe lung illness. She started to create different objects and make her own wearable body-sculptures in order to enhance her physical accessibility from the hospital bed.
Another similar piece, Touching the Walls with Both Hands Simultaneously is a part of her Berlin Exercises Series (1974-1975), extends the concept of Finger Gloves. In this work, Horn slowly outstretches her arms to reveal long thin white cones attached to each finger, these attachments are carefully extended to reach the perimeter of the studio, a motion that registers Horn’s desire to make contact with the world outside her body (Whorrall-Campbell, 2021).
According to Bularca (2019),
Horn’s early practice has been associated with prosthetic constructions, but they are not prostheses whose function is to substitute a missing body part. Rather, as Katharina Schmidt (1993, 76) notes, they are instruments designed for the refinement of the senses, instruments to ‘go beyond common experience.’
Horn's work reminds me of the empowering potential of the cyborg concept. By reconstructing the boundaries between self and the external world, her creations redefine the relationship between subject and object, offering new ways to experience and interact with the world (Jones & Macel, cited in Bularca, 2019). Through extending her reach and altering her body's abilities, Finger Gloves can be seen as a metaphor for empowerment and agency. The extensions symbolize the ability to influence or access spaces beyond natural limitations. At the same time, they challenge traditional perceptions of the body's capabilities, suggesting the potential for innovation and transformation. In my perspective, it also connecting to the New materialism, with the agency of objects and materials aspects.
Regardless the definition of New materialism, writer and researcher Allen (2023) describes,
New materialism, or neo-materialism, is an interdisciplinary approach to theory and research that aims to recognize and explore the power of matter. Builds on materialism, the philosophy that everything is reducible to or dependent upon matter and physical processes. Matter is anything but impotent, and matter has force and agency. In addition, viewing everything as matter, and all matter as powerful, new materialism refuses to treat humans as more than material, separate from and superior to the world around us.
The gloves and fingers are not just passive tools; they reshape how the wearer interacts with their environment, giving the materials a form of agency.
Later on, Horn focused on the the machines performing different movements instead of using human body. There is an interesting conversation from Rebecca Horn and Jeanette Winterson, as cited by Jana (2024),
Over the course of her career, Horn’s surreal, intimate visions grew and mutated, turning from smaller-scale prostheses toward mechanical works and vast installations. The body was replaced with machines, which she saw as being just as real and fallible as any human.
‘I like my machines to tire,’ she told Jeanette Winterson in 2005. ‘They are more than objects. These are not cars or washing machines. They rest, they reflect, they wait.’
Her work High Moon (1991), which featured two Winchester rifles randomly spurting blood-coloured water and sometimes hitting each other, inspired Alexander McQueen’s SS99 show finale in which the model Shalom Harlow stood on a rotating platform, her enormous tulle dress sprayed with paint from two robotic arms.
I like the way Rebecca describe her mechanical installation as having their own 'feelings and free wills'. There is a tenderness in her perspectives, acknowledging machine are not only tools or extensions of human desire. Her kinetic creatures breathe, tire, stop, and continue. I imagine they sometimes pause as if feeling the vulnerabilities. This emotional connection between Rebecca and her kinetic works blurs the lines between the creator and the created, making her installations so captivating.
Horn, R. High Moon (1991, 2 Winchester rifles, metal rod, 3 motors, 2 glass funnels, 2 pumps, plastic hoses, loudspeaker, circular saw, control, iron gutter, paint, poem. Dimensions variable.)
This work High Moon deeply inspired the British fashion designer Alexander McQueen to create his one of the most extraordinary live performance during his 1999 fashion show, No. 13. In this show, two car manufacturing machine arms spray black and neon yellow paints onto former ballerina Shalom Harlow. Initially, the machines interact with her in a gentle and almost curious manner as she stands atop a circular platform. However, the interaction grows more intense as they begin spray-painting her pure white cotton dress, transforming it into an experimental design. It makes me think about the relationships between women and machine, with vulnerability, creativity and technology power.
McQueen, A. No. 13 Spring/Summer Ready-To-Wear Fashion show (1999)
From an article Is Mugler Carrying Trans Representation in Fashion Right Now? Macaulay (2021) mentioned,
Cadwallader’s usage of the queer and trans community can be considered as genius for many reasons. For one, it pays homage to Thierry Mugler and his spring/summer 1992 show in which he worked with drag artist Lypsinka, an iconic collaboration with fashion and the drag community. Also, it introduces a conversation about queer and trans visibility in the industry, ranging from the casting to the music used in the video, giving a platform for queer artists as well as normalising trans women in high fashion runways.
I believe that this series of collaborations is a great opportunity for the public to purchase iconic Mugler design at a relatively affordable price. It offers signature items from fashion house with recycled materials and also promotes gender fluidity and body positivity.
There is also an interesting connection between this collection and the cyborg concept. The queer and trans Venezuelan musician and record producer Arca is one of the models featured in the collection. Her music video Reverie portrays a wounded matador with mechanical legs, struggling to find balance before ultimately collapsing onto a bed of flower petals. To me, this video explores themes of death, desire, love, and the process of healing from personal trauma and struggles. Especially there's a haunting scene shows Arca holding a genital-shaped object before bleeding, her face contorted in pain. This moment feels like a powerful metaphor for selfhood, gender, and sexual identity.
Arca describes the work as a statement: 'Bullfighting is a piercing metaphor: you are fighting a bull, and at the same (time) yourself. You are not the victim or the oppressor, you are both – animality and bestiality are conflated. Evoking sex invokes our animality. And evoking our animality, in turn, invokes spirituality.' I believe this is a poetic and sorrowful fusion of hybridity, with queerness, animality, and machinery into a beautiful expression.
⊹
In relation to cyborg representation in performance art, German contemporary artist Rebecca Horn's early piece Finger Gloves (1972) express the body extension and cyborg aesthetic features the five-meter-long gloves made from balsa wood and cloth, allowing the wearer to reach objects meters away. It also explores the relationships between body and space, boundaries, isolation, and the tactile sensation of touching. This work inspired by her personal experience of isolation during a 12-month hospital stay between 1968 and 1969 due to a severe lung illness. She started to create different objects and make her own wearable body-sculptures in order to enhance her physical accessibility from the hospital bed.
Another similar piece, Touching the Walls with Both Hands Simultaneously is a part of her Berlin Exercises Series (1974-1975), extends the concept of Finger Gloves. In this work, Horn slowly outstretches her arms to reveal long thin white cones attached to each finger, these attachments are carefully extended to reach the perimeter of the studio, a motion that registers Horn’s desire to make contact with the world outside her body (Whorrall-Campbell, 2021).
According to Bularca (2019),
Horn’s early practice has been associated with prosthetic constructions, but they are not prostheses whose function is to substitute a missing body part. Rather, as Katharina Schmidt (1993, 76) notes, they are instruments designed for the refinement of the senses, instruments to ‘go beyond common experience.’
Horn's work reminds me of the empowering potential of the cyborg concept. By reconstructing the boundaries between self and the external world, her creations redefine the relationship between subject and object, offering new ways to experience and interact with the world (Jones & Macel, cited in Bularca, 2019). Through extending her reach and altering her body's abilities, Finger Gloves can be seen as a metaphor for empowerment and agency. The extensions symbolize the ability to influence or access spaces beyond natural limitations. At the same time, they challenge traditional perceptions of the body's capabilities, suggesting the potential for innovation and transformation. In my perspective, it also connecting to the New materialism, with the agency of objects and materials aspects.
Regardless the definition of New materialism, writer and researcher Allen (2023) describes,
New materialism, or neo-materialism, is an interdisciplinary approach to theory and research that aims to recognize and explore the power of matter. Builds on materialism, the philosophy that everything is reducible to or dependent upon matter and physical processes. Matter is anything but impotent, and matter has force and agency. In addition, viewing everything as matter, and all matter as powerful, new materialism refuses to treat humans as more than material, separate from and superior to the world around us.
The gloves and fingers are not just passive tools; they reshape how the wearer interacts with their environment, giving the materials a form of agency.
Later on, Horn focused on the the machines performing different movements instead of using human body. There is an interesting conversation from Rebecca Horn and Jeanette Winterson, as cited by Jana (2024),
Over the course of her career, Horn’s surreal, intimate visions grew and mutated, turning from smaller-scale prostheses toward mechanical works and vast installations. The body was replaced with machines, which she saw as being just as real and fallible as any human.
‘I like my machines to tire,’ she told Jeanette Winterson in 2005. ‘They are more than objects. These are not cars or washing machines. They rest, they reflect, they wait.’
Her work High Moon (1991), which featured two Winchester rifles randomly spurting blood-coloured water and sometimes hitting each other, inspired Alexander McQueen’s SS99 show finale in which the model Shalom Harlow stood on a rotating platform, her enormous tulle dress sprayed with paint from two robotic arms.
I like the way Rebecca describe her mechanical installation as having their own 'feelings and free wills'. There is a tenderness in her perspectives, acknowledging machine are not only tools or extensions of human desire. Her kinetic creatures breathe, tire, stop, and continue. I imagine they sometimes pause as if feeling the vulnerabilities. This emotional connection between Rebecca and her kinetic works blurs the lines between the creator and the created, making her installations so captivating.
Horn, R. High Moon (1991, 2 Winchester rifles, metal rod, 3 motors, 2 glass funnels, 2 pumps, plastic hoses, loudspeaker, circular saw, control, iron gutter, paint, poem. Dimensions variable.)
This work High Moon deeply inspired the British fashion designer Alexander McQueen to create his one of the most extraordinary live performance during his 1999 fashion show, No. 13. In this show, two car manufacturing machine arms spray black and neon yellow paints onto former ballerina Shalom Harlow. Initially, the machines interact with her in a gentle and almost curious manner as she stands atop a circular platform. However, the interaction grows more intense as they begin spray-painting her pure white cotton dress, transforming it into an experimental design. It makes me think about the relationships between women and machine, with vulnerability, creativity and technology power.
McQueen, A. No. 13 Spring/Summer Ready-To-Wear Fashion show (1999)
I.II Materials and Regeneration: Crafting the Cyborg Body
Could certain materials connect to the regeneration and self-healing aspects of the cyborg concept
Could certain materials connect to the regeneration and self-healing aspects of the cyborg concept
From the queerness through the Cyborg and cyberfeminism, Artist Johanna Bruckner intrigues me. In her work Molecular Sex & Synthetic Love, all digital figures are not assigned with any gender. She explores a world where intimacy is reimagined through a sex robot in a system shaped by normative technology. She highlights the link between the qualities of plastic and queer theory, focusing on how gender, plastics, and non-reproductive ways of being intersect.
Bruckner noted(2020),
Objects of sexual pleasure are chemically linked to the very plastics that, in their molecular texture, make sexual indifferences possible. Plastics carry their queerness into sex, inhibiting sexual reproduction. Sexual difference may not even turn out to have a future, as plastic mirrors a form of becoming based on technological and bacterial merging, rather than the reproductive ability of organic creatures.
She also brings attention to Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical known for its reproductive toxicity. BPA disrupts human reproduction by mimicking hormones and sometimes altering gender. To her, plastics challenge the binary framework of society. They represent endless possibilities for transformation and adaptability while resisting complete decomposition. This resilience mirrors the potential for humans to live in a fast-changing world. She invites us to ask: Can we learn from the plastics to build resilience and adaptability in our lives? Although plastic also symbolize global problems like pollution, toxicity, and waste accumulation, Bruckner envisions a political and social world that embrace the uncertainty and non-traditional forms of life, focusing on the cooperation rather than control.
This perspective is interesting because plastic is often associated with negative and harmful effects. However, Johanna offers a fresh insight into the possibilities of plastic, encouraging me to rethink these concepts. At the same time, the sex bot reminds me of the legendary Japanese cyberpunk animation Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), where the sex doll robots are portrayed with pale, white skin. This raises a question for me: does this reflect a lack of diversity in skin tones, or is it just simply a stylistic choice aligned with the cyborg aesthetic of non-human robotic creatures?
The inspiration for the work begins with a deep-sea animal called the brittle star, which interacts with the sex robot. Moreover, the sex robot performs in the form of Wolbachia bacteria, a microorganism known for its ability to disrupt sexual behavior and gender norms. Finally, the sex robot engages with intersex beings, indicating a future of gender that embraces diverse variations and practices, moving beyond the binary framework. From my view, the brittle star and Wolbachia bacteria also reflect Donna Haraway’s concept of cyborg sexuality, which restores the baroque, non-reproductive mechanisms found in ferns and invertebrates to counter heterosexual hegemony (Haraway, 1985).
Plastic as a metaphor for resistance may be Bruckner's way of challenging the binary-centered world we live in. Similarly, French artist Louise Bourgeois uses another soft material—fabric—to resist and engage with the world. For her, art becomes a medium for self-healing, transforming wounds and scars into creative expression. Personally, I resonate with it because making art is not only my way of making a statement but also a means of turning personal trauma and pain into powerful resistance.
Louise Bourgeois began using household fabric, clothes and tapestries to create artworks in her 80s. Through these pieces, she transformed personal experiences—childhood trauma, motherhood, sexuality, fear, and loneliness—into various fabric installations. Bourgeois repurposed meaningful garments from her youth into new forms of textile art. Those clothes are resonated with her life stories. She described how 'Clothing is an exercise in memory. It makes me explore the past: how did I feel when I wore that. They are like signposts in the search for the past.' Bourgeois associated cutting, tearing, sewing and assembling with notions of reparation and the physical expression of emotional tension. The textile works invite us to reconsider the meaning of “mending” and to see it as a kind of emotional redemption (Sterk, 2022).
Her fabric sculpture often looks uncanny, sometimes similar to the appearance of the Frankenstein's monster and often reveal the gaps and stitches between pieces of fabric, creating visible seams. These may symbolize her gentle act of mending past wounds, thread by thread. The exposed seams serve as metaphors for her past scars, gradually healing as she engages in the process of creation. Once she said: 'I always had the fear of being separated and abandoned. The sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole.' To me, the act of creating, like sewing, mending, and modifying could bring the self-healing to myself. The process of repairing clothes is similar to a healing and regenerative ritual, which between you and the fabric in your hands.
Those imperfections are essential because they acknowledge vulnerability while embodying resilience and strength—qualities that resonate with the cyborg concept. It is thrilling to see that Bourgeois transforms her art with her own belongings and gives them a new forms and meanings. Just like she said 'The beautiful clothes from your youth – so what – sacrifice / them, eaten by the moths. (1995)'
Bourgeois, L. Pierre. Rosa Patchwork-Stoff 1998 © The Easton Foundation/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022 und VAGA at ARS, NY, Photo: Christopher BurkeChapter II. Asian Artists and Queer Localized Narratives
This chapter dives into how cyborg aesthetics are interpreted in the works of Asian artists and the shared experiences between Asian queer diasporas
II.I Asian Artists and queerness
First, I want to discuss the South Korean artist Mire Lee and her work, Open Wound.
In contrast to Louise Bourgeois, who appears to use art as a means of healing from scars and wounds, Lee emphasizes the state of being in an 'open wound'. Her work invites people to engage with these emotions collectively, creating a space for resonance and shared vulnerability.
In December 2024, I traveled to London for Christmas and had the opportunity to see her commissioned exhibition with Hyundai, _Open Wound_, at Tate Modern. This exhibition deeply touched my heart and gave me new insights into cyborg aesthetics. Her work reveals the vulnerabilities between humans and machines in a powerful way. I remember staying in the Turbine Hall for over an hour, just looking at this large-scale sculptural installation. It had its unique beauty, and it carried its own story, inviting the audience to share a sense of intimacy. As humans, we all have personal memories tied to emotions like these. I am always amazed by how art can evoke such deep feelings and potentially heal people.
Lee envisions the Turbine hall as a 'body' and the hanging fabric as its 'skin', dried from the pink-brown liquid spurt from the vein-like, thick silicone tubes into a large container below. She transforms this former factory space into a wound for people to wander through it. Regarding the exhibition's title, Open Wound, curator of Tate Modern Alvin Li explains:
'For Mire, art is not really about whether it can affect change or not. But rather, as an open wound, it is forever open and hurting. Her work creates that space for the public to reflect on these feeling such as ambivalence, confusion, fear, and to share those in a way that can be healing or transformative.'
Fisher, B.(2024) Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound, Installation View. Photo © Tate.
I agree with the idea that space has the potential to transform negative sensations into something else, allowing healing to take place. I experienced this firsthand while attending the exhibition. The entire installation felt like an enormous body marked by scars and wounds. At the same time, it was bleeding, drying, and resting—waiting to heal itself. Visitors witnessed this process together in the former Bankside Power Station. Lee suggests that it is ultimately about human compassion and our capacity to engage with different life experiences. Like the metaphor of an "open wound," the pain never fully stops; it lingers and remains raw.
In an interview, Lee described the artistic process as akin to having an open wound.
Lee notes that being an artist is like having an open wound – where, at first, when the cut is still fresh, “there’s a moment when you don’t know how deep it is.” However, once you do find out how deep it is, a limit is simultaneously imposed on the imagination.
For Lee, such a diagnosis is akin to an artist learning of the impact, or end product, of their practice, both of which often fail to meet expectations. “You’re always hurt by the fact that you cannot change the world with your art,” Lee says. She opts for ignorance as a way to avoid this outcome, choosing “to stay in the stretch of the moment” after the cut is initially made. (Pyle, 2024).
However, I prefer to take a more optimistic perspective on the power of art and its potential healing. For me, art is not only a medium for personal expression but also a means of communication with the public. I believe that art can influence people to rethink issues, open dialogues and inspire actions in their daily lives. Talley (2023), writing for Art Business News, stated that:
Art has become a powerful tool for those seeking to protest social and political issues. The profound impact that art has when used as a tool for advocacy is remarkable – it provides individuals with the opportunity to make their voices heard while inspiring others to strive towards the same collective goal of justice and equality.
Beyond activism, art also has a therapeutic effect. It allows people to process emotions, heal from pain, and transform negativity into strength. One of my favorite artists, Marina Abramović, captures this sentiment: '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.'
Lee also highlights how negativity is often treated as a taboo and argues that negativity is as important as positivity in like human lives. It’s not nice, but it does inspire us, and it does construct our lives in a very significant way (Lee, 2024). Similar to the concept in Cyborg Manifesto that negativity is resistance aligns with rejection of purity and wholeness. We should remain negativity about our environment, while embracing our own imperfections or perceived imperfections by the environment. You are essentially refusing to play by the rules of the environment.
Right: Wang, M.(2024) Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound, Installation View.
Another part of the work that really intrigued me was a corner of the Turbine hall, where pieces of fabric sculptures hung, some still saturated with liquid while others dried on racks. These fabrics were carefully maintained by technicians, emphasizing the labor and care involved in their transformation. Set to accumulate over the exhibition’s six-month run, the suspended skins and the machine-body intimacies that they reference fill the hall like ghosts. (Packard, 2024)
I was quite interested in this part because it reminds me of the concept Rebecca Horn once expressed: 'I like my machines to tire. They rest, they reflect, they wait. They are more than objects.’ The details of these 'resting skins' were lively and beautiful. Some had turned brownish and were almost falling apart, while others remained white, and ready to be 'formed' in the process. According to writer and editor Packard (2024).
Lee’s grotesque creation gets to work scrambling the symbolic order, muddying not only the apparent dichotomies of subject/object, inside/outside, and repulsion/desire, but also human/machine, online/offline, one/many, and now/then. The impulse underlying the installation seems to stem less from a desire to shock viewers out of complacency or affirm marginal positions than from a drive to discover what forms of closeness, connection, and feeling might emerge in the throes of such a breakdown. After all, a wound is also an opportunity for renewal.
Through Open Wound, Lee create a space for viewers to engage with discomfort, fluidity, and emotional vulnerability. In doing so, she challenges the audience to reconsider the intersections between the human body and the cycles of decay and regeneration. Perhaps the wounds, both physical and emotional are not only pain but also a possibility for transformation and renewal.
Cowling, O., Green, L.(2024) Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound, Installation View. Photo © Tate.
How do Taiwanese artists transform cyberfeminism and cyborgs to reflect local cultural narrativesThere are two Taiwanese artist's works I would like to explore, Betty Apple and Shu Lea Cheang. They use their unique perspectives to represent cyberfeminism and global queer discourses.
First, I want to briefly introduce Taiwan's rich colonial and immigrant history.
Taiwan, also known as Formosa, is an island located between the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Originally, it was home to 16 recognized Indigenous groups. Han Chinese migration began in the early 17th century, during the late Ming and early Qing periods. Between 1624 and 1662, Dutch and Spanish settlers established colonial rule over parts of Taiwan. In 1683, the Qing dynasty formally incorporated Taiwan, and in 1885, it was declared a province of the empire. After the Qing’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan and remained under Japanese rule until 1945. Following Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II, Taiwan was placed under the administration of the Republic of China (ROC). However, in 1949, after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese Communist Party, the ROC government relocated to Taiwan along with approximately 1.2 million migrants from China. Today, Taiwan is a melting pot of diverse cultures, shaped by its Indigenous heritage, waves of migration, and colonial influences. This rich history continues to inform its identity and evolving narratives.
Mermaid Awakening Club by Taiwanese artist Betty Apple, featuring a 'cyber mermaid' character inspired by Taiwanese culture. Using a near-future science fiction, the work imagines a future global warming that people might combine with AI machines to become 'future mermaids' living back under the sea (Kirn, 2024). It presents a radical recomposition of the world, where identities, bodies, and desires are freed within fantasy, transcending societal constraints and embracing fluidity. According to creator of the daily site CDM, Kirn (2024),
Examining the mermaid from the fairy tale, we see the themes of self-sacrifice for love and marriage as an economic community. The little mermaid is like an immigrant, respected in her own world but sacrificing everything for love. She loses her freedom of movement, her voice, and ultimately sees her beloved marry a princess from a neighboring country.
She is reminiscent of how women in Chinese or Asian cultures are often taught to endure and sacrifice themselves.
Betty points out that she never fully understood this fairytale because the mermaid could have lived well in a foreign place without the prince. Perhaps this reflects Taiwan’s complex history of colonialism and migration. Additionally, as an island surrounded by the sea, Taiwan has several mermaid myths, which led Betty to wonder if mermaids once existed in the past.
One example is Takrahaz, a mermaid with long black hair who is said to live in Sun Moon Lake, the largest body of water in Nantou County, Taiwan. This area is also home to the Thao (Ngam) people, one of Taiwan’s Indigenous tribes. There are several versions of Takrahaz, one of the story carries a strong environmental message. Takrahaz lived peacefully in Sun Moon Lake, coexisting with the Thao people and feeding on the lake’s aquatic life. The villagers often saw her basking in the sun or combing her hair on the rocks that rose above the water. However, one day, they noticed a sudden decline in fish stocks, and their fishing tools were frequently damaged or went missing. Numa, a Thao warrior skilled in water, volunteered to investigate. Diving to the bottom of the lake, he discovered Takrahaz destroying the tribe’s newly placed fishing traps. The two fought for three days and nights before Numa confronted her, demanding to know why she was interfering with their fishing. Takrahaz accused the Thao people of overfishing and disrupting the lake’s delicate ecosystem. With fish and shrimp populations dwindling, she had no choice but to act in order to survive.
Realizing the truth, Numa acknowledged the tribe’s mistake and sincerely apologized. The Thao people, understanding the consequences of their actions, made strict fishing regulations to restore ecological balance. These included increasing the mesh size of fishing nets and setting specific fishing seasons for different species. Moreover, Takrahaz taught them how to create floating islets to provide habitats for fish and shrimp, preventing their extinction. From then on, the Thao people and Takrahaz coexisted in harmony.
Mermaid Awakening Club parallels electronic music, queer sci-fi, and post-internet phenomena, offering a radical reimagining of gender, body, and race in an underwater cyber ecstasy (Tofu Collective). She dived into the Internet culture, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and created a Cyber Mermaid, trying to ask the public : ' If a machine mermaid from the Metaverse gave you a message from the future, would you listen? ' (Bird, 2022) She has always intrigue by those topics especially during the Covid-19. She contemplate the differences between human and machine when she makes music with computer and electronic equipments.
In 2024, Betty also published an album 'Taiwan Bay Be' which talks about Taiwan's identity with her own experiences. Once she said in the interview related to her performance, according to Bird (2022),
In my opinion, I think it’s a way to find humanity or find something we don’t have. That’s my feeling and it’s kind of symbolic to think about my feeling of my state in Taiwan right now – really unstable, not sure who we are.
I resonate with her feeling about the state in Taiwan,— 'Really unstable, not sure who we are'. As a Taiwanese, I often feel that we carry fragmented identities and experience deep confusions about who we really are. When I wrote about Taiwan's colonial history in the first part of this section, I felt a heaviness and even a sense of weakness in my body. At the same moment, it makes me think about the Cyborg features which are made of multiple histories and influences— Taiwanese identity is shaped by indigenous cultures, Chinese migration, Japanese colonization, and global capitalism. Like a Cyborg is composed of different organic and mechanical parts. Taiwan’s mixed cultural identity is always in flux, constantly upgrading, repairing, and evolving. It’s not about choosing one side, but about embracing multiple selves.
Another Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker, Shu Lea Cheang, created the sci-fi film UKI(2023), a viral, alt-reality cinema that challenges the male-dominated sci-fi genre. Cheang uses this form to express queer and anti-colonial perspectives. She has described her work as being part of the 'New Queer Cinema' genre. According to Project Native Informant (2024):
New Queer Cinema, a term coined by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich - deeply engrained in the politics of feminism and AIDS activism - argues for a new queer cinematic practice which centralises pleasure, ambiguity, radicality and fluidity, rejecting heteronormative representation and assimilation politics. Cheang augments New Queer Cinema in numerous ways, but crucially with the genre of science fiction.
Cheang has also said that her recent work belongs to what she calls the "Viral, Love, and Biohacking" era. Using a combination of 3D animation and live-action footage, she explores themes such as biohacking, gender politics, social inequality, viral transmission, pollution, and queer imagination. The story of UKI centres on a biotechnology company, GENOM Corporation. This company collects intimate personal data and develops pleasure-enhancing drugs, which are sold on a biological internet platform called BioNet. GENOM also attempts to reprogram participants' DNA to store and control. For example, in one scene, people who consume a red pill and shake hands experience a climax through data exchange between two bodies. Meanwhile, Reiko—a humanoid, techno-being formerly employed by GENOM to collect orgasm data—is discarded into a massive toxic landfill called E-Trashville. This wasteland is inhabited by hackers, migrants, trans-mutants, and native labourers. Ultimately, these marginalised groups collaborate with activists to sabotage GENOM. They help Reiko transform—through rebooting, recoding, and rebuilding—into the virus known as UKI.
The narrative draws inspiration from Cheang’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and the AIDS crisis between the 1980s to 1990s. According to LAS Art Foundation (2023):
Cheang often speaks about how she felt personally transformed by the AIDS virus – not on a physical level, but on a psychic one. The way the virus devastated the gay community, and the callous response from the government and pharmaceutical companies, made her reconsider body politics.
This reflection reminds me of the COVID-19 lockdown period, when we all forced to learn how to coexist with the virus. After the pandemic, it felt as though human collectively experienced a kind of 'transformation'. In an interview with Song-Yong Sing, Chaeng (2023) explains:
"Humans will become hybrid organisms. At the end of UKI, I discuss the hope for a non-binary gender society, which also relates to viruses. During the pandemic, whether or not you were infected with COVID-19, you received the virus through vaccination. We shouldn’t be fighting viruses—we should love them. Human organs can already be replaced with those of animals. We are becoming hybrid bodies, and the viruses and bacteria of animals are already operating inside us. This is not science fiction—it is reality."
The visual language of UKI blends glitch aesthetics, cyberpunk textures, and performance art, creating an immersive and subversive narrative space. Rather than portraying technology as purely dystopian, Cheang imagines it as a tool for queer survival and regeneration. UKI becomes not just a film or story, but a queer viral system—a cyborg that multiplies, mutates, and resists.
Fortunately, on 31 January 2024, I had the chance to attend a Film Screening: UKI by Shu Lea Cheang at Willem de Kooning Academy. I was deeply inspired by the large number of queer collaborators in Cheang’s crew, and by the pride she expressed when discussing the work.
This experience motivated me to strive for a similar approach in my own project. As a result, I will try to achieve 80% references cited by gender-diverse people.
In addition, Cheang also spoke about the profound influence of Donna Haraway’s The Cyborg Manifesto and VNS Matrix’s The Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century, especially during the 1990s. These texts strongly shaped her earlier works, particularly in how she challenged patriarchal dominance. In an interview with the Women Make Waves International Film Festival (2024), she explained:
My imagination of the cyborg comes from the concept of transness. When we talk about gender, transgender, or gender modification, perhaps it is transness itself that truly practices cyborg theory. Whether it involves applying for bodily modifications, creating a penis, or entirely restructuring the body, these are all powerful embodied actions. These theories and concepts have greatly influenced my works—for instance, in exploring the relationship between interface and interaction between humans and machines. The machine is not merely a tool or an attachment; it is a body in itself. For trans individuals, they often rely on hormones to alter their bodies. For me, this represents another kind of interface—another form of relationship with machines.
This interpretation beautifully merges queer and trans theory with cyberfeminism, offering a lens through which embodiment, identity, and technology are deeply interconnected.
However, in Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway argued that, Ironically, it might be the unnatural cyborg women making chips in Asia and spiral dancing in Santa Rita whose constructed unities will guide effective oppositional strategies. (Haraway, 1985) This part is odd for me personally, especially The nimble little fingers of "Oriental" women.
I think perhaps Donna Haraway encountered certain contradictions and challenges when addressing "race and geopolitics" in A Cyborg Manifesto. On one hand, she attempted to imagine a cyborg subject that transcends race, gender, and geography. On the other hand, her descriptions were deeply rooted in a Western gaze and an abstract cultural-political framework. Take for example her mention of "Oriental women's nimble fingers." This phrase reflects a long-standing colonial imagination. Asian women are often stereotyped as “diligent, meticulous, and obedient,” especially within Western technological production chains—such as in chip manufacturing and electronics industries. Haraway pointed out this labor arrangement, but her language blurred the actual power structures of exploitation and oppression.
She tried to reframe these laboring Asian women as cyborg subjects. On the surface, this appears to be an act of empowerment. However, this kind of symbolic translation may be problematic. Instead of recognizing them as real political agents, she transforms them into metaphoric cyborgs (Beinsteiner, 2019). One may ask: did she truly understand or respect the voices of Asian women embedded in these exploitative systems? Her discourse, framed through Western academic language, risks objectifying these women as symbolic figures rather than acknowledging them as concrete subjects with agency and resistance (Mohanty, 1984).
I believe Haraway’s writing turns Asian women’s bodies into symbols or metaphors, rather than acknowledging them as social and historical beings. Her approach lacks intersectionality and a deeper postcolonial critique.
This reflection makes me contemplate: even anti-authoritarian discourses can unintentionally reproduce colonial languages and alienation.
So how might Haraway’s cyborg be re-appropriated or reborn through hybridity in different contexts?
In conclusion, perhaps this is a powerful way to rethink identity as something hybrid, adaptive, and resistant to imposed binaries. In addition, how can we rewrite a cyborg narrative from the perspective of an Asian subject? What might a non-white, non-Western cyborg look like? What are their body, emotions, language, and forms of resistance?
Interdisciplinary cultural researcher Zoë Sofoulis(2015) wrote,
I’d suggest that what is most relevant about the Cyborg Manifesto today is not the cyborg figure but the kind of question to which it was posed as an ironic and blasphemous answer: what new myths and metaphors can help us frame our political languages and analyses of science of technology (and their associated conditions of production) in order to resist domination?
The cyborg was just one answer to that particular question of Haraway’s. It is up to us to formulate our own questions about our contemporary situation and to invent metaphors that answer those questions, or at least help us ask better questions.
I agree with the conclusion statement from a scholar, new media artist Margaret Rhee(2022) in the monograph In Search of My Robot: Race, Technology, and the Asian American Body,
We can understand that neither technology nor theory emerge from a void. Is it our work, then, not simply to introduce correctives to existing theory, but to push forward, to seek theoretical frameworks that make Haraway’s Asian feminist cyborg more than a figure of science fiction, but a feminist STS (Science and Technology Studies) reality?
Wang, M.(2025) Weaving loom and Yin Yu during the workshop
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This work has been produced in the context of the graduation research of Michel M.H. Wang from the Experimental Publishing (XPUB) Master course at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
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This publication is based on the graduation thesis The Healing of becoming: queer hybridity, cyborg flesh, and the reimagining of belonging in Asian futures, written
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Special thanks to Yizon, Yuan, Wyn, Jeanne, and Lungssu Yen.
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Author: Michel M.H. Wang
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Title of Work: The Healing of becoming: queer hybridity, cyborg flesh, and the reimagining of belonging in Asian futures
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Bruckner noted(2020),
Objects of sexual pleasure are chemically linked to the very plastics that, in their molecular texture, make sexual indifferences possible. Plastics carry their queerness into sex, inhibiting sexual reproduction. Sexual difference may not even turn out to have a future, as plastic mirrors a form of becoming based on technological and bacterial merging, rather than the reproductive ability of organic creatures.
She also brings attention to Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical known for its reproductive toxicity. BPA disrupts human reproduction by mimicking hormones and sometimes altering gender. To her, plastics challenge the binary framework of society. They represent endless possibilities for transformation and adaptability while resisting complete decomposition. This resilience mirrors the potential for humans to live in a fast-changing world. She invites us to ask: Can we learn from the plastics to build resilience and adaptability in our lives? Although plastic also symbolize global problems like pollution, toxicity, and waste accumulation, Bruckner envisions a political and social world that embrace the uncertainty and non-traditional forms of life, focusing on the cooperation rather than control.
This perspective is interesting because plastic is often associated with negative and harmful effects. However, Johanna offers a fresh insight into the possibilities of plastic, encouraging me to rethink these concepts. At the same time, the sex bot reminds me of the legendary Japanese cyberpunk animation Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), where the sex doll robots are portrayed with pale, white skin. This raises a question for me: does this reflect a lack of diversity in skin tones, or is it just simply a stylistic choice aligned with the cyborg aesthetic of non-human robotic creatures?
The inspiration for the work begins with a deep-sea animal called the brittle star, which interacts with the sex robot. Moreover, the sex robot performs in the form of Wolbachia bacteria, a microorganism known for its ability to disrupt sexual behavior and gender norms. Finally, the sex robot engages with intersex beings, indicating a future of gender that embraces diverse variations and practices, moving beyond the binary framework. From my view, the brittle star and Wolbachia bacteria also reflect Donna Haraway’s concept of cyborg sexuality, which restores the baroque, non-reproductive mechanisms found in ferns and invertebrates to counter heterosexual hegemony (Haraway, 1985).
Plastic as a metaphor for resistance may be Bruckner's way of challenging the binary-centered world we live in. Similarly, French artist Louise Bourgeois uses another soft material—fabric—to resist and engage with the world. For her, art becomes a medium for self-healing, transforming wounds and scars into creative expression. Personally, I resonate with it because making art is not only my way of making a statement but also a means of turning personal trauma and pain into powerful resistance.
Louise Bourgeois began using household fabric, clothes and tapestries to create artworks in her 80s. Through these pieces, she transformed personal experiences—childhood trauma, motherhood, sexuality, fear, and loneliness—into various fabric installations. Bourgeois repurposed meaningful garments from her youth into new forms of textile art. Those clothes are resonated with her life stories. She described how 'Clothing is an exercise in memory. It makes me explore the past: how did I feel when I wore that. They are like signposts in the search for the past.' Bourgeois associated cutting, tearing, sewing and assembling with notions of reparation and the physical expression of emotional tension. The textile works invite us to reconsider the meaning of “mending” and to see it as a kind of emotional redemption (Sterk, 2022).
Her fabric sculpture often looks uncanny, sometimes similar to the appearance of the Frankenstein's monster and often reveal the gaps and stitches between pieces of fabric, creating visible seams. These may symbolize her gentle act of mending past wounds, thread by thread. The exposed seams serve as metaphors for her past scars, gradually healing as she engages in the process of creation. Once she said: 'I always had the fear of being separated and abandoned. The sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole.' To me, the act of creating, like sewing, mending, and modifying could bring the self-healing to myself. The process of repairing clothes is similar to a healing and regenerative ritual, which between you and the fabric in your hands.
Those imperfections are essential because they acknowledge vulnerability while embodying resilience and strength—qualities that resonate with the cyborg concept. It is thrilling to see that Bourgeois transforms her art with her own belongings and gives them a new forms and meanings. Just like she said 'The beautiful clothes from your youth – so what – sacrifice / them, eaten by the moths. (1995)'
Bourgeois, L. Pierre. Rosa Patchwork-Stoff 1998 © The Easton Foundation/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022 und VAGA at ARS, NY, Photo: Christopher Burke
This chapter dives into how cyborg aesthetics are interpreted in the works of Asian artists and the shared experiences between Asian queer diasporas
II.I Asian Artists and queerness
First, I want to discuss the South Korean artist Mire Lee and her work, Open Wound.
In contrast to Louise Bourgeois, who appears to use art as a means of healing from scars and wounds, Lee emphasizes the state of being in an 'open wound'. Her work invites people to engage with these emotions collectively, creating a space for resonance and shared vulnerability.
In December 2024, I traveled to London for Christmas and had the opportunity to see her commissioned exhibition with Hyundai, _Open Wound_, at Tate Modern. This exhibition deeply touched my heart and gave me new insights into cyborg aesthetics. Her work reveals the vulnerabilities between humans and machines in a powerful way. I remember staying in the Turbine Hall for over an hour, just looking at this large-scale sculptural installation. It had its unique beauty, and it carried its own story, inviting the audience to share a sense of intimacy. As humans, we all have personal memories tied to emotions like these. I am always amazed by how art can evoke such deep feelings and potentially heal people.
Lee envisions the Turbine hall as a 'body' and the hanging fabric as its 'skin', dried from the pink-brown liquid spurt from the vein-like, thick silicone tubes into a large container below. She transforms this former factory space into a wound for people to wander through it. Regarding the exhibition's title, Open Wound, curator of Tate Modern Alvin Li explains:
'For Mire, art is not really about whether it can affect change or not. But rather, as an open wound, it is forever open and hurting. Her work creates that space for the public to reflect on these feeling such as ambivalence, confusion, fear, and to share those in a way that can be healing or transformative.'
Fisher, B.(2024) Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound, Installation View. Photo © Tate.
I agree with the idea that space has the potential to transform negative sensations into something else, allowing healing to take place. I experienced this firsthand while attending the exhibition. The entire installation felt like an enormous body marked by scars and wounds. At the same time, it was bleeding, drying, and resting—waiting to heal itself. Visitors witnessed this process together in the former Bankside Power Station. Lee suggests that it is ultimately about human compassion and our capacity to engage with different life experiences. Like the metaphor of an "open wound," the pain never fully stops; it lingers and remains raw.
In an interview, Lee described the artistic process as akin to having an open wound.
Lee notes that being an artist is like having an open wound – where, at first, when the cut is still fresh, “there’s a moment when you don’t know how deep it is.” However, once you do find out how deep it is, a limit is simultaneously imposed on the imagination.
For Lee, such a diagnosis is akin to an artist learning of the impact, or end product, of their practice, both of which often fail to meet expectations. “You’re always hurt by the fact that you cannot change the world with your art,” Lee says. She opts for ignorance as a way to avoid this outcome, choosing “to stay in the stretch of the moment” after the cut is initially made. (Pyle, 2024).
However, I prefer to take a more optimistic perspective on the power of art and its potential healing. For me, art is not only a medium for personal expression but also a means of communication with the public. I believe that art can influence people to rethink issues, open dialogues and inspire actions in their daily lives. Talley (2023), writing for Art Business News, stated that:
Art has become a powerful tool for those seeking to protest social and political issues. The profound impact that art has when used as a tool for advocacy is remarkable – it provides individuals with the opportunity to make their voices heard while inspiring others to strive towards the same collective goal of justice and equality.
Beyond activism, art also has a therapeutic effect. It allows people to process emotions, heal from pain, and transform negativity into strength. One of my favorite artists, Marina Abramović, captures this sentiment: '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.'
Lee also highlights how negativity is often treated as a taboo and argues that negativity is as important as positivity in like human lives. It’s not nice, but it does inspire us, and it does construct our lives in a very significant way (Lee, 2024). Similar to the concept in Cyborg Manifesto that negativity is resistance aligns with rejection of purity and wholeness. We should remain negativity about our environment, while embracing our own imperfections or perceived imperfections by the environment. You are essentially refusing to play by the rules of the environment.
Right: Wang, M.(2024) Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound, Installation View.
Another part of the work that really intrigued me was a corner of the Turbine hall, where pieces of fabric sculptures hung, some still saturated with liquid while others dried on racks. These fabrics were carefully maintained by technicians, emphasizing the labor and care involved in their transformation. Set to accumulate over the exhibition’s six-month run, the suspended skins and the machine-body intimacies that they reference fill the hall like ghosts. (Packard, 2024)
I was quite interested in this part because it reminds me of the concept Rebecca Horn once expressed: 'I like my machines to tire. They rest, they reflect, they wait. They are more than objects.’ The details of these 'resting skins' were lively and beautiful. Some had turned brownish and were almost falling apart, while others remained white, and ready to be 'formed' in the process. According to writer and editor Packard (2024).
Lee’s grotesque creation gets to work scrambling the symbolic order, muddying not only the apparent dichotomies of subject/object, inside/outside, and repulsion/desire, but also human/machine, online/offline, one/many, and now/then. The impulse underlying the installation seems to stem less from a desire to shock viewers out of complacency or affirm marginal positions than from a drive to discover what forms of closeness, connection, and feeling might emerge in the throes of such a breakdown. After all, a wound is also an opportunity for renewal.
Through Open Wound, Lee create a space for viewers to engage with discomfort, fluidity, and emotional vulnerability. In doing so, she challenges the audience to reconsider the intersections between the human body and the cycles of decay and regeneration. Perhaps the wounds, both physical and emotional are not only pain but also a possibility for transformation and renewal.
Cowling, O., Green, L.(2024) Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound, Installation View. Photo © Tate.
How do Taiwanese artists transform cyberfeminism and cyborgs to reflect local cultural narratives
First, I want to briefly introduce Taiwan's rich colonial and immigrant history.
Taiwan, also known as Formosa, is an island located between the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Originally, it was home to 16 recognized Indigenous groups. Han Chinese migration began in the early 17th century, during the late Ming and early Qing periods. Between 1624 and 1662, Dutch and Spanish settlers established colonial rule over parts of Taiwan. In 1683, the Qing dynasty formally incorporated Taiwan, and in 1885, it was declared a province of the empire. After the Qing’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan and remained under Japanese rule until 1945. Following Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II, Taiwan was placed under the administration of the Republic of China (ROC). However, in 1949, after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese Communist Party, the ROC government relocated to Taiwan along with approximately 1.2 million migrants from China. Today, Taiwan is a melting pot of diverse cultures, shaped by its Indigenous heritage, waves of migration, and colonial influences. This rich history continues to inform its identity and evolving narratives.
Mermaid Awakening Club by Taiwanese artist Betty Apple, featuring a 'cyber mermaid' character inspired by Taiwanese culture. Using a near-future science fiction, the work imagines a future global warming that people might combine with AI machines to become 'future mermaids' living back under the sea (Kirn, 2024). It presents a radical recomposition of the world, where identities, bodies, and desires are freed within fantasy, transcending societal constraints and embracing fluidity. According to creator of the daily site CDM, Kirn (2024),
Examining the mermaid from the fairy tale, we see the themes of self-sacrifice for love and marriage as an economic community. The little mermaid is like an immigrant, respected in her own world but sacrificing everything for love. She loses her freedom of movement, her voice, and ultimately sees her beloved marry a princess from a neighboring country.
She is reminiscent of how women in Chinese or Asian cultures are often taught to endure and sacrifice themselves.
Betty points out that she never fully understood this fairytale because the mermaid could have lived well in a foreign place without the prince. Perhaps this reflects Taiwan’s complex history of colonialism and migration. Additionally, as an island surrounded by the sea, Taiwan has several mermaid myths, which led Betty to wonder if mermaids once existed in the past.
One example is Takrahaz, a mermaid with long black hair who is said to live in Sun Moon Lake, the largest body of water in Nantou County, Taiwan. This area is also home to the Thao (Ngam) people, one of Taiwan’s Indigenous tribes. There are several versions of Takrahaz, one of the story carries a strong environmental message. Takrahaz lived peacefully in Sun Moon Lake, coexisting with the Thao people and feeding on the lake’s aquatic life. The villagers often saw her basking in the sun or combing her hair on the rocks that rose above the water. However, one day, they noticed a sudden decline in fish stocks, and their fishing tools were frequently damaged or went missing. Numa, a Thao warrior skilled in water, volunteered to investigate. Diving to the bottom of the lake, he discovered Takrahaz destroying the tribe’s newly placed fishing traps. The two fought for three days and nights before Numa confronted her, demanding to know why she was interfering with their fishing. Takrahaz accused the Thao people of overfishing and disrupting the lake’s delicate ecosystem. With fish and shrimp populations dwindling, she had no choice but to act in order to survive.
Realizing the truth, Numa acknowledged the tribe’s mistake and sincerely apologized. The Thao people, understanding the consequences of their actions, made strict fishing regulations to restore ecological balance. These included increasing the mesh size of fishing nets and setting specific fishing seasons for different species. Moreover, Takrahaz taught them how to create floating islets to provide habitats for fish and shrimp, preventing their extinction. From then on, the Thao people and Takrahaz coexisted in harmony.
Mermaid Awakening Club parallels electronic music, queer sci-fi, and post-internet phenomena, offering a radical reimagining of gender, body, and race in an underwater cyber ecstasy (Tofu Collective). She dived into the Internet culture, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and created a Cyber Mermaid, trying to ask the public : ' If a machine mermaid from the Metaverse gave you a message from the future, would you listen? ' (Bird, 2022) She has always intrigue by those topics especially during the Covid-19. She contemplate the differences between human and machine when she makes music with computer and electronic equipments.
In 2024, Betty also published an album 'Taiwan Bay Be' which talks about Taiwan's identity with her own experiences. Once she said in the interview related to her performance, according to Bird (2022),
In my opinion, I think it’s a way to find humanity or find something we don’t have. That’s my feeling and it’s kind of symbolic to think about my feeling of my state in Taiwan right now – really unstable, not sure who we are.
I resonate with her feeling about the state in Taiwan,— 'Really unstable, not sure who we are'. As a Taiwanese, I often feel that we carry fragmented identities and experience deep confusions about who we really are. When I wrote about Taiwan's colonial history in the first part of this section, I felt a heaviness and even a sense of weakness in my body. At the same moment, it makes me think about the Cyborg features which are made of multiple histories and influences— Taiwanese identity is shaped by indigenous cultures, Chinese migration, Japanese colonization, and global capitalism. Like a Cyborg is composed of different organic and mechanical parts. Taiwan’s mixed cultural identity is always in flux, constantly upgrading, repairing, and evolving. It’s not about choosing one side, but about embracing multiple selves.
Another Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker, Shu Lea Cheang, created the sci-fi film UKI(2023), a viral, alt-reality cinema that challenges the male-dominated sci-fi genre. Cheang uses this form to express queer and anti-colonial perspectives. She has described her work as being part of the 'New Queer Cinema' genre. According to Project Native Informant (2024):
New Queer Cinema, a term coined by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich - deeply engrained in the politics of feminism and AIDS activism - argues for a new queer cinematic practice which centralises pleasure, ambiguity, radicality and fluidity, rejecting heteronormative representation and assimilation politics. Cheang augments New Queer Cinema in numerous ways, but crucially with the genre of science fiction.
Cheang has also said that her recent work belongs to what she calls the "Viral, Love, and Biohacking" era. Using a combination of 3D animation and live-action footage, she explores themes such as biohacking, gender politics, social inequality, viral transmission, pollution, and queer imagination. The story of UKI centres on a biotechnology company, GENOM Corporation. This company collects intimate personal data and develops pleasure-enhancing drugs, which are sold on a biological internet platform called BioNet. GENOM also attempts to reprogram participants' DNA to store and control. For example, in one scene, people who consume a red pill and shake hands experience a climax through data exchange between two bodies. Meanwhile, Reiko—a humanoid, techno-being formerly employed by GENOM to collect orgasm data—is discarded into a massive toxic landfill called E-Trashville. This wasteland is inhabited by hackers, migrants, trans-mutants, and native labourers. Ultimately, these marginalised groups collaborate with activists to sabotage GENOM. They help Reiko transform—through rebooting, recoding, and rebuilding—into the virus known as UKI.
The narrative draws inspiration from Cheang’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and the AIDS crisis between the 1980s to 1990s. According to LAS Art Foundation (2023):
Cheang often speaks about how she felt personally transformed by the AIDS virus – not on a physical level, but on a psychic one. The way the virus devastated the gay community, and the callous response from the government and pharmaceutical companies, made her reconsider body politics.
This reflection reminds me of the COVID-19 lockdown period, when we all forced to learn how to coexist with the virus. After the pandemic, it felt as though human collectively experienced a kind of 'transformation'. In an interview with Song-Yong Sing, Chaeng (2023) explains:
"Humans will become hybrid organisms. At the end of UKI, I discuss the hope for a non-binary gender society, which also relates to viruses. During the pandemic, whether or not you were infected with COVID-19, you received the virus through vaccination. We shouldn’t be fighting viruses—we should love them. Human organs can already be replaced with those of animals. We are becoming hybrid bodies, and the viruses and bacteria of animals are already operating inside us. This is not science fiction—it is reality."
The visual language of UKI blends glitch aesthetics, cyberpunk textures, and performance art, creating an immersive and subversive narrative space. Rather than portraying technology as purely dystopian, Cheang imagines it as a tool for queer survival and regeneration. UKI becomes not just a film or story, but a queer viral system—a cyborg that multiplies, mutates, and resists.
Fortunately, on 31 January 2024, I had the chance to attend a Film Screening: UKI by Shu Lea Cheang at Willem de Kooning Academy. I was deeply inspired by the large number of queer collaborators in Cheang’s crew, and by the pride she expressed when discussing the work.
This experience motivated me to strive for a similar approach in my own project. As a result, I will try to achieve 80% references cited by gender-diverse people.
In addition, Cheang also spoke about the profound influence of Donna Haraway’s The Cyborg Manifesto and VNS Matrix’s The Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century, especially during the 1990s. These texts strongly shaped her earlier works, particularly in how she challenged patriarchal dominance. In an interview with the Women Make Waves International Film Festival (2024), she explained:
My imagination of the cyborg comes from the concept of transness. When we talk about gender, transgender, or gender modification, perhaps it is transness itself that truly practices cyborg theory. Whether it involves applying for bodily modifications, creating a penis, or entirely restructuring the body, these are all powerful embodied actions. These theories and concepts have greatly influenced my works—for instance, in exploring the relationship between interface and interaction between humans and machines. The machine is not merely a tool or an attachment; it is a body in itself. For trans individuals, they often rely on hormones to alter their bodies. For me, this represents another kind of interface—another form of relationship with machines.
This interpretation beautifully merges queer and trans theory with cyberfeminism, offering a lens through which embodiment, identity, and technology are deeply interconnected.
However, in Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway argued that, Ironically, it might be the unnatural cyborg women making chips in Asia and spiral dancing in Santa Rita whose constructed unities will guide effective oppositional strategies. (Haraway, 1985) This part is odd for me personally, especially The nimble little fingers of "Oriental" women.
I think perhaps Donna Haraway encountered certain contradictions and challenges when addressing "race and geopolitics" in A Cyborg Manifesto. On one hand, she attempted to imagine a cyborg subject that transcends race, gender, and geography. On the other hand, her descriptions were deeply rooted in a Western gaze and an abstract cultural-political framework. Take for example her mention of "Oriental women's nimble fingers." This phrase reflects a long-standing colonial imagination. Asian women are often stereotyped as “diligent, meticulous, and obedient,” especially within Western technological production chains—such as in chip manufacturing and electronics industries. Haraway pointed out this labor arrangement, but her language blurred the actual power structures of exploitation and oppression.
She tried to reframe these laboring Asian women as cyborg subjects. On the surface, this appears to be an act of empowerment. However, this kind of symbolic translation may be problematic. Instead of recognizing them as real political agents, she transforms them into metaphoric cyborgs (Beinsteiner, 2019). One may ask: did she truly understand or respect the voices of Asian women embedded in these exploitative systems? Her discourse, framed through Western academic language, risks objectifying these women as symbolic figures rather than acknowledging them as concrete subjects with agency and resistance (Mohanty, 1984).
I believe Haraway’s writing turns Asian women’s bodies into symbols or metaphors, rather than acknowledging them as social and historical beings. Her approach lacks intersectionality and a deeper postcolonial critique.
This reflection makes me contemplate: even anti-authoritarian discourses can unintentionally reproduce colonial languages and alienation.
So how might Haraway’s cyborg be re-appropriated or reborn through hybridity in different contexts?
In conclusion, perhaps this is a powerful way to rethink identity as something hybrid, adaptive, and resistant to imposed binaries. In addition, how can we rewrite a cyborg narrative from the perspective of an Asian subject? What might a non-white, non-Western cyborg look like? What are their body, emotions, language, and forms of resistance?
Interdisciplinary cultural researcher Zoë Sofoulis(2015) wrote,
I’d suggest that what is most relevant about the Cyborg Manifesto today is not the cyborg figure but the kind of question to which it was posed as an ironic and blasphemous answer: what new myths and metaphors can help us frame our political languages and analyses of science of technology (and their associated conditions of production) in order to resist domination?
The cyborg was just one answer to that particular question of Haraway’s. It is up to us to formulate our own questions about our contemporary situation and to invent metaphors that answer those questions, or at least help us ask better questions.
I agree with the conclusion statement from a scholar, new media artist Margaret Rhee(2022) in the monograph In Search of My Robot: Race, Technology, and the Asian American Body,
We can understand that neither technology nor theory emerge from a void. Is it our work, then, not simply to introduce correctives to existing theory, but to push forward, to seek theoretical frameworks that make Haraway’s Asian feminist cyborg more than a figure of science fiction, but a feminist STS (Science and Technology Studies) reality?
II.II Stories from the Asian queer communities
Complete versions of the referenced texts are included in Asian Queer Narrative
⊹Introduction
⊹Personal Reflection
Wyn believes that family remains the biggest challenge for queer individuals and the most important issue to confront, while societal pressures come second. We discussed how the experiences of many Asians might be similar—we have also not come out to our families or talked about our gender identities with them. During our conversation on February 5, they were weaving on a loom using fabric scraps they had collected from the trash bunker in school. They found the repetitive motion soothing and believed it had a therapeutic effect. I was fascinated by this and decided to weave alongside them, hoping to incorporate this creative process into my Cyborg art work. For me, weaving can also be seen as a form of resistance and a way to open dialogues in community—linking to feminist and craftivist concepts that challenge traditional hierarchies of art and labor. Through the act of weaving, we experience care, slowness, healing and intimacy. It becomes not only a tactile practice, but also a political gesture—connecting queer, non-binary, and other identities through material storytelling.Complete versions of the referenced texts are included in Asian Queer Narrative
⊹Introduction
In order to get deeper understandings of different perspectives, hopes about the future and stories from Asian queers live in the Netherlands, and to foster dialogue for the Asian community in the Netherlands, I organized a Fabric repair + Story sharing workshop. The goal was to explore the intersection of queerness and Asian identity, while addressing themes such as sustainability, styling, and self-healing aspects. The workshop/interview aimed to provide a platform for sharing experiences, exchanging knowledge, and building communities focused on solidarity. In addition, I asked my guests to bring two things: an item of clothing to repair, and an objector garment they have a personal attachment to. I hope to get inspirations and transform it into the Cyborg I create, using different making processes and materials connected to the stories people share.
The event was structured into two parts:
The event was structured into two parts:
* Part 1– Bring the clothes or fabric you want to repair and we will share our stories while mending or modifying. The story could be your own experience, perspective, challenge, hopes and feelings as a Asian queer/non-binary/LGBTQIA+ living in Europe.
* Part 2– Bring a garment or object that has a self-identity aspects and share about your relationship with it. For example, why it's so important to you? Did you have special moment with it?
* Do you think objects have the potential to bring self-healing to people?
* Part 2– Bring a garment or object that has a self-identity aspects and share about your relationship with it. For example, why it's so important to you? Did you have special moment with it?
* Do you think objects have the potential to bring self-healing to people?
⊹Personal Reflection
In the beginning, I planned to organize a small workshop with 3-5 participants. However, I soon realized that a one-on-one format might be more comfortable, as the questions were quite intimate and personal. As a result, the sessions sometimes felt more like interviews. Surprisingly, more people were interested in participating than I imagined. Since January 2025, I have conducted 6 workshops/interviews, meeting 5 Asian and 3 European participants. Durning the workshop, I introduced myself using she/they pronouns. Interestingly, I noticed that my pronouns had naturally shifted to they/them.
We discussed how everyone has slightly different definitions of queerness.
I feel that the concept of queerness is not yet widely understood in Taiwan. And then we discussed the use of "they" in Mandarin, specifically the character "他" (ta), and the idea of creating a non-binary pronoun, such as "ㄊㄚ" or "Ta." Since Mandarin does not have a non-binary pronoun, and all gendered pronouns are pronounced the same ("ta"), I feel that this makes it difficult to use gender pronouns effectively in everyday conversations. This could indirectly influence people's awareness—because when you speak, you also hear yourself using certain words. If all gendered pronouns sound the same, people may lack a more diverse understanding of gender identities.
We discussed how everyone has slightly different definitions of queerness.
I feel that the concept of queerness is not yet widely understood in Taiwan. And then we discussed the use of "they" in Mandarin, specifically the character "他" (ta), and the idea of creating a non-binary pronoun, such as "ㄊㄚ" or "Ta." Since Mandarin does not have a non-binary pronoun, and all gendered pronouns are pronounced the same ("ta"), I feel that this makes it difficult to use gender pronouns effectively in everyday conversations. This could indirectly influence people's awareness—because when you speak, you also hear yourself using certain words. If all gendered pronouns sound the same, people may lack a more diverse understanding of gender identities.
Another important aspect we discussed durning the workshop on January 17 was the power of styling and how it influences the way people feel. Styling can shape how individuals perceive themselves, fostering confidence and reinforcing aspects of their identity. Jeanne has her own unique approach to styling in daily life. When getting dressed, she incorporates symbols into her outfit as a way to define her personal aesthetics. Each time she styles her look, she focuses on a specific symbol, such as texture, color, or patterns. She applies this same logic in her creative work as well.
Regarding the experiences, challenges, and future hopes of being an Asian queer/non-binary/LGBTQIA+ person living in the Netherlands, Yuan hopes to connect with more queer communities. Perhaps the complexity of being an Asian queer person—intertwined with political and other factors—makes it harder for other groups to fully empathize with our experiences. I believe this is why it is even more important for Asian queers living in Europe to have a sense of community and mutual support. Yuan strongly agrees, saying, "Maybe some people don’t feel the need to integrate into a specific community, but there will always be others who need care and support." (This discussion took place durning the interview held on 23 January.)
Regarding the experiences, challenges, and future hopes of being an Asian queer/non-binary/LGBTQIA+ person living in the Netherlands, Yuan hopes to connect with more queer communities. Perhaps the complexity of being an Asian queer person—intertwined with political and other factors—makes it harder for other groups to fully empathize with our experiences. I believe this is why it is even more important for Asian queers living in Europe to have a sense of community and mutual support. Yuan strongly agrees, saying, "Maybe some people don’t feel the need to integrate into a specific community, but there will always be others who need care and support." (This discussion took place durning the interview held on 23 January.)
Wang, M.(2025) Weaving loom and Yin Yu during the workshop
⊹Future Steps
Arca/Kanda, J. (2017) Reverie Music video screenshot (0:41) I want to create a series of cyborg-inspired objects and build a new world based in reality that allows for imagining broader possibilities. This series will include an interactive fashion garment or art installation. The dress may feature interactive elements, such as sensors embedded in the fabric that connect to software, projecting visuals onto a white wall. To create an immersive experience, the project will also include a 20-minute live performance, inviting the audience to contemplate the following questions: 'Modern queer and gender spectrums have already broken down the traditional binary concept of gender; could there be even more possibilities? Do we still need these or similar myths and metaphors?'
All materials used in my project will prioritize environmental sustainability. Many of these are inspired by the workshops I organized. For example, elements such as fluffy fur fabric, dried flowers, branches, stones, crystal. I really admire the British fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood, who advocated for sustainable fashion with her famous message: 'Buy less, choose well, make it last. (2014)'. As a fashion stylist for five years, I often saw clothes, accessories, and shoes being used only once or twice before being left unused for a long time. This waste of resources and its impact on environmental pollution, plus with the labor exploitation and plagiarism issues brought by fast fashion, made me think about how to address these challenges.
In addition, I also plan to publish a Chinese version of my thesis, with the goal of organizing exhibitions, events, and workshops in Taiwan to connect with the local community.
All materials used in my project will prioritize environmental sustainability. Many of these are inspired by the workshops I organized. For example, elements such as fluffy fur fabric, dried flowers, branches, stones, crystal. I really admire the British fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood, who advocated for sustainable fashion with her famous message: 'Buy less, choose well, make it last. (2014)'. As a fashion stylist for five years, I often saw clothes, accessories, and shoes being used only once or twice before being left unused for a long time. This waste of resources and its impact on environmental pollution, plus with the labor exploitation and plagiarism issues brought by fast fashion, made me think about how to address these challenges.
In addition, I also plan to publish a Chinese version of my thesis, with the goal of organizing exhibitions, events, and workshops in Taiwan to connect with the local community.
ConclusionThis thesis began as an exploration— of belonging, of identity, of how we might reimagine ourselves in a world that often insists on fixed categories. Through the lenses of cyberfeminism, queer theory, and Taiwanese cultural hybridity, I have attempted to trace the outlines of a world in flux—a world where cyborgs are not just fantasy, but metaphors for lived realities.
Taiwan, it feels like a cyborg to me: an island-body composed of layered histories, shaped by both survival and adaptation, constantly upgrading, repairing, and reinventing itself. It’s not about choosing one side, one language, one past—but about holding all of it, imperfectly and powerfully, invites us to embrace multiplicity, contradiction, and becoming.
My research advocates for a form of resistance that is not only theoretical but also deeply material. As Judy Wajcman argues in The Cyborg Solution, while manifestos are powerful tools for imagining radical futures, they must be accompanied by a practical emancipatory politics.
So, I want to propose a materialist (technoscientific) practice and politics—not only theorized but lived, repaired, recycled, stitched together by hand, by ourselves. From objects to second-hand fabrics, every material choice in my project is a political act, a feminist gesture, a queering of technological norms.
This approach has also extended from individual creation into communal exploration. Through organizing workshops with Asian queer communities living in the Netherlands, I have created space for story-sharing, and the re-imagination of identity’s potential. The cyborg here is not just an aesthetic figure, but a companion in the journey of healing and becoming.
Ultimately, this work is not an ending but a beginning. To be unapologetically partial, impure, and evolving. It is also a invitation– to those who live in between, who never quite fit, who are still figuring it out. It’s a gesture toward a queer, cyborg future shaped by care, collaboration, self-healing, and continuous becoming.
we are not returning to a mythical wholeness, but are imagine new ways of being together.
Reference and Bibliography
Taiwan, it feels like a cyborg to me: an island-body composed of layered histories, shaped by both survival and adaptation, constantly upgrading, repairing, and reinventing itself. It’s not about choosing one side, one language, one past—but about holding all of it, imperfectly and powerfully, invites us to embrace multiplicity, contradiction, and becoming.
My research advocates for a form of resistance that is not only theoretical but also deeply material. As Judy Wajcman argues in The Cyborg Solution, while manifestos are powerful tools for imagining radical futures, they must be accompanied by a practical emancipatory politics.
So, I want to propose a materialist (technoscientific) practice and politics—not only theorized but lived, repaired, recycled, stitched together by hand, by ourselves. From objects to second-hand fabrics, every material choice in my project is a political act, a feminist gesture, a queering of technological norms.
This approach has also extended from individual creation into communal exploration. Through organizing workshops with Asian queer communities living in the Netherlands, I have created space for story-sharing, and the re-imagination of identity’s potential. The cyborg here is not just an aesthetic figure, but a companion in the journey of healing and becoming.
Ultimately, this work is not an ending but a beginning. To be unapologetically partial, impure, and evolving. It is also a invitation– to those who live in between, who never quite fit, who are still figuring it out. It’s a gesture toward a queer, cyborg future shaped by care, collaboration, self-healing, and continuous becoming.
we are not returning to a mythical wholeness, but are imagine new ways of being together.
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⊹Colophon
This work has been produced in the context of the graduation research of Michel M.H. Wang from the Experimental Publishing (XPUB) Master course at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
XPUB is a two year Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design that focuses on
the intents, means and consequences of making things public and creating
publics in the age of post-digital networks.
https://xpub.nl
Available online at: michelmsw.style
This publication is based on the graduation thesis The Healing of becoming: queer hybridity, cyborg flesh, and the reimagining of belonging in Asian futures, written
under the supervision of Marloes de Valk.
Special thanks to Yizon, Yuan, Wyn, Jeanne, and Lungssu Yen.
⊹License
This work is licensed under the Free Art License 1.3. You are free to copy, distribute, and modify this work, according to the conditions of this license.
Summary of Rights:
- You may use, share, and transform this work for any purpose, including commercial use.
- Derivative works must also be released under the Free Art License.
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(Note: The Free Art License 1.3 is a copyleft license similar in spirit to Creative Commons BY-SA, ensuring freedom to use, share, and modify the work.)
Author: Michel M.H. Wang
Year: 2025
Title of Work: The Healing of becoming: queer hybridity, cyborg flesh, and the reimagining of belonging in Asian futures
For the full legal text, visit: https://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/
This work is shared in the spirit of queer kinship, mutual learning, and the regeneration of collective knowledge.
May it be transformed, remixed, and reimagined as part of a world beyond binaries and borders.
© Michel M.H. Wang, 2025
Published as part of the XPUB Master, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Licensed under the Free Art License 1.3.