At the intersection of technology and cultural critique stands artist Kevin Lee’s most recent piece, “Cultural Access Memory,” displayed at Outhouse Gallery in Peckham, London, as part of the "When They Meet" event. Part interactive artwork, part participatory workshop, it serves as a thought-provoking exploration of language, culture, and the power structures embedded within.
Lee's work, born from his contribution to the Critical Coding Cookbook: Intersectional Feminist Approaches to Teaching and Learning, published by Parsons School of Design, challenges us to view Chinese characters not merely as a writing system, but as Lee puts it, “a complex vehicle for cultural conveyance”, a sort of distributed computing where slang and myth-making are the core computational units. By encouraging participants to deconstruct and reconstruct the characters historically used across written Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, Lee invites us to question the beliefs, gender roles, and societal norms that have been encoded into this ancient script over millennia.
Cultural Access Memory was presented as part of a “When They Meet” event, an ongoing series featuring new art and artists alongside purposefully paired meals. A hybrid between a dinner club and an art exhibition, this particular iteration took place at the outhouse gallery, on the lawn just outside in the fading warmth of the late London summer. On reclaimed rugs and carpets participants enjoyed thoughtful takes on modern British and international cuisine, a decidedly casual setting and one which helped add warmth to the difficult task of speculative design and comparative history.
What sets Lee's approach apart is his ability to draw parallels between the world of computer science and linguistics. Just as early computer scientists dreamed of a better world through open-source software and the decentralized, collaborative internet, Lee envisions a future where language itself can be democratized and reimagined. His background as a software engineer and creative technologist shines through in this piece, marrying the future-facing optimism of software with the fluidity of cultural expression.
By guiding participants through the process of creating their own characters, “Cultural Access Memory” transforms abstract concepts into tangible, individual experiences, which are then backpropagated into characters. A speculative future is imagined, and the ways in which society has adapted and grown to match this future are embedded into a character, borrowing from individual components called radicals which, like miniature characters, have their own meaning embedded in brush strokes. Lee hopes this hands-on approach not only demystifies the complexity of Chinese characters but also empowers individuals to engage critically with the language and, by extension, the culture it represents.
The true strength of Lee's work lies in its ability to make these concepts accessible and relevant to a diverse audience. In a preface to the act of character creation, Lee gives a lecture of sorts, connecting ancient Chinese bone oracle script with modern simplified scripts, touching on Japanese and Chinese collaboration in incorporating Western concepts into the East Asian cultural sphere, giving histories of common words such as bank and hospital. He draws connections to familiar concepts like Latin roots in English and modern feminist language reclamation efforts, bridging the gap between Eastern and Western linguistic traditions. At times, the topic wanders, and though his work could benefit from tighter and greater focus, his passion for cultural exchange and comparative histories is fully apparent. It’s clear that this piece attempts to tackle many issues - sexism in Chinese characters, feminism, colonialism, anachronisms, cultural divides, modern geopolitics. Though his approach provides crucial context, allowing even those with no intention of learning Chinese to appreciate the profound impact of language on societal structures and individual thought processes, future work from Lee could better tackle these many ideas and disparate research areas separately.
As we delve deeper into Lee's work, we're reminded of the power of interdisciplinary thinking. By combining elements of linguistics, computer science, cultural studies, and interactive art, "Cultural Access Memory" offers a fresh perspective on how we might approach the challenges of cultural understanding and communication in our increasingly globalized world.
Interview with Kevin Lee
UAAD: Your piece, "Cultural Access Memory," draws fascinating parallels between computer science and linguistics. Can you elaborate on how your background as a Creative Technologist influenced this work?
Kevin Lee: Early computer scientists weren't afraid to dream of a better, different world; such is evident in the widespread benefits of open sourced software like Berkeley Software Distribution, on which MacOS is based, or the RFCs which collaboratively constructed how the internet functions today. Seeing the flexibility with which software experts painted the future and recognizing that they saw a transformative, bottom up power in the ability of people to democratically control the production of not just knowledge or goods but action - as code is - influenced me greatly.
In "Cultural Access Memory," I wanted to apply this same principle to language, particularly Chinese characters. Just as open-source software allows for collective improvement and adaptation, I wanted to create a space where people could "open up" these characters, understand their components, and even reimagine them. It's about empowering people to engage critically with a system that often seems fixed and unchangeable.
UAAD: The workshop component of your piece had participants creating their own characters. Can you share a particularly memorable creation and the process behind it?
Kevin Lee: One creation that stood out was a character combining 大 (dà, meaning "big") and 月 (yuè, meaning "month") vertically. The participant designed this to denote a momentous period, something akin to a pride month. This exercise was about imagining a preferred or speculative future society and working backwards to construct a character representing that reality.
It's fascinating because, in the same way, you can work backwards from modern written Chinese to reflect the truths of the society that we live in today. One of the characters I first started looking at when I was researching for this project was the character for "safe" (安). It’s a woman under a roof, which carries implications about gender roles and societal expectations. By creating new characters, people were essentially drafting new "truths" for a society they'd like to see.
UAAD: Your work seems to challenge the notion of Chinese characters as fixed, immutable symbols. How do you see this approach contributing to broader discussions about language and cultural identity?
Kevin Lee: I believe it's crucial to understand that all languages, including Chinese, are living, evolving systems. By encouraging people to deconstruct and reconstruct characters, we're not just playing with symbols – we're questioning the very foundations of how cultural values are transmitted through language. It’s why I named this piece “Cultural Access Memory” - to highlight how language shapes our perceptions and societal norms. For instance, in Mandarin, the word for "daughter" is literally "female child," while "son" is just "child descendant" - the maleness is assumed, it’s default.
By making these structures visible and mutable, we open up conversations about how language influences thought, and how we might consciously shape language to reflect the values we aspire to. It's a form of linguistic activism that I believe can have profound implications for how we understand and navigate cultural identities in our increasingly interconnected world.
Chinese is, in many ways, its own Latin – with prefixes, suffixes, and roots readily apparent in modern words. This not only provides succinct explanations but also grounds the language in the history and society that created it.
UAAD: Your event incorporated food as part of the experience. How did this tie into the overall concept of Cultural Access Memory?
Kevin Lee: The inclusion of food was a nod to the "cookbook" theme of the Critical Coding Cookbook, but it also served a deeper purpose. Food, like language, is a fundamental aspect of culture that often goes unexamined. By incorporating food into the event, we created a multi-sensory experience that mirrored the way language and culture permeate our daily lives.
Just as we were breaking down and reconstructing characters, the food presented familiar ingredients in new combinations. This parallel process encouraged participants to think about how cultural elements can be reinterpreted and recombined to create new meanings and experiences.
Moreover, sharing a meal created a communal atmosphere that facilitated open discussion and collaboration – key elements in the process of reimagining language and culture.
UAAD: Were there any challenges or unexpected outcomes during the event that you found particularly interesting or enlightening?
Kevin Lee: One of the main challenges we faced was helping people understand the relevance of constructing Chinese characters if they had no intention of learning the language. This is where the comparative approach really proved helpful. By drawing parallels with Latin roots in English, discussing the historical context of cultural exchange between China and Japan, and connecting to modern feminist movements to reclaim language, we were able to make the exercise relevant and engaging for everyone.
An unexpected and enlightening outcome was how quickly participants began to see connections between the character-creation process and their own experiences with language. For example, discussions arose about English terms like "blacklist" and "whitelist," or the shift from "congresswoman" to "congressperson." These conversations demonstrated how the principles we were exploring with Chinese characters could be applied to critically examining and reshaping any language.
This cross-cultural, cross-linguistic dialogue that emerged organically was perhaps the most valuable outcome of the event. It showed that by providing the right context and tools, we can foster a deeper understanding of how language shapes our perceptions and societies, regardless of our linguistic background.
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