on being Chinese and online with viola he
In the 2000s, a generation of kids learned the web by decorating their QQ空间 (Qzone), one of the largest social networks in China at the time. for qzone2000.com, artist and technologist viola he scraped and recovered 5000+ decoration items from Tencent's servers, and tried to reconstruct qzone through its original files and css code.
Starting from that archive, viola asks what can and can't be preserved on an increasingly closed-off internet, and follows how their generation carried its aesthetics and social rituals from platform to platform: from bbs and blogs to today's Rednote, where the same longing for the diy web keeps resurfacing as nostalgia, irony, and memes. join us, on a deep dive into the Chinese internet across time and space...
⭑.ᐟ about viola
viola he (v10101a) is a shanghai / nyc-based multimedia artist, educator, electronic musician, and creative technologist. They make web and irl performances and experiences, exploring alternative structures, systems, and interfaces across digital and physical mediums. viola is an organizing member of Livecode.NYC, an incubator member at NEW INC, and co-runs experimental game collective [[rect*]] repair ✧ ദ്ദി(˶•̀ᴗ-˶) previously, viola was an assistant professor of interactive media arts at nyu shanghai, and an affiliate at its Center for AI & Culture
⭑.ᐟ about tiat
tiat is the intersection of art & technology! we are an experimental gallery for creative technologists to experiment, exhibit, and expand their practice. ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ tiat is 501c3 nonprofit, our EIN is: 39-3448606. tiat.place
this event is presented in conjunction with our latest exhibition, Chinamaxxing.