What would a world beyond classification look like? Xiaowei R. Wang examines the intersection between design and colonial botany, and illuminates the problems of categorization. They reveal how we attempt to create a neatly compartmentalized world by constructing an ‘impossible image.’ Through exploring the history of the impossible image, this talk questions how we can see past rigid classification to create other worlds – and redesign the impossible.
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Xiaowei R. Wang
Xiaowei R. Wang is an artist, writer, organizer, and coder. Their collaborative project FLOAT Beijing created air quality-sensing kites to challenge censorship and was an Index Design Awards finalist. Other projects have been featured by the New York Times, BBC, CNN, VICE and elsewhere. Their most recent new media work, The Future of Memory, was a recipient of the Mozilla Creative Media Award. They work across new media and research at the intersection of environmental justice and data-driven technologies. Their previous individual and collaborative work has been exhibited at a number of venues, including Haus der Kulturen der Welt, MoMA New York, Taipei Design City Exhibition, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. They have given workshops and talks at Asian Art Museum, SF MOMA, TED, IAM Weekend, The Conference, Unfinished Live, Cornell University, Harvard University, CtrlZ.AI Zine Fair Barcelona, and more.
They are the author of the book Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech In China’s Countryside (a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice) and their writing has appeared in TANK, transmediale, The Nation, and more. Currently, they are one of the lead stewards of Logic School, an organizing community for tech workers, the Creative Director at Logic Magazine, and a research fellow at the Center on Race and Digital Justice. They are working on their second book on the design of tech for care, as well as a new body of work, Witch Fever, which is speculative botany.
