Closing Reception for Suhyun Choi: Memorial for Laptop

The artist Suhyun Choi will host a final memorial ritual for all the personal devices that were donated by the public during the course of their Recess Session, Memorial for Laptop. They will perform another ritual co-curated using AI generated prayers and ceremonies, to soothe the souls of the dead. The ceremony will conclude with a live Korean traditional drum performance by KQT Pungmul and light refreshments.

On December 23, 2020, Suhyun Choi’s laptop passed away. They realized that they had developed a racial-emotional affinity towards their personal tech devices, even though the manufacturing of such objects propagates techno-Orientalism – a theory which posits a dystopic technologically and economically dominant East that serves as an antagonist to the historically hegemonic and heroic West. The viralization of East-Asian bodies has been and is inherently connected to the West’s fear of the East in technological advancement, as technological prowess has equated colonial and imperial brute strength. Suhyun Choi’s Memorial for Laptop proposes a humanizing relationship to technology as a means of humanizing Yellow femmes who are inherently read as objects. What would it mean if we changed our relationship to technology to one of care and humanity? Can the care for our objects decolonize technology?

Memorial for Laptop is part of Recess’s program, Session, which invites artists to use Recess’s public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist's project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists and audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision and the above proposal is subject to change.