0:00:06.460,0:00:08.080
[JES FAN][br]Once you've seen them,

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they're lodged in your mind.

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Especially thinking of them as[br]one of the first few representations

0:00:15.820,0:00:19.080
of the Chinese person as a subject.

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There's a medical missionary[br]called Peter Parker

0:00:28.259,0:00:32.940
who traveled to Canton to perform[br]the surgical incision of tumors

0:00:32.940,0:00:36.410
in the early nineteenth century.

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Lam Qua was a really celebrated painter [br]at the time.

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He was most famous for painting portraitures.

0:00:47.280,0:00:49.880
But I suppose that Lam Qua was also celebrated

0:00:49.880,0:00:52.730
by how accurate he can paint his sitters.

0:00:52.730,0:00:54.920
He's known for this one quote saying,

0:00:54.920,0:00:57.560
"What eye no see, no can do."

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There's something about Chinese-ness here.

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Thinking, like,[br]how did Chinese-ness become a word?

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What are the technologies that's involved[br]in creating this idea of "the other"?

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Why does the shoulder need to be bare?

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Like, the braid of hair is placed.

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It's just so seductive,[br]and I was wondering if that kind of seduction

0:01:36.360,0:01:39.259
has to come in a way that you're able to see

0:01:39.260,0:01:43.340
the sitter as a fellow human.

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["Jes Fan: Infectious Beauty"]

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I think it made me really try to understand[br]the idea of beauty and seduction.

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I think my work has a lot to do with seduction.

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Nowadays, beauty is really flat.

0:02:14.240,0:02:16.760
There's only one emotion you can emote on[br]social media,

0:02:16.760,0:02:18.760
which is the double tap, right?[br][LAUGHS]

0:02:18.760,0:02:20.460
That there's only a heart shape.

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When something is beautiful,[br]it's just a flat heart.

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But then, when you think of[br]beauty in the past,

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it's beauty and the sublime.

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It has to come with this suspension--

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this fear.

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It also meant, in the past,

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to describe something that was so beautiful

0:02:54.000,0:02:56.200
that it almost makes you want to puke.

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[LAUGHS]

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Originally, I grew up in Hong Kong.

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It's very oppressive, being queer there,

0:03:12.920,0:03:16.140
just not being able to see yourself reflected[br]in society,

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nor even within just

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being able to see happy, queer adults--

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or queer adults in general.

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It's kind of not being able to see a future[br]extension of yourself.

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I had a really rough few years growing up,

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trying to find who I can be.

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[JULIE WOLF][br]So my understanding of the piece

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is that you make it so that it's a glass shape[br]of something.

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And then, you add the melanin to the piece,

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and then fill it with silicon afterwards,[br]correct?

0:05:31.860,0:05:32.860
[FAN][br]Yeah.

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[WOLF][br]What we want to make is melanin.

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It's the final physical form that we're going[br]to make.

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This is called L-DOPA.

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In this case, L-DOPA is a really[br]unstable molecule.

0:05:44.600,0:05:46.910
If you expose it to light

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or ambient temperature,

0:05:49.130,0:05:52.020
it will start to do something called autopolymerizing.

0:05:52.020,0:05:53.970
It's going to start to make a polymer,

0:05:53.970,0:05:55.970
which is a repeated subunit,

0:05:55.970,0:05:58.040
which is going to be related to that melanin.

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So what we're going to do is to make the conditions

0:06:02.120,0:06:05.400
as unstable for L-DOPA as possible,

0:06:05.400,0:06:08.780
so that we can bypass the biological process

0:06:08.780,0:06:11.000
and just get right to the melanin.

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So it's not as dark,

0:06:17.490,0:06:19.520
but you can see that[br]there's the flakes in there.

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[FAN][br]So crazy that they're warm.

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[WOLF][br]Yeah.

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[FAN][br]It would be great to have them...

0:06:25.720,0:06:28.460
something that you can identify or trigger,

0:06:29.000,0:06:31.190
and sort of hope that is that.

0:06:31.190,0:06:32.920
Because the plates you gave me

0:06:32.920,0:06:34.880
with the E. coli,

0:06:34.880,0:06:36.660
they look exactly like molds.

0:06:37.100,0:06:40.460
So let's hope that these will grow happily

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and into more slurry-like, you know?

0:07:08.060,0:07:10.699
A lot of what I'm trying to do with

0:07:10.699,0:07:12.879
what we consider as gendered materials,

0:07:12.880,0:07:14.440
or racialized materials,

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they're just really, really absurd.

0:07:23.060,0:07:24.560
It's like a cooking show.

0:07:24.560,0:07:25.800
I have semen,

0:07:25.800,0:07:26.860
blood,

0:07:27.260,0:07:28.200
melanin,

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and pee.

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[LAUGHS]

0:07:33.000,0:07:35.600
So at the time I was thinking a lot about[br]how race,

0:07:35.610,0:07:36.979
especially in the U.S.,

0:07:36.979,0:07:38.960
is seen as infectious.

0:07:38.960,0:07:41.380
Think about China and coronavirus.

0:07:41.729,0:07:44.000
Think about SARS and being in Hong Kong.

0:07:44.000,0:07:47.700
And think about Jim Crow era,[br]not sharing bodies of water.

0:07:48.660,0:07:51.360
That idea of it being infected.

0:07:57.240,0:08:01.600
These days in Asia, the beauty is smooth,

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has no corners,[br]does not repulse.

0:08:05.320,0:08:06.590
There's something about...

0:08:06.590,0:08:09.629
doing this is subverting that balance,

0:08:09.629,0:08:12.540
it's showing the labor to acquire that smoothness.

0:08:12.540,0:08:15.820
And by showing it,[br]it looks like these infectious rings.

0:08:18.340,0:08:22.420
But then, also the materials[br]that's carried in these bulbous forms

0:08:22.430,0:08:25.250
are actually semen that's decaying.

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I find that very funny.

0:08:27.860,0:08:30.900
[LAUGHS]

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It's very much about[br]having forms fitting into each other

0:08:39.260,0:08:43.620
and somehow evoking a sense of this uncanniness,

0:08:43.620,0:08:47.740
but simultaneously so erotic[br]that you can't stop.

0:08:47.740,0:08:50.200
But to be attracted to it,

0:08:51.380,0:08:53.160
that eroticness

0:08:54.060,0:08:55.200
seduces you.

0:08:58.460,0:09:00.019
It's beauty in the gloss,

0:09:00.020,0:09:03.010
and the possibility to see your own reflection[br]in it.

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At the same time,

0:09:04.960,0:09:07.580
you're actually staring at something that[br]repulses you,

0:09:07.590,0:09:11.260
that actually is considered infectious

0:09:11.260,0:09:12.520
or unclean.

0:09:22.420,0:09:26.740
My therapist says that I'm so familiar with[br]oppression

0:09:26.740,0:09:30.930
that danger and risk and oppression makes[br]me feel at home.

0:09:30.930,0:09:34.660
So I slave myself away in the studio.

0:09:34.660,0:09:37.690
Or, like, I deprive myself of pleasure

0:09:37.690,0:09:40.690
because I'm not oppressed[br]as a queer being here.

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[LAUGHS]

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So I oppress myself now.[br][LAUGHS]

0:09:49.500,0:09:52.000
Because I can't go back if I fail.