Li Jia, our 2024 Curator-in-Residence, and Yin Aiwen, our 2024 PhD Scholar at Goldsmiths, both began their placements this autumn. Already acquainted before arriving in London, they reflected on their first meeting and how it sparked thoughts on trauma and happiness in system design and exhibition making.

1. The Question of Technological Trauma

JIA: I think we first met in 2021 in Beijing, at the home of a mutual friend where I participated in 'Liquid Dependencies', the game you designed in collaboration with Yiren Zhao and Mengyang Zhao. It’s a game that has a strong sense of social design, presenting social justice issues through a gamified approach. My question to you, Aiwen, is what prompted you to choose a generative, open-ended, internal, organic, and process-oriented approach to discuss a caring society shaped by collective desire? Your game doesn’t follow a monolith script; each game session leads to different societal formations and individual destinies. To me, it seems more like a system of spontaneous generation rather than a static design proposal. Of course, there are fundamental rules to be followed, but these rules are quite flexible as they are shaped and enriched by players’ interactions. The dynamic engagement between the system’s generative potential and external pressures is quite inspiring in terms of how we consider social justice.

AIWEN: I had just finished my first seminar of ‘Advanced Practices’ at Goldsmiths, and Professor Irit Rogoff happened to ask me similar questions about social justice and human agency. In fact, my practice often gets mistaken for something similar to ‘Black Mirror’, especially when I use a lot of technical terminology and start-up aesthetics. Contrary to common misperceptions, my system design comes from my discontent with existing systems, or rather, my question of the design: why do the individual steps in the design process of technology seem so reasonable, yet the end result in society is so unjust? My understanding is that the design process focuses solely on short-term effectiveness, while neglecting the underlying value systems that should guide long-term expression. Rather than becoming preoccupied with the ideological issues inherent in narrowly effective design, I am more concerned with the overarching narrative of the world that emerges from the cumulative effect of these small technological interactions. My ambition is to recontextualize these minor technological interactions from the perspective of a new, desired world narrative that I wish to construct. The goal is to make the audience feel as though this new world is organically arising from familiar technological interactions.

What I find interesting is that there are many aesthetic criticisms out there that focus on the superficial appearance of technologies, and demand individuals to perform resistance by repressing human desires. But many of these criticisms and resistance conflate technology with the ideological context it operates in, leading to an all-or-nothing approach. It's rare to see examples where similar technologies generate alternative social outcomes ('Liquid Dependencies' being a modest exception). Over time, we've all been indoctrinated by capitalism's technological logic—no matter how well we adapt, we carry a latent trauma towards technology. Instinctively, we associate certain appearances of technology with this buried trauma, unable to imagine otherwise. In a way, I find the assumption that my work is a derivative product of ‘Black Mirror’ is a bit of a trauma response.

J: This concept of tech-trauma is fascinating! I resonate with the idea; tech-traumas plague many in contemporary society but goes often ignored or unaddressed. During the pandemic, for instance, people experienced anxiety, stress, and powerlessness from the immense pressure of surveillance, tracking, and identification technologies. It became obvious that individuals had a hard time resisting governmental intrusion into their lives, let alone fighting against technological systems. In this light, tech-trauma is not just an abstract concept but a tangible, bodily experience that we can neither evade nor pretend to ignore; we must admit to it, confront it, and change it. Acknowledging this tech-trauma, rather than simply rejecting it, might be the first step towards imagining and striving for a new, liberating technological landscape.

A: The issues you’ve raised tie in beautifully. The concept of tech-trauma includes, but is not limited to, technological, organisational, and systemic trauma. In my practice, I found that technology, organisations, and institutions are similar at their core, particularly in how they create conditions that compel one to act ‘as it should’, or (un)willingly submit to violent order. Traumas arise where suppression is prescribed.

2. The Question of Agency

A: Meeting you again in London has been a significant moment that reminds me of how much my thoughts have changed. My design philosophy has always been driven by the ethics of care, and I always attempt to practice less control, less design as an ethical approach. It wasn't until your game session of 'Liquid Dependencies' in Beijing that I was struck by the power of human agency in a dystopian way. Before that, I had always believed that the overall tendency we’d observed so far, where players grew friendly and empathetic towards each other with the assistance of ‘Mutual Coin’ (a game currency), is only a matter of design. However, the game you were in showed perhaps the bleakest society I have ever witnessed. All the players in that game session were obsessed with critiquing social injustices by cutting off all possibilities for a better life, at their own cost. The housewife you portrayed fixated on her misfortune and powerlessness, the university student in the same session insisted on his social isolation, and the capitalist plunged into existential crisis through impotence and debauchery. This despair and obstinacy led to a collective outcome where no one even paid attention to the coin, or the possibility that their life could turn around with the other’s help. If this story had a prequel, we might have seen a profoundly tragic society where the people had long been trapped in loneliness, alienation, and injustice, with no one believing a welfare system could change human nature for the better.

The session struck me as a depressing example of human agency overriding institutional affordance. So after I returned to Europe, I shifted my attention to cultivating a community culture. This shift of focus also led to 'Alchemy of Commons', my latest research project with Yiren Zhao, in which we delve deeper into exploring the relationship between human desire, trauma, and social justice. Similarly my PhD research, which will extend from ‘Alchemy of Commons’, also seeks to understand the gaps between individuals, communities, institutions, and systems, and how we can navigate and manoeuvre these gaps for systematic change.

J: Agreed. My personal experiences also corroborate this. Each institution undoubtedly has fixed rules, yet within such settings, individuals can wield significant influence. Those with agency, will, and courage can always find ways to exploit gaps, consequently changing the circumstances. Having said that, our agency is largely shaped by our perspective, ways of approaching issues, and our imagination. Looking back at the choices I made during the game, I realise I placed myself in a limited personal context, assessing what was to come based on past experiences, thus only seeing a small slice of the full picture. From a longer time frame and broader perspective, however, the appearance and direction of everything would look different.

This personal ossification perhaps reflects a kind of stubbornness—when you place yourself consistently in the position of a victim, it becomes natural to reject, sever ties with, and develop an aversion to technology. Yet systems, including technology, can also be fluid and open-ended, and our relationship with them isn’t definitive. The key lies in how we imagine the positive effects they bring us and how we use them. Perhaps that’s also why small anarchist communities often find it hard to sustain themselves: they carry a vigilance against complex systems, striving to return to the simplest forms of organisation and lifestyle, rejecting anything that might form a complex structure—but the society we live in is an undeniably complex system, where institutions and technology play crucial roles. Even in smaller groups, continuous denial, exclusion, and reverting to ‘simple’ and ‘primitive’ social forms can hardly lead to a healthy community. In other words, we need to allow us to imagine a more positive relationship with systems.

A: Yes, I think retaining the right to utopian imagination is the greatest weapon for people.

3. The Question of Exhibition

J: This perspective also prompts my reflection on today’s institutionalised art world: What can we do to change the game? Or rather, where does the curator’s work derive its significance? Perhaps for today’s exhibitions, merely producing visual knowledge and discoursing with the public isn’t quite sufficient anymore. Seasoned audiences are well aware of contemporary art’s mission to critique and its didactic nature. However, what’s perhaps even more vital is evoking emotional responses in people, nurturing a belief that a good, fulfilling, and meaningful life is indeed possible. With such imagination and conviction, individuals can truly unleash their agency. This aspect is also part of my exploration of the fundamental relationship between art and community, as well as how exhibitions connect with communities—specifically, the idea that art and exhibitions are inherently communal because they can create emotional bonds and faith in collective betterment.

Simultaneously, we need a radical rethink of exhibition formats today. The art world is entrenched in stratified and hierarchised power dynamics. In such conditions, many exhibitions may function as self-contained cycles driven by the system, without the intention or ability to break away and foster more radically open imaginations. It led me to reflect on transforming exhibitions into a verb rather than a set form or realm of knowledge. ‘To exhibit’ as a verb may resemble your games in a way—small in scale, transient, uncertain, and open-ended. They might trigger emotions through an artwork or artistic action within a small group and, through shared sentiments and face-to-face encounters, gradually catalyse collective imagination and action. This year, I began experimenting with hosting exhibitions in artists’ studios or their living spaces, contemplating how such settings may foster easier emotional connections and inspire belief and imagination.

A: I believe art is an important means to inspire different ways of living, regardless of the structural problem of the industry itself. Many institutions nowadays are indeed turning to community practices as an alternative to traditional exhibitions. Personally, I am inclined to work with long-term relationships and small-scale social experiments, so your exploration resonates with me.

However, when you mentioned the intimate ‘small community’ approach, my first thought was: oh, must be exhausting. I just had a conversation with another friend, who is part of a small collective that has hosted research summer schools every year for young practitioners. She said she felt exhausted after doing it for ten years. In a way, she has become the infrastructure of the community. Although community work often emphasises personal values and friendships, within a certain framework friendships can turn into a form of service, leading to asymmetrical emotional burdens and ultimately, excessive fatigue. This is a problem that my colleague Yiren Zhao and I are concerned about in our research. Despite our emphasis on human agency throughout this conversation, the sustainability of individual life needs to be in tandem with the discussion. Our exploration should not be at the cost of sustainability. For curators and practitioners, when pursuing change in society and the arts, it is essential to take care of ourselves. By being able to do this, we are already beginning to change the underlying logic.

J: Well said. Looking back at what we discussed in this conversation, I am also considering whether, beyond providing instantaneous experience and ongoing reflection, an exhibition could offer a sense of gratitude. I believe rebuilding and reclaiming a sense of happiness is also a way to resist alienation, to challenge institutional or systemic oppression. Can we create an emotional order that is inherently ethical through the exhibition—a kind of poetic justice—that makes space for appreciation and gratitude, allowing happiness to settle in? Perhaps in this way, the discourse of critique and resistance can truly transform into spontaneous and conscious actions by individuals, enabling us to imagine and build a good life.