Description

Object of Desire, 2020
Click and hold mouse to reveal message.

Design Process

I was interested in designing an anti-surveillance tool that addressed the layered, intersectional realities of queer Asian identity within Western society. This idea stemmed from research I conducted on the history of Gay Asians of Toronto (GAT), the first organization in Canada to advocate for LGBT people of colour. Gay Asians of Toronto (GAT) was formed in 1980 by Richard Fung, Gerald Chan, Nitto Marquez, and Tony Souza. Fung, a filmmaker and gay activist, once said that he felt like "a fortune cookie in a tray of cheese Danishes”. This sentence inspired my thinking and project this week. How do we address the racism and discrimination experienced in our queer community? How can this tool communicate empowerment and pride to our Queer Asian community members? How could it be layered

For Object of Desire, I drew the underlayer, function Cookie(), with curves and translated text. The overlayer, function Danish(), went through numerous iterations ultimately landing on a text-based statement repeated with for loops. When mouse is pressed, blendMode (MULTIPLY) activates and reveals the sentence to the receiver: "I AM THE AUTHOR OF MY DESIRE". The secret statement is attached to a fortune cookie, an hommage to Fung, and reminder to the reader that you can craft your own narrative of desire/being desired.

Reflection

This was a very enjoyable, poetic, critical, and introspective brief. I was very happy with the treatment of the underlayer (fortune cookie) and wish I could refine and evolve the overlayer (danish). The "reveal" blendMode cursor feature could be more sophisticated, how could I push this interaction between sender and receiver?