“NSFW” which usually stands for “not safe for workplace” is the project where I took screenshots of dick pictures on Grindr and Jack’d, two gay dating apps, from November 2018 to February 2020. There were 50 pics. I collected them only if they sent pictures without asking or if there had not been any conversation between us. These unsolicited moments are turned into my art materials. “Not safe for woohee” is a performance piece under the project, and there are three other works as well.

During the first half of the performance, I hold the iPhone between my knees, and the iPhone self camera footage goes to the projector which projects on the top of the box spring next to me. I started performing while saying typical first messages from dating apps, such as “hey, what’s up, what are you looking for?, how’re you, how’s it going, looking for fun?.” As I pose in a yoga position which I call inverted bottom position, I started a monologue about my emotions and thoughts when I’m on the app. One of the important lines was “I want to racialize this issue. I barely get their butt pics, but always a dick, which I think I can assume they see me as “cute Asian bottom that is a penetrable body.” After the monologue, I laid down the box spring screen, and walked on the top, and tore down the surface. I sang the song “Cut the World” by Antony and Johnsons. Then, I saw the audience’s eyes for the first time in this performance while repeating what I said at first, like “hey, how’re you, what are you looking at?.”

By using personal voice, I believed I could address problematic aspects of gay dating culture, as well as intersectionality within that. Even though this issue of being Asian on the app has been challenging to me, I wanted to re-contextualize this experience in a different place. Making the audience see my face through technology is one way to place them in this grid of people called dating apps. With the monologue, singing falsetto, tearing down the bed, I aim to liberate those oppressions.