Creating Erotic Simulacra: Asian Representation, Identity Landscapes, & Looping / Lauren Auyeung (2022)

This research project sought to understand how I can rewrite narratives of internalized racism on my body and self-identity, utilizing cultural theory concepts of representation and ‘simulacra’ in tandem with my creative practice of Suminagashi marbling, costume design, songwriting, and image-making. Drawing from my identity as an Asian woman and the political implications of my body on screen, I sought to find a way to reverse the harmful effects of stereotypical representations on my body and self-identification. My research proposes that popular media, which I understand to be a type of “simulacra”, creates systems and discourses of internalized belief – and thus to dismantle unwanted internalized narratives and write new ones, one can create their own Erotic Simulacra. Using the Deleuzian argument that simulacra is not just an external representation of a “real” physical world, but an extension of our life-force, my research sought to blur the distinction between the “virtual” and the “actual” by creating the physical manifestations of images in my Erotic Simulacra and embodying them as extensions of my lived reality. The image-making process was practiced through Suminagashi marbling, digital collage, and film, and the image embodying process was practiced through movement, music, and costume play. I also experimented with the creation of a virtual simulacra using Isadora, a graphic programming software typically used for immersive performance. These various practices were used as methods to access and alter the layers of my ‘identity landscapes’, referring both to the shapes and patterns within my marbled prints as well as the landscapes of my “virtual-actual” world. In this research process, I developed a looping practice of sensing, communicating, and co-creating, which allowed me to begin visualizing and creating identity landscapes that were most authentic to my desires. I began to understand this score as a way of attuning to my erotic impulses (those which are derived from pleasure and joy, as opposed to external reward). As I developed this score, I began repurposing my existing tools (anything from physical tools to ideas, theories, technologies, belief systems) into ‘erotic tools,’ which sought to serve my joy and pleasure. The process of repurposing my existing tools into erotic tools was the core transformative work of this practice. My research ultimately argues that by using erotic tools to interrogate and excavate the layers of my identity landscape, I can become an active creator of my own simulated reality, or simulacra. I refer to this practice as creating ‘Erotic Simulacra’ which is an artistic, spiritual, and 3 craft-based methodical practice of creating the images, rewriting the narratives, and embodying the imagined world one wishes to live in. It also refers to my overarching journey towards an Asian sexual liberation, disengaging myself from the stereotypical depictions and resulting shame-narratives often placed onto Asian female bodies. By looping within the practice, one can continually begin again, renew, and change, letting an internal randomness and spontaneity shape the layers of the landscape, and allowing for the emergence of divergence and contradictions. These contradictions that occur in this process are the junctures for creative discovery, as divergence fuels further development of a more authentic and more erotic landscape. My erotic looping practice was shared in the context of a performance installation, called “The Erotic is a Feedback Loop.” The intended output for this practice is to give myself the agency and methodology to rewrite my own internalized belief and simulate a world that is more attuned with my erotic desires. Through this self-work, I intend to create a ripple effect where the impacts of erotic tools, much like drops of ink on a marbling vat, continually expand outwards, eventually becoming the frameworks to a new, erotic, shared reality.