Liane Décary-Chen @tech_witch

She has worked in numerous fields including wearable computing, games, interactive filmmaking, and tech education. She has been working with TAG Lab since 2016 and has collaborated with Vice Quebec, Studio XX, Cambridge Radical Tech Series, festival Image+Nation, and Shanghai Design Week.

If we had to describe your work, we would place it at the intersection of self-awareness, activism, and art. Would you agree? 
Liane: Yes! I like your use of the term self-awareness. Right now, I’m at a place where I try to use creativity as a way to improve my life, my community, and the structures that hold it all together. We tend to divide people into categories according to the medium or the means they use to do their work. For me, I feel like self-awareness and improvement are at the core of what I do, no matter if my work fits within the realms of art, activism, or something else.

Your portfolio is rich in different interdisciplinary projects, both digital and physical. Your projects all have a pragmatic approach and focus on topics of identity and mental health. Can you tell us which part of you makes your art what it is?
Liane: Probably the part that’s confused and looking for solutions. Many of the ideas for my projects come out of a personal need. It could be anything from needing help to cook for myself to looking for voices like mine in the media. I imagine that if I’m having this problem, there are probably many others like me who are in the same situation. I hope that sharing my bootleg solutions will help others make their way through it as well.

When we looked at your IG HOE MANIFESTO, a visual manifest for the #LGBTQ2IA+ community, we found ourselves nodding along with it. You have a talent for boiling things down to their essence! What other talents helped you materialise your projects?
Liane: I sometimes get hit with ideas and fall into a sort of manic creative phase. Those times are organisation-heavy and are made up of lots of writing, messaging, spreadsheets, and pinterest boards. I love doing these tedious things and it definitely helps push larger projects. I’ll alternate between these intense creative bits and long stretches of times where ideas are just simmering in the back of my mind. During those times it’s mostly about taking things in. Listening to people’s stories, empathising with them, learning new things, and making links between all those things.

In an interview for an art show called IDENTITY, you talk about being half-Chinese, half-French Canadian. How has the diaspora-experience affected your work and are double standards a topic for you? 
Liane: Such a loaded question. At this point it’s almost cliché to say that my art is shaped by a quest for identity. For me, the process of finding my personal and artistic voice has been a series of self-imposed failures and rejections. From early childhood up until a few years ago, I would always end up in contexts where I wore the wrong hat. Whether it was being Asian in a white high school or being French-Canadian at an international anglophone university, I would always have to work very hard to make it into the inner circle. More often than not, the price to pay for it was to reject what I previously held as part of me — like the music I liked, how I dressed, the way I talked, and the art I made.

It saddens me very much that I had to cast aside and destroy so much to be accepted. Not only because of my personal pain, but also because of the impact it has had on my relationship with the Chinese side of my family. For a few years my art was fueled by these feelings of loss and anger. I was furious at what felt like an invisible force adding insult to injury to what my mother has gone through to allow me to have this life.

Thankfully, now I feel like I’m slowly growing those roots back in. I’m reconnecting with these influences. China has an amazing artistic history, as well as a thriving underground artistic scene. I feel like I finally have the freedom to pull from my roots, which feels amazing. I do still have unresolved resentment towards Berghain-type artists who made me feel bad for my trashy Fench-Canadian tastes. However, I feel like I can finally make a name for myself not by conforming but by indulging in what makes me different.

So, my current vibe right now channels the French-Canadian DIY punk scene of my youth, the US-influenced BIPOC/feminist movement of my present, and the Chinese cyber-apocalyptic aesthetics of the future. I’m thriving and it feels spectacular!

Have you used technology in any way to overcome cultural double-standards?
One of the major impacts that technology had on me is when I first downloaded Instagram. At the time there was almost no one I could relate to in the media. For the first few months, I decided to only follow BIPOC and queer people. It was incredibly cathartic. I would tell people I had created a mini-universe and that I kept it in my pocket. It was a world where I could be, do, and say whatever I wanted. I think that’s really when I started making my way back uphill. I had previously been in an emotional, psychological, and creative ditch.

I started by making up characters that I would act out in stories and posts. These characters were people that I believed, or thought I believed, were more interesting, confident, and better dressed than me. It felt like playing pretend for a long time, but eventually the people I met in real life treated me as if I was the character I played on social media. Slowly, I started becoming the strong, confident, and bold person I was pretending to be. And then I made up characters online that were even more wild and fun, and became those characters as well. It was a crazy, cyclical trip. It was a period of huge change for me personally and artistically and showed me that there is incredible wealth in who I am and can be.

So those are the feelings that fueled the IG HOE MANIFESTO. The actual project hasn’t even come out yet! I do feel though like the magic of Instagram has been dulled for me though. My new trip is TikTok!! 

Your interdisciplinary approach suggests that your priority is with the message behind a piece of work. Was there a concrete event that turned you into the outspoken person you are today or has this always been your mindset?
Liane: I’ve always had a little filter, but there are a few things that allow me to be the way I am. I’m lucky to come from an upper-middle class background. Thanks to the financial net I have, as well as the low cost of rent in Montreal; I’m able to work contracts with companies that are aligned with my values and afford to not work with organisations that don’t. Not being afraid to lose my job is a privilege that not everyone has, and really allows me the freedom to speak my mind.

You recently launched a videogame with a romantic subtext and a reduced aesthetic. Can you tell us a bit about this project and the work behind it?
Liane: I’m very happy to have been commissioned by Galerie Galerie (an online residency platform) to make this work for their online exhibit. “POYO MAKES A VR GAME” is a mishmash of ideas put together in a click-through narrative game. It’s a game within a game exploring the ways human consciousness works. It started with drawings of the ways in which I think my brain processes thoughts. I then turned those into schematics and later into pixel art. It’s intentionally flawed, minimal, and messy. I’m a perfectionist, which is why I rarely actually put out work, but I’m trying to let things get out more.

Could you say a few words about the changes you want to see and the opportunities you want to give through the tool sets that you provide?
Liane: I hope that my work can be a door that opens into a new world. I want people to realise that there are ways in which they can harness technology in their daily life to make a difference, right now, today, without having to get a degree or spend money.
Big companies use technology to make money off us, macho computer scientists make it feel exclusive and untouchable, and governments use it to silence and control us. Historically, new technology has always been a source of fear. It’s time we turn the tables around and use these tools to empower ourselves instead. It’s our turn to be feared.

_
Original artwork and photographs provided by Liane Décary-Chen. Follow Liane on Instagram to keep up with her work. For more Art & Culture, click here.