Asian Provocation

Life rarely turns out the way I plan, but rather its negation. If I could trace back how this interview came about, it would be because I was part of a small reading group on Julia Kristeva’s abjection. During this time, funny enough, I brought up the artist formerly known as Kanye West concerning abjection. This was before October 7, but I was schooled relentlessly by my three white colleagues ab...

Lately, I’ve been accused of being manipulative. People look at me with disdain and doubt, keeping their distance. They unfollow me, ignore my messages, and even walk out of dinners, leaving me with the bill. Why is that? The empire’s latest weapon isn’t soldiers; it’s diagnosis—specifically, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5, or DSM-5. It’s spread everywhere, condensed into quick clips on I...

Thanks to user LMdz-f1c for the thoughtful response to the episode with Dr. Robert Beshara on A Psychoanalytic Biography of Ye Also, I wanted to note that the conversation I had with Dr. Beshara will never be able to replace the research he has put into his book, so I highly recommend you pick up the book. He has spent a good many years producing that research. You can find the book on Goodreads h...

A two side essay and reflections. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ayoto.substack.com/subscribe

“Sunday licks face” 2024 Pastel on Paper This is Sunday—a white boxer. I never cared for boxers, but Sunday melts anyone’s heart. Sunday’s humans were moving to the countryside. They got married. She's the blondest woman I have ever met. She met Sunday and the black man in this city of polyamory. They got married and had two kids because neither wanted casual sex. We would dog-sit Sunday before th...

Something that's bugging me for a few years. Had to let this one loose. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ayoto.substack.com/subscribe

My family immigrated to colonial Australia, just as the English, the Irish, the Scotts, the Welsch, Italians, Germans, Dutch, and the Polish decades earlier, eating up the exported Western myth of modernity and progress. We were swiftly inducted into the lore of the loyal ANZACs, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and their sacrifices for Her Majesty. Yet, if the truth were our guide, it wo...

Photography and words by 鄭博榕 aka Ayoto Ataraxia, published in Far Near, Vol. 5, Divergence . Special thanks to Lulu Yao Gioiello, Justine Liv and Ariana King for the edits and encouragement. Foreward Between the inception of this assignment and its publishing, my understanding of the world has changed drastically, particularly since October 7. What feels like cruel irony, my observation and cri...

on dimming the lights This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ayoto.substack.com/subscribe

A news headline reposted gained much response, “Woman slams selfish paragliders who 'made her think Hamas was invading Doncaster’—A woman panicked her village near Doncaster was under attack when she spotted a number of paragliders flying over her home and thought they were from Hamas.” The photo: a group of paragliders above the green rolling hills. It disturbed me to think of this woman in Donca...

I speak with Robert K. Beshara روبرت بشارة, Ph. D., a scholar, psychoanalyst, musician, actor, director and artist; he has authored Decolonial Psychoanalysis: Towards Critical Islamophobia Studies (Routledge, 2019), Freud & Said (2021), but I discovered his work through his book, A Psychoanalytic Biography of Ye (2023) . In this conversation, Robert speaks through a psychoanalytically informed len...

Over the last few years, new divisions have formed amongst people in how they express themselves, online and offline. There is the positive-no-matter-what type of people who will not be afraid to cut you off should you bring an iota of negativity since, after all, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” said some motivational speaker once upon a time. Remember those?...

I speak to Leon Benson , aka El Bently 448 , who I first heard his story on Josh Rivers ’ podcast, Busy Being Black . Leon’s story moved me so much; today, I still forget how interconnected we can all be. We connected on social media, and we started to talk. Leon Benson spent two and half decades in Prison, ten of which were in solitary confinement , for a crime he did not commit .  Last year, I s...

As a good millennial, I take our mantra seriously: to share and to connect. Of the people I shared my previous post regarding, “ So you think you're not allowed to speak about Palestine? ” was Paul. He wrote back, "Wow! This is amazing. Thank you. It’s very touchy here as it is everywhere, but in the Bay Area, I can say that it is definitely anti-Zionist gentrification.” I had to think about this....

Today is day 2 of the global strike for Gaza. As two unemployed artists, I called my friend yesterday about how we strike against our usual behavior patterns. I thought about my enjoyment of the same ongoing resistance against the usual weight of normalcy. If anything, it felt like a relief. Was the call for strike an oppressive superego injunction that strikes upon my need to oppose, or was it a...

Edward Said’s daughter Najla directed the above rules at the blatant misinformation from mainstream news outlets. Someone wrote in response: So I figured today, Monday December 11, 2023, as part of the global #strikeforgaza we are asked to: * Don’t buy anything, cash or online. * Don’t use your bank account, and don’t make any transaction * Don’t leave your house * Don’t use your social media for...

Professor Lara Sheehi is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at George Washington University’s Professional Psychology Program, where she is the founding faculty director of the Psychoanalysis and the Arab World Lab. Lara’s work takes up decolonial and anti-oppressive approaches to psychoanalysis, with a focus on liberation struggles in the Global South. She is co-author with Professor S...

I attended a talk by Avgi Saketopoulou with Leon S. Brenner regarding her book, Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia (NYU Press, 2023) and was struck immediately by her courage and daringness to take on the much-needed discussion within the field of psychoanalysis. Continuing the psychoanalytic theory of Jean Laplanche to analyze theatrical and cinematic works such as Slave Play an...

I speak to abcde Flash as she has just finished reading my book, Sadness of Pleasure: Zen and the Art of Squirt. We recorded on the day Deborah Sundahl passed away, the author and pioneer in female ejaculation. Sundahl wrote the seminal work Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot: Not Your Mother’s Orgasm Book! abcde Flash is a Basel-based sexploratory, conceptual artist whose work focuses on challengi...

In January 1904, Samuel Maharero of the Herero people and Hendrik Witbooi of the Nama rebelled against German colonial rule . In the following four years, more than 100,000 Namibians died from the genocide. Those who survived the genocide were imprisoned in concentration camps, where most died of diseases, abuse, and exhaustion. It has been described as the first genocide of the 20th century. As l...

On this episode I speak to Mistress Saturn, a NYC dominatrix and BDSM practitioner, photographer and artist, where we speak about the Politics and Business of Fashion, Fetish and Photography. You can contact Mistress Saturn here: Worship Saturn This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ayoto.substack.com/subscribe

You can hear Alex Zhang Hungtai's music here on Bandcamp: https://alexzhanghungtai.bandcamp.com/ He also stars in the 2018 film by Christopher Makoto Yogi, "August at Akiko's", which you can watch here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/augustatakikos "My Film with Andrei" is releasingo on Feb 14, which you can watch here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/myfilmwithandrei Now more...

After a bit of a haitus, I get back with Junshin to speak about My Film with Andrei, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Document a Sex Party.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ayoto.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 37, I interview Ian Robertson, an artist, photographer, filmmaker, writer and musician, about his experiences growing up in Detroit, experiences of being deployed at war and working in New York City.  You can also watch this episode , with additional images from Ian, on our Youtube channel.    You can subscribe to Asian Provocation’s Youtube channel here.  Links from this episode: Ian Robe...

Here's a preview of the coming season, first with Ian Robertson.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ayoto.substack.com/subscribe