Uncomputable Thread is a lecture performance by artist Taeyoon Choi, created in collaboration with scholar Alexander R. Galloway, dancer Cori Kresge, and artist Roopa Vasudevan. The work examines the history of textile in relation to computing, alongside the artistic and political significance of what cannot be computed.

Choi and Galloway’s lecture weaves together their long collaboration and ongoing conversation about the aesthetics and politics of code and textile, followed by a discussion moderated by Vasudevan. Kresge directs a participatory dance performance that extends the conversation toward visceral and communal experience. Together, the project explores uncomputability as a creative framework for thinking about contemporary technologies and social systems, connecting the threads of cotton and fiber-optic cables running through data centers.

About the Facilitators

최태윤 Taeyoon Choi is an artist, writer, educator who explores the poetics of technology and human relations. He works with images, text, and code, oftentimes in collaboration with fellow artists, experts, and community members.

Cori Kresge is a New York-based dance artist whose practice moves across choreography, somatic inquiry, participatory structures, and poetry. She has collaborated and performed with various artists – including Taeyoon Choi, Liz Magic Laser, Rashaun+Silas Dance, and many others – on works for film, live audience, and public spaces. Her work has been presented by Goethe in the Skyways, Elevation 1049, Beach Sessions, Dance Roulette, Greenspace, and other venues. Kresge was a member of the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group and is a certified teacher and stager for the Merce Cunningham Trust. She is the founder of Play With Matches, an online workshop series. Writing remains an integral part of her artistic practice, informing her approach to score-making and performance. She has written two chapbooks: isn’t devotion (No, Dear/Small Anchor first chapbook prize, 2019) and Combustion Suite, (Bored Wolves, 2023). Alongside her artistic practice, she is a licensed massage therapist and certified Zero Balancing practitioner. 

Alexander R. Galloway is a writer and computer programer working on issues in philosophy, technology, and theories of mediation. He is the author of several books on digital media and critical theory, including The Interface Effect (Polity, 2012).

Roopa Vasudevan is a South Asian-American media artist and researcher based between New York City and western Massachusetts. Through her technologically driven research and creative practice, she investigates the gaps between the stories we tell ourselves about digital systems and the realities of their implementations. She has exhibited her work internationally, and has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to artist-led initiatives, working with spaces across the United States including in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland (OH), and Portland (ME). Her work has additionally been exhibited or supported by MASS MoCA, the European Cultural Centre Italy (Venice), NEW INC (New Museum, New York), the Processing Foundation, Eyebeam, and the Emerson Collective Culture Council, among others. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

^{Support for Technologies of Relation is provided by the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, The Coby Foundation, Robert Motherwell and Renate Ponsold (in memoriam), Dale and Deborah Smith Foundation, and a grant from Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation’s Artist’s Resource Trust.}