Miniatures and Masturbation: A Visual Analysis of “Taipei Unguarded”
What these photos are: On the inaugural day of Taiwan’s President Tsai, May 20th, 2020, some PRC miniature model maker released photos depicting the imaginary annexation of Taiwan with PRC’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In the image, President Tsai is being arrested and a famous Taiwanese political YouTuber is being confronted by the PLA. Visualization of military conquest. Diorama of expansionist imperialism. Models made of sneering insults. Clickbait to induce viral outrage and create further division between the peoples. Miniature visual violence.
Yet I can’t help but see how lovingly the streets of Taiwan are rendered. How each tiny units of air conditioner hang from the sides of buildings. How tiny posters of election and of the democratic government are printed, cut, and pasted onto the billboards and shop windows. How the textual signs of the stores are deeply loyal to the local space. How the palette of Taiwanese streets is faithfully recreated. How much planning, drafting, creating, adjusting, finishing, photographing went into this little scene that I could almost describe as quaint?
Some Taiwanese netizens have taken to calling this work “masturbation”, and I interpret it to mean an uninhibited indulgence in self-pleasure. That’s only partially the case. For those who are object makers, you understand the labor and work that went behind this creation. Although it could be a pleasurable process, it is often an arduous and even challenging one. The blood and sweat that went into the work are not to be dismissed because of its overtly literal political message. It’s more than simple fodder to fuel the fight.
The work is curiously titled “Taipei Unguarded”. It’s also a piece in a series by various authors. Or it is a popular theme of many iterations within this particular genre. The city of Taipei is visually invaded again and again in the hands of these craftspeople. In one of the photos, a scene between a PLA soldier and three Taiwanese civilians are shown standing and sitting at the corner of a street. One of the civilians is a woman is sitting on a bench, reading the PRC flyers strewn across the street. There appears to be no confrontation or conflict. Rather, it appears that the soldier is talking and the people are just listening. Unguarded indeed. How come a nation-state with notable antagonism against the PRC and its own robust war machine of a military be unguarded?
This is where we return to the masturbation metaphor and how it can work for us in this context. The notion of the capital city of Taiwan and its people being as unguarded as presented are akin to some boring het-cis trope of the sexy housewife tempting a pizza delivery man. Obvious, trite, and vapid on top of being, well, fantastical. So why is it important to materialize this fantasy in a terrarium-like self-contained object?
Desire seems to be the answer and drive behind these works. The libidinal energy exudes from every tiny crevice in its adoring details. The desire to consume, invade, and conquer in the form of the PLA military. The impossibly docile civilians that accept a complete power takeover. The utter lack of defenses–an embrace of opened legs–of a hostile population. The excessive set up that draws the eye to savor every facet. This work is not just masturbation to feel pleasure, it is sculpting the perfect imaginary miniaturized sexual object, with one’s own hands, and then masturbating to it.
Although the fantastical individual is based on a real person, they hold no affection and may even feel disgusted to the masturbator, because the masturbator not only imagines an objectified sexual version of them and assert it as truth, the masturbator also does not see them as a sovereign person who should have the right to make decisions–sexual or not–for themselves. This is a case of unrequited lust where love is nowhere to be found, for love is based on respect and care, not on crude demonstrations of one-sided force and violence.
As President Tsai begins her second term with worsening diplomatic relations between the U.S. and PRC, Taiwan is bound to face harsher challenges of its democracy and autonomy from the CCP regime and its goons. Albeit the complete invasion of Taipeinian streets is not yet likely to happen soon, these masturbatory dioramas serve as distasteful reminders to Taiwanese people of the sleazy, violent, and thus unwanted PRC desires for our streets, our cultures, and our people. We have said no, but when will they listen?