THE FIREWALL CAFE CONTROVERSY

Chinese State Censorship Reaches Manhattan's Lower East Side

by Bill Weinberg, The Villager

Manhattan-based artist Joyce Yu-Jean Lee never guessed she was in for a bit of international intrigue and even global headlines when she launched a show and accompanying discussion panels in February at a couple of alternative venues on the Lower East Side.

The installation, which lasted a month, was a pop-up Internet cafe dubbed "Firewall." This is a reference to the "Great Firewall of China" (officially the "Golden Shield") that filters the Internet in the People's Republic.

At Firewall Cafe, visitors got to input search terms of their choice into computers attached to split-screen monitors set up to display simultaneously the results from Google and Baidu—the state-approved Chinese alternative, operating from within the Great Firewall. The installation was hosted by a gallery with the appropriate name of Chinatown Soup. (Although it is actually on lower Orchard St., just where Chinatown is now starting to expand into the old Lower East Side).

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