Intention Catalog

Terence Koh

Terence Koh is a Beijing-born Canadian artist who deals with spirituality, subculture, and sexuality through his durational performances, sculptures, installations, and digital media. For decades, Koh has been compiling photographs and texts into zines and custom books – formerly under the pseudonym ‘asianpunkboy’ and under his own name since 2004. When asked what motivates him to make zines in a digital age, he replied with a handwritten note:

Occupying the “third space” withing the attention economy is important not just because, as I’ve argued, individual attention forms the basis for collective attention and thus for meaningful refusal of all kinds. It is also important because in a time of shrinking margins, when not only students but everyone else has “put the pedal to the metal,” and cannot afford other kinds of refusal, attention may be the last resource we have left to withdraw. In a cycle where both financially driven platforms and overall precarity close down the space of attention—the very attention need to resist this onslaught, which them pushes further—it may be only in the space of our own minds that some of us can begin to pull apart the links.

Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing