✒️

jessica zhou

write, edit, research in san francisco, she/they

thinking about the might of the pen

2 years ago

Projects

Ongoing

2022, 2023

2023 Litquake / Lit Crawl Panel: tockify.com/litcrawl/detai…
*2022 Editor's open call: twitter.com/fieldednotes/s…
(& a shout out from Ken Liu! twitter.com/kyliu99/status…)

Solicited and selected fiction, poetry, visual art for a magazine examining technology's role in shaping our collective future

2021

2020-2022
*Editorial themes: reading.supply/@mathemakitten…

Wrote and edited for an anthology of nonfiction written by and for the North American Sino diaspora

2020

*More context: techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/msc…

2020, the year of post-irony & absurdist performance art

2019

A remnant of a past life that I think a lot about, still: computer vision-based features for digital inventory & robotic safety

2018
Co-founder, Admin at Subtle Asian Dating
2017

Edited and produced, on a M-F publication schedule, both web and print versions of the News section of the largest circulating print product serving the greater Palouse/Inland Northwest, a region that is a news desert

I wrote, edited, produced, or some combination of the three, for 130+ editions of the paper.

2017

Edited and assigned 30 multimedia stories about community sports organizations working with underserved youth over the course of a summer

Mentored and edited 10 interns' summer enterprise reporting projects

Side Projects

2023

Writer in collaboration for MURMUR, a multimedia dance and art immersion event that grew out of Sarah Bush Dance Project’s partnership with the Audubon Society.

Project: ca.audubon.org/conservation/b…
MURMUR: eventbrite.com/e/murmur-ticke…
Berkeley Poetry Festival: facebook.com/events/s/bpf-p…

For MUMUR, facilitated writing exercise with dancers; collaborated with performer Frances Teves Sedayao on ancestral rituals and writing practices for embodying movement

In-progress poetry & essayistic works based on my time in Coulterville, CA for the performance/residency

2020

Co-wrote and edited the manifesto/final statement of a performance art project on Twitter commenting on VC hype cycles, that raised donations for grassroots organizations serving Black communities

Executed on an emergent, collective social strategy with 59 other co-conspirators

2019

On-going; recognized in the 2020 Arena Annual

2018

Reporting package recognized as the best general news reporting at large schools across the nation by the SPJ for coverage of administrative budget cuts

Article here: dailyevergreen.com/22084/news/wsu…

*for the same year, the overall paper also ranked first nationally; this was the year I was one of the core news reporters, then assistant news editor (and what an incredible staff it was to be a part of)

Exhibitions

2023
San Francisco, CA

Poem selected for a juried video installation in tribute to the artist's life and work, on view June 16 - December 11, 2023

exhibitions.asianart.org/exhibitions/be…
bernicebingopencallatasianartmuseum.artcall.org/

2022
San Francisco, CA

Project on alt-text ekphrastic selfies and data sovereignty, produced in collaboration with Claudia Larcher on AI, artistic agency, bias, through ZERO1's international exchange program

2021
San Francisco, CA

"Lossless compression is like time travel, the ideal of a clean, neat, return to a past cleaved and grafted back onto the present."

Exhibited "Southeastern Expansion," a collection of work on climate/natural disaster, the mythos of California, migration to Florida, Transcontinental Railroad laborers & the contemporary space race to Mars

Wrote the statement for the group show & zine

Work Experience

2021 — Now
Artist In Consultancy

My container for consultancy / collaborative projects

Research outputs: are.na/jess-ica
Creative outputs: jyz.glitch.me/work.html

Clients and collaborators include Inverse Magazine, Doremus, Code for Science and Society, Sarah Bush Dance Project, Living Room Light Exchange, Gray Area, ZERO1 (Impact Art AT), Usage AI, Chainlist, Antimatter Systems

2022 — 2022

Oversaw the @gitcoin Twitter, experimenting with and formalizing the account voice, social media strategies, cross-org collaborative writing processes

Grew the account from 118k to 125k followers over the course of my first month, doubling social media metrics between Grants Round 14 and Grants Round 15

Edit case studies, educational blog posts, social copy

Partner with product, grants, partnerships to craft social strategy and copy for respective launches, initiatives, and other events

Soft launched @gitcoinpassport

2018 — 2021
San Francisco, Seattle, NYC

*See LinkedIn for Industry Experience (TM)
*An extended reflection: jessicazhou.github.io/ & jessicusp.wordpress.com/2021/09/29/tow…

Past stops: Twitter, Microsoft, MSCHF, OpenAI, Eternal, Bumblebee Spaces

Though I no longer work full-time as an engineer, my engineering career has informed my writing and research practice, and I'm excited to engage with engineering, programming, coding, et al, in more personal, tender, and creative forms

2016 — 2018
Pullman, WA

*SPJ national winner for general news reporting in 2017, regional finalist for breaking news in 2016
*Active contributor to staffs nationally recognized in SPJ's Mark of Excellence "Best All-Around Daily Newspaper" categories in 2017 (national winner) and 2016 (national runner up)

Print examples in link to archive & twitter.com/fieldednotes/s…

Directed, wrote and edited day-to-day campus, city and regional news

Designed news section layout for the largest circulating print product in the region

Mentored and helped retain new reporters, coordinated reporters in on-the-ground breaking news coverage

2021
Virtual / University of Oregon

Gave a talk to an upper-division / graduate art class with the Data/Network Sanctuary collective

2019
Twitter NYC

That one time I presented to Jack Dorsey / presented on contributions to Twitter's anti-spam/abuse engine, Botmaker

Features

2021

Spoke about internet ecosystems, my safety operations work at OpenAI, the labor of moderation for Subtle Asian Dating, platform hegemony feels, "landlord energy"

2020

Spoke about MMORPGs, the difficulties of managing moderation at scale, hate speech amplification on social networks in an article about Second Life

2018

Spoke about conservative student leaders at Washington State University, and one leader's involvement in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville (13:30 - 25:16)

Education

2020 — Now
DIY MFA <3 at An assemblage of teachers and friends
🕸🪢

2023, (On-going) Foundations of Asian American Studies with Asian American Literary Archive
2023, (On-going) TouchDesigner 101 with Gray Area
2023, Writing Letters to Ghosts with Kundiman
2023, Abject Portals with The Poetry Project
2023, Sonic Language with Small Press Traffic
2023, Surreal Prose Poetry
2023, Speculative Fiction, Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction
2023, Anti-Narrative Arcs with Small Press Traffic
2022-2023, Philosophy, Art, Technology Research Fellowship with ToftH
2022, Short Fiction at Mendocino Coast Writers Conference
2022, Listening to Images with Kundiman
2022, Ekphrastic Poetry with Women Who Submit
2022, ArtWorth & Queer Photo Camp with Artists' Literacy Institute
2021, Poetry, Fiction, Comics with Kearny Street Workshop's Interdisciplinary Writers Lab
2021, Live/Typewriter/Performance Poetry with Pride Poets
2020, Documentary Hybrid Forms with Kundiman
2020, Queering Surrender with NAVEL / ASSEMBLIES
2020-2021, Southern Exposure, Youth Advisory Board & Mentee

Contact

Are.na
Twitter / Art & Writing
Twitter / Technology & Research