Cyber Fantasies: Rina Sawayama, Asian Feminism, and Techno-Orientalism in the Age of Neoliberalism

In the 21st century, neoliberalism and technological innovations in Asia produce techno-Orientalism, a new framework by which the West dominates Asia. In this process, Asian bodies are configured as inherently technological beings who exist solely for the production of information and neoliberal goods. Techno-Orientalism is a byproduct of the violence wrought by modernity. Yet, Rina Sawayama, a British-Japanese music artist, produces a new form of resistance that can be characterized as diasporic Asian cultural production. Her work challenges the white hegemonic masculine gaze by interrogating modernity in her lyrics, aesthetic, and performance. Sawayama\u27s aesthetic and music videos produce a new sense of Asian subjectivity via the hacking of Western epistemologies. Sawayama\u27s artistry provides a new praxis of counter-hegemonic resistance within the neoliberal era