SPEAKER_03: TED Audio Collective You're listening to TED Talks Daily.I'm your host, Elise Hu.We are on the ground at TED 2024, and there was one talk early in the week.Well, it kind of stole the show.
SPEAKER_01: Nice aunties.I don't know what it is, but it's exactly what I wanted.Nice aunties.She kind of exposed the artsy and fun side of being an auntie.
SPEAKER_03: The auntieverse is going to live in my heart forever and ever and ever. Nice Aunties is a digital artist from Singapore who is subverting the idea of the traditional scolding auntie with her AI-assisted art.She draws on her Asian heritage to explore the complex inner world of aunties.It's a little tricky to explain. She basically just invented a world and has been using AI to create art around this world, and I'm not doing it any justice.Same.So we'll let Nice Antis herself take it from here on the TED stage.And afterward, stick around, because I caught up with her to discuss art and antis in more detail.
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SPEAKER_02: How much do you earn?You look fat. I just love aunties.Some of my aunties I only see during Chinese New Year.I used to brace myself for inquisition prior to family gatherings.They call you fat, but present you with plethora of delicious food made with love and great skill. This is exasperating and endearing.I'm not alone in this.This behavior and line of questioning is so common, we even have memes for it. I grew up in a big family where the women, my late grandmother, my mother and some of my 11 aunties were expected to take care of children.
They were big influences in my life, and I witnessed great personalities, strength, eccentricity and humor. They held back from fully expressing themselves because of societal pressures, family expectations and lack of support.My grandma spent most of her life at home.She did not travel and had little contact with the outside world. In the last 20 years of her life, she had dementia and was bedridden.I often imagine her in an alternate reality where she's out and about having fun, laughing, chatting, enjoying life.But aunties are not just about family.Anyone of any age, of any culture, can be labeled an auntie.It is not something you really want to be associated with. as it could mean you're old-fashioned, rigid in your thinking or naggy.
So it is rather negative to be called one.Women of my generation live in fear of being labeled an auntie.But what if you could change this perception, turning it from dread to something fun and positive?I'm a designer from Singapore, and in the last year, also an artist. I came across some intriguing and beautiful images on social media and then found out they were made with AI.Curious about what AI could do, I found a program, I signed up, I keyed in some words, and within seconds, images appeared.I was amazed and mesmerized. Never before have I found a medium that felt like the shortest path between my ideas and the visual.It became addictive.Rather than just making images, I wanted to do more with this tool to tell stories about anti-culture.
My mother engages many social activities.She is very active, a result of her mother's immobility and limited life.She dances and performs just like the aunties do in Singapore's parks every day.This was a huge inspiration for me. So, Nice Aunties was born, a project about freedom, exuberance, self-expression and fun.It is a lighthearted perspective on the joyful side of auntie life, also a surreal narrative loosely based on the women in my family, their social lives, their relationships, their quirks, humor and, of course, food. In the last 20 years, I worked in architecture, a profession of discipline, rules and clients.I always worked in a team.It was about fulfilling the client's brief and budget. With AI, it's just me.
It's a breath of fresh air.This lack of restraint has transported me to an imaginary world where my aunties can live freely as themselves, where anything fun can and does happen.For instance, aunties in public places taking photos with sculptures in absurd ways, a typical holiday photo. becomes aunties trying to kiss the moon but failing badly.Over the course of a year, instead of designing buildings, I developed nice aunties into a world-building project, the Auntieverse.Just like in any world, there are cities, citizens, their lives and their culture. Antiverse is partly inspired by Singapore, where acronyms are used for everything.A sentence would typically sound like, I'm going to take the MRT to the NTUC near my mom's HDB to avoid the ERP.In the Antiverse, we have tofu-engineered sushi luxury otos, aka Tesla.It's a transportation factory
where aunties assemble food and legs to create vehicles running on leg power.It's very sustainable. In Chinese dialect, legs have the same sound as cars.So a common joke would be to say, let's get around on our own cars, meaning we can move around on our own legs, implying self-reliance.So I imagine at Tesla, we have the usual car assembly, a car wash, and of course, a car junkyard. But lakes don't just move cars around in the Antiverse.Buildings use them too, as do animals and vegetables.Another destination in the Antiverse is MoMA, the Museum of Modern Anties. when modern auntie culture is celebrated.This is a social space where aunties gather, hang out, eat, chit-chat, have fun, chillax.
So one day, I said to my mother that she should show others how to make and then sell her delicious food.She said, no, too tired.So I imagined NASA, Nice Auntie Sushi Academy. a culinary school on the moon where aunties share their cooking skills.Here, amazing food is made available for all, 24-7.Aunties in training learn how to forage fresh ingredients on the moon, how to slice fish, and the cat will ensure all lessons go according to plan.But food isn't just used for eating. in the auntieverse.It's used for all kinds of relaxing activities.I would love to soak in this ramen hot tub with my aunties.
Well, sushi is used extensively in aunties' spa for all kinds of beauty treatments and relaxing body wraps, a reference to many aunties' beauty tips, like putting cucumbers and other foods on their faces and bodies.Personally, I have been wrapped down in coffee grounds and then wrapped in cling film.It's very unsettling. Along with many beauty treatments like lasers and acupuncture, I felt like I had to try, under the promise of youth and beauty.So many women undergo the pain of these beauty treatments to maintain body ideals and notions of beauty standards.Sometimes it feels like having construction sites on our faces and bodies.Does it actually work?I don't know. On the lighter end of the spectrum, Auntie's Nail Spa provides many beautiful options for our fingers, including very useful tools for everyday life.Meanwhile, on Aunt Lantis, a parallel world inspired by Plato and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, my aunties take a break on the beach after a day's work cleaning out the ocean floor in a world filled with plastic waste as we know it.
My Auntie Verse is an ever-expanding narrative of food, culture, family, relationships and the world we live in.I could not have imagined having created this without the help of AI.Before AI, I have never edited a video.This technology lowered the barrier to learning and allowed me to bring my imagination to life in only 12 months. But this isn't just about AI.The Auntieverse is about honoring the memory of extraordinary women who nurtured one another and their families.It is about celebrating personalities and bringing into the spotlight the mundane and the bizarre, like some aunties' big, permed hair.The taller the hair, the closer to God, some said.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you. So how are you feeling after coming off the stage?
SPEAKER_02: Great to be here.I still can't believe it.I can't believe I made a TED Talk.
SPEAKER_03: Well, it was incredibly well received because I think your message of just anti-culture in general is something so many of us can resonate with.Not just Asian women, but so many people around the world.And so you mentioned that a lot of people live in fear of being labeled an anti-culture. Where do you think these negative stereotypes came from?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm not quite sure.I suppose it's from the previous generation of women that I come into contact with in Singapore.So the last generation, the baby boomers, I believe they received a lot of tough love.So that's passed on to the younger generation.So every time you see them, they insult you first.And I always have to brace myself before I go meet my aunties. Like the last time I saw one auntie, she's like, oh, you look better last time.You don't quite know what to say to that.
SPEAKER_03: Are you supposed to be like, thanks?Thanks, but no thanks.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: I remember I had an auntie in particular who made a lot of comments about weight. Especially for little girls, too, you know, going through puberty and be like, wow, you really gained weight.Your legs got big or whatever.Yeah, exactly.And then now, like starting in my 30s and on, it was stuff like, oh, you look old.You aged a lot since last time.
SPEAKER_02: Or like, your face looks bigger now.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, the bigger face thing.How have audiences received your work?So not just after coming off the TED stage, but just in general, online and as more and more people have become familiar with it.
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people have messaged me saying they really resonated with that because firstly, they are aunties themselves.Then the second group of people, they have aunties who insult them.So it's something that everyone experiences, but they don't talk about it.For the longest time, I just wonder about this phenomenon.Why does it exist?Maybe it's like a generation who have been taught that way, passed down from their parents.It's like 2,000 years of Asian history.Yeah. Maybe.
SPEAKER_03: Distilled into one stereotypical lady.There was a lot in your talk or a lot in your work in general that kind of touches on this idea that many aunties encourage us to change our appearance, right?Or to change our bodies in one way or the other, like whether it's trying new lasers or trying to regiment our bodies in order to lose weight.And I really spend a lot of time thinking about this because I wrote a book called Flawless about South Korean beauty culture, but just also beauty culture writ large.And you mentioned in your talk that you're not sure and you're doubtful that any of this stuff even really works, right?But it gets pushed on us.What are you trying to explore or dissect about this very prevalent beauty culture that so many of us are living in?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think aunties make that sort of comment because maybe somewhere they feel like they have not done it themselves and they want the best for you.So they're trying to give you unsolicited advice on how you can improve so that maybe you could meet someone so that you won't be alone.
SPEAKER_03: But it's predicated on the idea that you need to get married, right?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_03: Which is a more old fashioned idea.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.So they have been programmed to behave like that, programmed to think like that.So it's all societal stuff, cultural stuff, family expectations. And what I'm trying to explore is, do we really need it?Why go through that torture?Why do we do it?It's sort of to make people think.I'm not in particular taking a stand on whether we should do it or not.It's up to personal choice.It's more to start a conversation.
But yeah, let's question it.Let's question the matrix that we're living in.Exactly.
SPEAKER_03: How have your own aunties responded to your work?
SPEAKER_02: Well, they don't understand it.They're really chill about it.So I showed my mom.Yeah, I showed my mom and my mom was like, oh, cool, really nice.And she didn't say anything else.And then some other people on Facebook, my friends and families, the circle was like, where did you find all these models to take photos for you?Yeah. They don't understand AI and don't understand this thing.They're just like, oh, chill, cool.You're doing what you're doing and you're having fun.
Great.
SPEAKER_03: Do you think it could have been possible without all of the leaps that we've seen in AI?
SPEAKER_02: I think it's possible, but it would take far longer.
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Far longer, like probably a thousand times longer, two thousand times longer.Wow. I mean, I've heard from friends who make videos that it takes four to six months to make something good, right?But with this technology, I can make one video a day.
SPEAKER_03: Wow.Well, we're glad for it in this case, for sure, because it's brought so much of your art forward.What is the future of the Nice Antiques Project?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to tell more stories.So it's like the ever-expanding narrative, right?So if it can be made into movies, fantastic.Netflix series, fantastic.Or like be manifested into something physical, fantastic.
SPEAKER_03: Well, before we go, can you tell me what is your favorite anti-scene or one that you feel closest to?
SPEAKER_02: There is one that is in the talk.I talked about Aunt Lantis, which is a parallel world, inspired by Plato and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.So in the video, some aunties were lying on the beach and their guts were made of plastic and spilling onto the beach.So it's kind of gruesome, but it also kind of looked a bit whimsical.So you can't quite tell, can't quite... know what to feel when you look at it.And then there's like the beach and then the waves are breaking and the seagulls are calling.And then next scene, you have anti-mermaids and their tails are made of plastic waste and they're sweeping the floor in the ocean.So yeah, I think that's gotten a lot of attention on social media.It's like 6.1 million plays on Instagram.
It's more than the population of Singapore.So I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_03: Well, congratulations, Nice Antis.Thank you so much for sitting down with us.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.So fun.
