Xiaowei Wang Receives Science & Literature National Book Award
The Science + Literature program identifies three books annually, steered by a committee of scientific and literary experts, to deepen readers’ understanding of science and technology with a focus on work that highlights the diversity of voices in scientific writing. The selected titles act as a catalyst to create discourse, understanding, and engagement with science for communities across the country. Authors receive a $10,000 prize, are celebrated at a ceremony in March, and feature in national public programming.
Xiaowei Wang is a technologist, filmmaker, artist, and writer (and BCNM DE). The creative director at Logic magazine, their work encompasses community-based and public art projects, data visualization, technology, ecology, and education. Their projects have been finalists for the Index Design Awards and featured by The New York Times, the BBC, CNN, VICE, and elsewhere. They are working toward a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.
Xiaowei's book, "Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China’s Countryside", offers a rare and enlightened window into the globalization of rural China and deftly explores how the applied science of modern machinery, of artificial intelligence, is deeply intertwined with people, places, and politics. They explore the political and social entanglements of technology in rural China. Their discoveries force them to challenge the standard idea that rural culture and people are backward, conservative, and intolerant. Instead, they find that rural China has not only adapted to rapid globalization but has actually innovated the technology we all use today.