In 2016, Lee first exhibited FIREWALL Cafe, an interactive installation artwork which allows audiences to see side-by-side comparisons of image searches from Google in the U.S. with Baidu in China. Chinese authorities intervened in the inaugural New York City presentation of the work to prevent a Chinese women's rights lawyer from participating. Since this incident FIREWALL Cafe's platform for bringing attention to censorship has grown.
Lee's documentary extends beyond FIREWALL Cafe, to share stories of other artists, journalists and researchers using technology to illuminate the mechanics of censorship which otherwise remain invisible. The film features hacktivist Charlie Smith of Great Fire; Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist Megha Rajagopala; and Austrian curator and art historian, Julia Hartmann and Jason Q. Ng.
FIREWALL Cafe is an interactive dual image search website created by artist Joyce Yu-Jean Lee. Laying bare limits to Internet freedom, FIREWALL Cafe is designed to foster public dialogue about Internet censorship. Visitors are invited to search for internet images through FIREWALL and compare the results from both search engines (Google and Baidu) and then vote on the perceived differences.
Each vote is archived in a public research database, one of the goals of this this socially engaged research project. This data helps us understand and visualize the urgent and rapidly-evolving issue of Internet censorship, FIREWALL Cafe offers users first-hand interaction with information management on the Internet. The work explores user's perception of censorship, a key consideration for netizens in the U.S. amidst legislative debates over federal bans on the cultural content leader and Chinese social media platform, TikTok.