Dear Bev,
April 6th - May 6th 2022
A meandering email conversation
about
To put together an online conversational piece about and around All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep on Killing Mosquitoes for ArtAsiaPacific
Written between
Beverly Yong & Gan Siong King
Adapted for web by
Gan Siong King
With thanks to
ArtAsiaPacific
With apologies, best viewed with Google Chrome
B
An experiment
Wed, Apr 6, 3:57 PM
Dear Gan,
So my usual approach to an interview by email is to send a short series of questions following a tentative projected flow, follow up with any further questions that arise, and then edit into something reasonably tight and digestible. A nice efficient go-to method for interviewees who enjoy writing and when there are tight deadlines.
Or, if I’m working with, say, a four hour conversationxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx angel’s share xxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx.
I’m hoping this slightly experimental approach (for me), as a leisurely e-mail conversation will fall somewhere in between (and not require too much editing)! xx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxx xxx, xx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx x xxxx xxxx xx xxxxx. Please bear with my rambling.
Redacted
personal stuff
Header(clickable)
Underlined
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angel's share
noun
: the amount of an alcoholic drink (such as cognac, brandy, or whiskey) that is lost to evaporation when the liquid is being aged in porous oak barrels. Up to 1 percent of the volume of the cask can be lost each year through evaporation, sometimes called the angel's share.
— James Suckling, Wine Spectator, 30 Apr. 1992
+sign(clickable)
Hidden for brevity
Lately, maybe like many other people, I feel I’ve been starting too many conversations in my head and even with others. Time of life, parenthood, the pandemic, the speed and fickleness of narrative shifts in recent years here and “globally”, natural introversion, and the projects I/we’ve been working on have really set off a lot of new questions and rethinkings/reconnections that I’m probably too eager to chase down. I think this is partly why I felt such release (and relief) coming into All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep Killing Mosquitoes. From the moment the text appeared typed on screen, it made me feel, ok, a lot of people right now need to find ways of speaking to each other (because suddenly we understand how blind, deaf, mute and numb we might have made ourselves), and then, once we entered the visual narrative of the video essay, yes everything is happening at this kind of speed and randomness, thank God for that nice soundtrack you put on.
Promo video for All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep on Killing Mosquitoes
Scrolling(Clickable)
More info
So I thought, let’s try to do this as a conversation, since conversation seems quite key to your work.
So I have some questions to start. What role does conversation play in your work and in what different ways does it manifest? Who’s speaking and to whom?
Thank you,
Beverly Yong (b. Kuala Lumpur, 1974) graduated from Cambridge University in 1995, reading English Literature and Art History. She went on to gain a Masters degree in Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University the following year.
She joined Valentine Willie Fine Art Kuala Lumpur as Curator shortly after its foundation in 1996. From 1998 to 1999, she worked in the Chinese Department at Christies’ London, returning at the end of 1999 to become a partner and Managing Director of Valentine Willie Fine Art, leaving this post to co-found RogueArt in 2008.
She has over twenty years’ art curatorial and management experience, curating and organising over two hundred exhibitions and projects both locally and in the region. She has worked closely with leading Malaysian artists including Nirmala Dutt Shanmughalingam, Redza Piyadasa, Joseph Tan, Syed Ahmad Jamal, Wong Hoy Cheong, Chang Fee Ming, Jalaini Abu Hassan, and Yee I-Lann, as well as a broad range of artists from across Southeast Asia and beyond, including Putu Sutawijaya, Agus Suwage, the Jendela Group, Geraldine Javier, Natee Utarit, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Tang Da Wu, Lindy Lee and Shaun Gladwell, among many others.
She has served as a curator for a number of major institutional projects, including: Chang Fee Ming – Mekong at Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Chiangmai University Art Museum and Galeri Nasional, Jakarta (2004); Wong Hoy Cheong at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2004); Selamat Datang ke Malaysia at Gallery 4A, Sydney (2007); Between Generations : 50 Years Across Modern Art in Malaysia at Asian Art Museum, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, and Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang (2007), and most recently Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2018). Curatorial projects with RogueArt include Territories of the Real and Unreal: Photographic practices in contemporary Southeast Asian art for Langgeng Art Foundation in Jogyakarta (2011), and Thinking of Landscape: Paintings from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection at the Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore (2014), Yee I-Lann & Collaborators “Borneo Heart” (2021).
She has served as a judge for the UOB Painting of the Year (2016) and Young Contemporaries Competition, National Art Gallery (2001). She has been invited to speak on the local and regional art scene by institutions such as Galeri Petronas Kuala Lumpur, Bank Negara Malaysia and IVAA (Indonesian Visual Arts Archive), and has regularly served as moderator for discussions and forums including Imagining New Ecologies: Curators’ Forum at The Japan Foundation, Tokyo (2018).
She was formerly an art columnist for the Malaysian Business Times and The New Sunday Times (2000-2003). As an art writer, she has also contributed to international exhibition publications such as ARS01 (Helsinki 2001), Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2005), and Wong Hoy Cheong (UK touring exhibition by Organisation for Visual Arts, 2002-2003); and arts and cultural magazines such as ArtAsiaPacific, Art India, PhotoArtAsia, Off the Edge, and Kakiseni.com. She has edited a number of publications on local and regional art, including Between Generations: 50 Years Across Modern Art in Malaysia (with Hasnul J Saidon, University of Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia & Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur 2008) and Wong Hoy Cheong: Slight Shifts (with June Yap, NUS Museum, Singapore 2008), Condition Report: Shifting Perspectives in Asia (with Furuichi Yasuko, Japan Foundation Asia Center 2018) and Imagining New Ecologies (with Furuichi Yasuko, Japan Foundation Asia Center 2019). Editorial projects with RogueArt include WORKING (2010), Yee I-Lann: Fluid World (2010), Eko (Space) Nugroho (2011), Today and Tomorrow: Emerging Practices in Malaysian Art (2013), and Thinking of Landscape: Paintings from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection. She is also co-editor-in-chief (with Nur Hanim Khairuddin) of the four volume Narratives in Malaysian Art publication project by RogueArt (2009-2019).
K
On conversation
Apr 8, 2022, 5:53 PM
Dear Bev,
Thanks again for doing this. The deadline and this leisurely email format are great. Please feel free to edit my text for the AAP version. I think you should have authorship for this, and my grammar is suspect. I can share the unedited version (with a link to the AAP version) on my website if there are enough differences between the two. What do you think?
Since this is meant for the web, I imagine there are opportunities to hyperlink. To include images and sound in the text. I don’t know how you feel about this. I’ll probably add some, but feel free to take them out.
These greyed words
I’m surprised by your “...how blind, deaf, mute and numb we might have made ourselves” reaction. Please tell me more about how you came to that? This and all paragraphs in grey don’t have to be included for AAP. It’s just another part of my mind chiming in.
The Koganecho Gesture - Aggregated Music Links
Crying
EVISBEATS【PV】いい時間
EARFQUAKE
Thank you for the compliment on the soundtrack. The sound design for All the Time blah Mosquitoes blah (ATP) did a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of keeping people engaged. Or at least provided a space for people to make their own connections to the conversations on the screen. As with everything, words and images have their limits. I think those words/visuals carry the narrative forward (or somewhere), but it’s the sound that gives the viewing experience an emotional dimension. Anyways.
Starting our conversation with conversations as a topic is my cup of tea.
"Conversation" is one of those slippery words. Which I use interchangeably with others depending on context. But at the center of it, conversations simply imply there are others besides the self. Conversations in my work are a manifestation of that. That art and artist don’t exist on their own. It is always in relation or in context with someone else and/or their work. Which is a realization I found annoying when I was younger. But I usually trust and try to use my discomfort as a departure point.
Bev, do remember when we did the Artist Survival Workshop in 2001? That project came out from conversations with the gang about the K.L art scene. There’s an instinctive understanding that the vitality of the scene is important to the development of my personal practice. I still feel the same. The project report I wrote for ATP is a continuation of this belief. It’s about art and art-making from an artist's perspective. Written as a reference for younger artists. And a form of documentation with text for myself, perhaps useful for future conversations.
2 DIY publications on art and art-making 20 years apart.
Artist Survival Workshop’s booklet (2001, left)
and All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep on Killing Mosquitoes’ project report (2022, right).
Link to the project report
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RIniy7pyZCN0twxUqvKN4MlQ2QZ6YE2e/view?usp=sharing
Over the years, I‘ve come to believe that art and artists cannot exist on their own. A slight hardening of position. So, figuring out how to meaningfully include others in my practice became crucial. And conversations are entry points. A cost-efficient one I should add. I talk to different people in different phases of my art-making process. These conversations take on many forms for different purposes. And can be replaced with words like brainstorming, feedback, review, interview, discussion, planning, collaboration, dialogues, Q&A and etc. I’m interested in developing all these forms of conversation. Particularly its documentation. So, this thing we’re doing comes at the right time.
I’ve always felt after a dialogue or Q&A that so much was left unsaid. To somehow extend the dialogue and Q&A in other forms. Do you have any thoughts about this?
@meeting.people.is.easy (2017) Instagram account
Meeting People is Easy (MPIE) is a result of those thoughts. It’s an open studio project where the audience books a 3-hour block to hang out with me at my studio. To look at my paintings in various stages of completion. With a small group of people of their choice, or by themselves.
Part of the idea is to rethink how my paintings or my painting practice can be used as a form to interact with others. MPIE relies on conversations as means to understand my work, and theirs as well. And then, documenting some aspects of our conversations in short captions on Instagram. This project attempts to place my practice within the context of our local arts scene. It’s a way of saying, these are my works and these are some of the other artists in my arts community.
Conversations are also materials. Even those casual banters between friends. Kecek Amplifier Bersama Nik Shazwan is an example of this. Some of the things said in that video essay are not vital to the narrative. Which is essentially about guitar amplifiers. You'll find jokes, half-truths, and outright lies. All of these add a degree of humanity to the person saying those words. And helps create a representation of those casual conversations between Nik and me. Meandering, always with laughter and intimate at times, but not efficient. Because life is just not very efficient.
Nik Shazwan at CERIATONE Amplification
All of my video essays are made from recorded conversations. I suppose it’s a necessary condition for any narrative-based, non-fiction work. They serve as a first draft script. Most of it gets cut eventually. Part of the editing process is to find an overlap of interest and opinions between the subject/narrator and myself. Balancing this with their story and work. It can be said that I’m speaking through them in some instances. Or perhaps speaking together with them throughout. It’s a manifestation of our conversations. Maybe it’s an exercise in empathy. Which I think we can all have more of.
I sometimes think of these video essays as prayers. I’m a non-believer. So, it’s not a conversation with God, but something equally abstract. It’s a conversation with this idea of a nation and its people. So, I'm talking with everyone and no one at all. It's a balm for my anxiety from our ever-polarizing socio-political discourse. There are good people doing good work is the mantra.
On that, I should stop my rambling. I hope I'm making some sense. And see, an edit might be necessary.
Looking forward to continuing this conversation. Please take care.
cheers
gan
Promo video for Kecek Amplifier bersama Nik Shazwan
B
Much happier things
Apr 11, 2022, 11:33 AM
Dear Gan,
Doing this the old-fashioned way and writing a reply afresh though it’s tempting to answer in caps/different colour! (Just figured out that it’s a matter of forwarding not replying the message so we keep the images and links etc)
We can just publish this one reply hahaha, and keep the rest for your website! Seriously though, let’s just run with it and decide what to propose to AAP later. I’m really glad you suggested to put this on your website - it makes things much happier when it’s not (even in the most superficial xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx sense) at the outset a proposal for me to create content from your story.
“Blind, deaf, mute and numb” - I think I mean I feel xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On the soundtrack, I’d like to expand on this later if that’s ok.
On discomfort, I remember certain earlier works of yours, somewhere in the 2000s, were intended to create this very sense of discomfort in the other, to put us at our unease. There was that particularly wonderful painting of a gallery wall label that you contributed for one of VWFA’s exhibitions and that (ultra radical at the time) black rubber mat in the shape of the gallery floor plan* (maybe a context footnote will be necessary here!). I think there was a will to expose the system or challenge assumptions about how we see things. I don’t think your work is any less critical (or playful) now, but where you used your work to antagonise, you now talk about meaningfully including others in your practice, I’d say you go out of your way to include them in the conversation. I’m curious about that transition (because I also just read through the journal Between Two Mountains, and its story of your going “lone wolf…
Still from Between Two Mountains (2007)
OMG artists' survival handbook - pls send me the PDF! We have it somewhere but our library is with [A+ Works of Art}. I think Rachel is still carrying on the work of the artist's survival handbook, with her own updates… : ) Really grateful for your exhibition-making project report - wish we had had this for the exhibition-making toolkit workshop xxxxxx xxxxx xx xx xx in Sabah, and will still distribute to participants and elsewhere! Very helpful on a personal level also, for someone who grew up not used to playing with others (I’m hoping my son does better but he demonstrates the same natural bossiness at a young age that comes with being an over-indulged only child) and has been trying different ways with varying success to work together with others on many projects.
On extending conversations: I know what you mean by Q&As being too short – editors, writers, moderators have that job of keeping things digestible and the limitations on time and word counts can get frustrating. But I believe whatever is unfinished or triggered will find a way into something else, somewhere else, even if it’s just in our thinking. In the old days, people used to reply to each other through letters in the papers - somehow online comments just don’t cut it. I meet up online with a group of art writers/researchers every xxxxxxxxxxxxxx for two hours - on Discord, we’ve started a #belated thoughts thread which allows us to add thoughts and references whenever we feel like after a session. Discord allows for spooling threads, leisurely conversations like old-fashioned chatrooms with more options for organisation. It feels kinda underground and private right now, but it looks like the institutions are starting to enter the space (Pace just announced its Discord channel) so not sure how its character as a forum will unfold; I really liked that it was made for kids and gaming nerds. I wish more artists would adopt something like the Meeting People is Easy approach, or that we had the equivalent of community radio for artists, workers and fans. I shouldn’t say “I wish”.
And then, to dig a bit more into these video essays based on conversations... I suppose I think of their form as biography (to say “portrait” is just too fanciful, but you may disagree. I can just imagine someone writing an essay on Gan Siong King’s “portraiture” - me, 15 years ago perhaps!). Could you maybe share a bit more about some of the other people who have become the subject of these works - how you came to want to make work about/with their stories? Just in brief, as a teaser if you like, because the essays themselves are what we should go to.
And then of course The Koganecho Gesture as autobiographical, which kind of loops back to Between Two Mountains and my question about transition. The essay seems seamless, natural, honest - was that hard to achieve?
Thanks, and take care too,
Beverly
Blind men and an elephant
Apr 13, 2022, 4:50 PM
K
Dear Bev,
Alright, let’s just write and see what happens. I think I’ll just index this whole thing under my “Work” page and titled it “Dear Bev”. A new text-based work. Yay.
Yes, let’s talk sound, I think I’ll have much to say. I just need enough or the right questions to organize my thoughts around this subject.
Perhaps one of the positives of the pandemic is it made us reconsider our situation. Especially in relation to others. Bev ah, please xxxx xx xxx xxxx xx xxxxxxxx. xxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxx, xxxx. xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxx xxxx, xx?
I don’t have the PDF for Artist Survival Handbook. My hard copy is battered. But I’ll find time to scan it. Yes, thank you and please share the ATP report with people. I’m glad Rachel has branched into education because she has good experiences to share.
#belated thoughts is such a brilliant title! That is what it feels like, a second chance. I need to go check out this discord thing. Maybe I can document my future projects on my website with this interface. Thanks for sharing.
The Label
The label was meant for a show to celebrate VWFA’s, I can’t remember, 10th year anniversary? So, I painted the VWFA label, and place it where a label should be, leaving the space for the artwork empty. The title of this (non) work is It’s Not What You Show, but Where You Show That Matters. It's a cheeky tribute to the importance of VWFA as a gallery. And a commentary on the function or the authority certain art spaces have to validate an artist's practice. Latiff Mohidin at Centre Pompidou for instance. Or Gan Siong King at ArtAsiaPacific for that matter.
I think it came from my youthful annoyance that an artist has to consider other things besides art-making. I was aiming to antagonize anyone. It's just my way of processing things.
Typo. I meant wasn't.
The VWFA label is part of a loose series of works that approach paintings as an act of object-making instead of image-making. Which included among other things a clock in actual size and dimension. Placed above eye level to further simulate an actual clock. Which opens up the possibility of reading it as a sculpture or an installation besides a painting.
A part of my painting practice is about finding ownership of the form, by testing its accepted perimeter. Similar to my video essays, it’s about simultaneously using and investigating the limits of genres.
It’s Show Time
2008, Oil on Canvas, approx. 27cm x 30cm
Made for The Painting Show (2008),
curated by Yee I-lann
The Loneliest Place in The World (detail)
2009, Fiberglass Cast (with Black Pigment), approx. 218cm x 307cm
Made for Cartographical Lure (2009), curated by Simon Soon
Simon’s essay - http://www.vwfa.net/cartographicallure/intro.html
- The Place
The Loneliest Place in The World (LPW) is actually a 1:1 cast of the wooden flooring of my rented room at that time. A tiny space on the ground floor, adjacent to the kitchen. And my bedroom for more than a decade. The work negates the scaling in map-making and marks the place with an irreverent and emotive description. It counters the kind of work I was making at that time. Which are usually conceptual or macho in their posturing. I thought my aversion to emotions or vulnerability is funny. LPW is one of those instances where I trusted my discomfort.
My room at Taman OUG (2000-2012), Plywood floor panel (right)
- Unpacking things
A big part of what I do is unpack conventions or expectations. And then rearrange them in different ways to imagine other ways of seeing. This is true for my paintings and videos. I think a lot of our values and the way we understand reality are embedded in the status quo we maintain. Most of it is unchallenged and taken as unchanging truth. Painting is image-making (for most) is an example.
I’m not looking to change anything. It's just my way of figuring things out. It's that group of blind men and an elephant, but with all kinds of other animals on it.
- Escaping painting
The transition you mentioned was preceded by another much earlier turnover. When I tried to escape from the solitary process of painting. And even prior to that, other people have always been part of my practice. They just have different roles, functions, and visibility.
I went on the 2 weeks excursion with a group of friends from theater and other fields that I meet through Spacekraf (2000-2005). A multi-art collective that I co-founded because I wanted to do more than just paintings. I felt paintings were a limited interface to process my thoughts and reality. I thought other people and art forms will surely add to my artistic practice.
Chow Kit Fest (2002) photo by Tan Sei Hon
https://myartmemoryproject.com/articles/2002/05/chaos-and-cacophony-at-chow-kit/?lang=ms
essay by Pang Khee Teik
- Making connections and expanding practice
Chow Kit Fest (2002), is an unreasonably ambitious and inevitably chaotic 5-days multi-arts festival initiated by Spacekraf. We weren’t sure how to organize a festival, we definitely don’t have adequate resources, but thank goodness that didn’t stop us. So, it was five days of improvised madness. But it did introduce and connect different pockets of young people from different art disciplines. Which was what I wanted. And it’s sure as hell is different from making paintings. Another thing that I wanted.
It was through Chow Kit Fest that I met and then started work on community arts projects. Mainly with Five Arts Center through their theater programs. It was an exciting time. Again, not painting. Different methods and values toward different ends. Art outside of gallery spaces and formalistic concerns of image-making. Artist as facilitators and other roles.
Taman Medan Community Arts Project (2003) - A 3-months art workshop with inner-city children.
A Five Arts Center project, with support from British Council Malaysia.
- Going lone wolf
So, several years passed. I was learning and doing all these new things but there was a nagging feeling that something is not right. Through the process of navigating the inter-relationships and politics of working in a group, I begin to realize this design by committee method is not for me. What the group wanted, is not what I want. So, I had to go away. And find other ways to include other people without losing myself.
By 2009 I stopped making movies and started to play with moving images and sound. I wanted to bring together the various experiences I had over the last decade. The filmmaking industry was also going through a transition from analog to digital. So, I had access to surplus and recently obsolete equipment. And also, personal computers have become powerful and affordable enough for videomaking.
This camera cost RM16,000 at one point.
Malaysia's median monthly household income in 2009 is RM2841 (https://www.dosm.gov.my)
A borrowed MiniDV camera with a DIY 35mm lens rig
(the long tubular front portion that is supported by a wood structure)
- MAW
By 2013, I’d built a small portfolio of video work. Dreamers, Jane Behind the Glass, and several other videos were made during this period. I’ve gained some confidence and was looking for a challenge. I wanted to work on a long-term project revolving around time, identity, and work. To capture a slice of the Malaysian reality that is not topical and over a longer period of time. The project is tentatively and badly titled MAW (Malaysia Artists at Work).
The idea is to make 10 video essays on 10 artists over a period of 10 years. And linking them together at the end to make a super feature-length video essay. I’ve made 3 so far with Chia Koon, Jeff, and Nik. I should be working on Suiko Takahara of The Venopian Solitude next, but I have no idea how to proceed. I do have a draft of the edit from 2016. Taka is a singer-songwriter and YouTube star. Her band makes quirky tunes. They are pop but keen on experimentation.
![[TVS]+PNG+2019-WEB.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c14384_d6186b26fe4f4f3990d33d33e84648f6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_682,h_374,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/%5BTVS%5D%2BPNG%2B2019-WEB.png)
Taka (front center, in pink) and her band, The Venopian Solitude.
Image from https://www.thevenopiansolitude.com/home
I don't know whether you noticed, Chia Koon’s (#4 Words & Works) ending is actually Jeff’s intro. Although they were made a year apart. And the same for Jeff’s and Nik’s video (made 4 years apart). The idea is to get all 10 of them to meet on screen, to link this project together.
Transition between Chia Koon Talk #4 (2014) to The Boy, His Bike & the Map (2015)
- Video essay
I have no preference between portraiture or biography. It’s similar to the question of whether I see my videos as documentaries, video art, video essay, or even promotional video. I see them as moving images and sounds. And using video essay as a genre is helpful for the purpose of communicating with and managing the expectations of the public.
I define video essay as a non-fiction work, yet not a documentary. A genre in between genres. It’s a genre that also places equal importance on the experimentation with the form (moving images and sound) as it does the content. It’s a genre in search of a definition. It’s a non-definitive definition. In that sense, it's a tactical choice to retain maximum freedom.
- Everything I’m not
Besides Chia Koon, I don’t know the other 3 subjects before I start work with them. They were introduced to me by people who have watched my previous videos. So, chance plays a deliberate part in all of this. I think everyone’s stories are equal, and I want to include people that I don't know.
But their profession must have potential in terms of imagery or sound in my imagination. And we must be able to get along on a personal level because the making process is tedious. They must be willing to provide me with access to their work for an extended period of time. I don’t have a story when we start. That is something we find in the making process.
And recently I’ve added gender, ethnicity, and other such things for consideration. Because the first 2 subjects, without planning for it, were Chinese men. I don’t want to organically end up making 10 videos of 10 heterosexual Chinese men. I believe identity politics do influence the way we experience the world and do our work to a certain degree. It’s impossible for me to cover everyone, but I hope this project will have as wide a representation of the different Malaysians that are out there. So, I'm looking for someone who is everything I’m not. And preferably someone who doesn't have a high profile. I don’t know who’s next because I’ll look for her/him only after I’ve made Taka’s.
- Seamless, natural and honest
Such a big compliment, thank you.
The Koganecho Gesture (TKG) was made a few months into the lockdown. I was broke and on the verge of defaulting on rent. Then I got a lucky break by being selected as a resident artist for Koganecho Bazaar 2020. The fatigue and listlessness gave way to a fierce focus. And I became shameless about my situation. This feeling that I'm not good enough. And I begin to write, which is another discomfort. It's something I thought I couldn't do. I still feel the same, but it's not stopping me.
I was trying to make sense of my present situation. Reflecting on the purpose of art and being an artist in Malaysia. What can my work do for my community, especially in times of a pandemic? Very little, unfortunately. I thought the least I could do is make something that could provide entry points to art appreciation. And document the pandemic in some ways.
I thought presenting art as a form of labor creates a common ground. Because all of us have experiences with working, whatever that may be. So, speaking about the purpose, challenges, and aspirations of my art-making is a way in. But the question is not limited to why I make art. That’s a head fake. In the context of the pandemic and everything surreal that followed, the question is why we choose to do anything at all?
The 2 ½ months passed like a fevered dream. Again, I didn’t have a story or ending when I started. Everything was found in the making process. I just try to stay in the present and be as transparent as I can. Which seems like such a radical position to hold these days. It was long hours, but I was engaged. When it was done, it felt like the easiest thing. But then again, one of my superpowers is the ability to forget hardship.
Alright, I’ve reached the rambling limit.
Still from My Video Making Practice (2020)
Bev, TKG actually has a slightly older and more cheerful (maybe maniacal) twin titled My Video Making Practice (MVMP). Started a few weeks into the lockdown. It's an artist talk presented as a video essay. Where I share some of the thoughts and circumstances behind 11 videos from 6 projects I made over the last decade. MVMP will not be shared online. It's meant to be viewed in person and comes with a dialogue session post-screening. I think you'll find a lot of the info relevant to our conversation.
https://youtu.be/XXXXXXXXX
Please do not share ya, thanks.
More soon. Please take care.
cheers
gan
B
Rewind a bit
Apr 24, 2022, 7:54 AM
Dear Gan,
image by Beverly Yong
xx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxx , xxxx xxxx xx xxxx xxx xxx xx xxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx, so I was able to watch MVMP following your SOP. I wanted to reply after watching it but was too sleepy. And then the week flew past.
So rereading, regathering thoughts, and playing it again in the background as I form this reply.
One of the things about having watched MVMP is that I now have replies to questions I have not yet asked. But then I also don’t want to repeat things, so it’s helpful.
I’m going to start where you left off. Why do we choose to do anything at all? You embedded in TKG an invitation for the public to collaborate with you, and that brought into being the next work CITIZEN with Makarim Salman. You wrote in a purpose and dreamt of an outcome. Do you want to talk about that idea and how it turned out?
To backtrack to our previous exchange, I take it back, I do understand now the video essays as portraits. Because they are your portrait of your subject’s story, your form of tribute, your prayer, your vision, your style of picturing, story-telling together through their voice. I like that much of the substance of the work is in the collaborative process itself though in ATP, the importance of the gesture of invitation and the feeling of possibility it opens up for me as a viewer.
And rewind a bit:
Labels and floor plans, paintings and video
"I was aiming to antagonize anyone. It's just my way of processing things.” Was that first bit a typo/subconscious slip, or do you mean this as a cowboy statement? I guess I/we've always been part of these art spaces and these systems of validation. A position which I suppose we tried to escape at one point, and often still shy from. Today, I’m interested in that idea of value inside and beyond the concept of validation. But that’s another conversation. Another project. On the shelf. Anyways, thrilled to be sharing this platform with you .
Funny how I remember TLPW as the gallery floor plan, funny how I projected its significance to me first on my memory of the work (Handiwirman later made that life-size print of STPi, so maybe confusion also played a part). It’s so much more as what it actually intends to represent. And I recall now that acute sense of loneliness and somehow anger in it and being bowled over by its rawness.
But what makes Konagecho Gesture and CITIZEN so seductive is maybe that very understanding of that viewer’s impulse to find themselves and be spoken to in a work. Which has been quite rare in (high) art for reasons of its heritage which we don’t need to get into. Even a lot of pop art eventually feels snooty. Your video work doesn’t just integrate the documentary, the music video, the pop song, the movie, the vlog, it’s closer to these popular forms than to painting or even other documentary or poetic approaches to video art in its accessibility. Like it shortcuts something, very effectively.
On the other hand, your painting, at least in the past decade, kind of goes the long way round. You make the viewer work quite hard to understand why you’ve painted something or why you’ve presented your paintings in a certain way.
Below and in MVMP, you talk about “unpacking” and “rearranging” artistic conventions. What is the story of the blind man and the elephants? How would you say painting and video relate or complement each other in your work?
Hang on, there’s a gap: You talk about escaping the solitariness of painting, expanding your art practice by working with others and then coming into video as a medium, and then you add that you had “stopped making movies" in 2009. What movies did you make?
What did you bring from movie-making and that industry to your experiments with sound and image, or, what did you “rearrange”?
Oh dear, a lot of questions and I wonder if we are meandering… still want to get to sound, and light, art and science, and consciousness hahahaha. Please feel free to ignore things or redirect.
Bev
PS: Thank you for sharing MVMP. I think everyone should see it! Actually we have this MoU xxxxxxxxx, and was thinking it would be great to do something with the different schools since xxxx teaches at xxxxxx and we’ve also been working with xxxxxxx (xxx) on stuff, and it would be fun to reconnect with xxx. But we might want to think about how it might spark a broader series on artists' process. Maybe we can talk more?
Promo video for My Video Making Practice
Hammer and nails
Apr 26, 2022, 4:43 PM
K
Dear Bev,
Thanks for taking the time to watch MVMP. Please feel to rambling and meander as much as you like. I enjoy reading them. Also, you're the one editing this, so good luck haha. I'm working on a web adaptation of these email conversations. I'll share the URL with you soon.
- The gesture
The Koganecho Gesture (TKG) is partially the result of some unresolved thoughts I have from doing community art projects like Taman Medan, which I mentioned earlier. It revolves around the roles and values of art, artist, and community. And the informal and institutional structures that enable this inter-relationship.
TKG was made for Koganecho Bazaar 2020. The theme that year was Artist and Communities. It’s common for art entities to use words like engagement and community in their programming. They usually do this by inviting artists to propose an idea based on their research on that locality. I thought it might be interesting to inverse that approach. Just ask the locals what they want to see, what they want to do, and what are their concerns? Then process this information into proposals, conduct the open call, and match suitable artists to these proposals. It's not very difficult, it just involves a bit of planning and curiosity. CITIZEN is a proof of concept that this can be done.
The idea is to get the locals involved from the very beginning. Treat them as potential participants or stakeholders and not just as an audience. Who looks at art as an aquarium with exotic fishes. Detached, decorative, and not meaning much beyond a photo op for their Instagram feed. I don't mean to sound atas, and I know these selfies serve a function but art can be more. It’s an incredibly powerful experience to see your concerns manifested in an artwork when it's properly done. This is something I learned from doing community arts projects and encountering works that moved me.
Atas
Malay
up, above, on
Adjective
atas (comparative more atas, superlative most atas)
-
(Singapore, informal) High (elevated in status, esteem, prestige; exalted in rank, station, or character).
Elitist, snobbish, condescending.
Mac has recently ventured into Japanese whiskey as a result of the impact of Covid-19 on his tour business. He has a right to the work as long as it’s not for sale. In one of our conversations, he mentioned the idea of doing a whiskey tasting session. Start with some whiskey, then play TKG, then drink more whiskey, play CITIZEN, and finally do a dialogue session while drinking even more whiskey. A 2-hour program he says. Community engagement at its best?
I want to show both the work in the same space in Yokohama or somewhere in Japan. But the curator I was working with, Junya Utsumi has since moved on to another curatorial job. So, there's a problem with continuity. We’re still in communication about other possibilities so, we’ll see.
Makarim Salman's (Mac) Kanpai Planet YouTube channel
In regards to The Loneliest Place in the World, It’s a typo lah, I meant to type “wasn’t”. Or maybe it’s a Freudian slip. I typed a word while thinking of a mother. 🙂Talking about misremembering things, which happens, but we'll always look at art or anything through our personal circumstances. Bev, you won't believe the number of times people talk to themselves through a conversation with me about my work. I don't think it's necessarily bad. Because I think one of the functions of art is to serve as a mirror, right?
Yes, I’m happy that we’re working on something after all these years. For some reason, I thought this possibility has elapsed.
- Shortcut
Shortcutting something. I like the sound of that. I’ve not thought of my video work that way. I just want to play. And hopefully in a way that engages others. But I suppose like everyone else, my work is the sum of all the things I’ve consumed. It's a Frankenstein of all the genres you mentioned. I just try to not limit myself by conforming to (the genre's) expectations. Which can be confusing to some. Because the need to conform or classify things into orderly boxes is such a formidable force.
- Blind man and the elephant
Actually, the parable should be a singular blind man and an elephant with other animals on it. I'm the blind man, painting is the elephant and, current trends and whatnot are the other animals. So, it's learning painting by figuring out its perimeter. And to add a layer of complexity, it's also about eliminating the other things that attach themselves to painting but are not a part of it.
- Paintings and video
Video has become a useful mirror for me to look at paintings. And vice-versa. My paintings follow a concept or idea. Not a particular aesthetics or subject matter. In fact, I loathe the idea that painting is only about the pursuit of those 2 things. So, I understand that it can be frustrating for those looking at my paintings only through those lenses. And my previous inability (insecurities?) to articulate some of the things I'm sharing with you didn't help. There are just very few ways in.
But a switch is happening. For the past 7 years, I've been trying to unlearn my formal training and relearn how to paint again. A stuttering review of my workflow, tools, and materials. And somewhere along the way I overthink and retreated. The thinning of material (oil paint) on my canvas could be a manifestation of that. To deal with this, I'm working towards a painting show at The Back Room in 2023. But all I want to do is to depict a mood. This listlessness I have. I’m concerned with this development. But I can't wait to see what happens.
Paintings from 2017 -2022
- Counterpoint
Video arrived later in my practice and serves as a useful counterpoint to my painting.
Analog vs Digital
Still vs Moving
Silent vs Sound
For sale vs Free
Concept vs Stories
Solitary vs Collaborative
And so on, and so on
Having another outlet means I don’t have to do everything within one form. So, I'm not a hammer looking for nails. In fact, by allowing their history, workflow, values, and logic to merge and mutate creates room for multiplicity. Which is a better representation of how I experience the world. Between the two I have an unlimited space to play and lose or find myself. I suspect the recent addition of text or writing in my practice will play a part in multiplying this multiplicity even more.
- The Gap
From 2005 to 2009 I worked in the film industry as an art department personnel. Mainly dealing with set, props, and wardrobe. Starting as a standby and eventually as a production designer. My first film was Bernard Chauly’s Gol & Gincu (2005), working under the art direction of Yee I-Lann. Then as a production designer with Ho Yuhang, Liew Seng Tat, and Tsai Ming Liang. In between those 3 fellas, there were a few abandoned feature-length projects and numerous T.V. commercials as well. I didn't direct a movie and have no plan to do so.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. (Proverb)
If a person is familiar with a certain, single subject/has with them a certain, single instrument, they may have a confirmation bias to believe that it is the answer to/involved in everything.
Etymology: Likely traditional. In this form, perhaps from Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science, 1966, p. 15 and his earlier book
https://www.definitions.net/definition/if+all+you+have+is+a+hammer%2C+everything+looks+like+a+nail
Yee I-Lann on the set of Rain Dogs (2006)
- Lessons from film-making
Film-making is tough. Especially working in the art department of a Malaysian production back then. It’s a misnomer by the way because it has very little to do with art and is more about management. But it’s great training. Some of the more important things I got from it have little to do with the form. Thinking on my feet, thinking forward and backward in time, being a team player, communicating and delegating tasks, and much more. It instills in me a particular type of work ethic. And a particular tempo of work.
- 3 Phases
I had many thoughts and unanswered questions while working in the film industry. One relates to the 3 phases of filmmaking. Simply put, pre-production yields a grand plan based on a script. Production gets you footage. But it’s in post-production that a film is made. The line between pre-production, production, and post-production is usually linear. So, the ability to rework the grand plan or acquire new footage as one edits is usually not possible. Leaving very little room for belated thoughts. In a way, the most important phase is handicapped. So, what I do is I turn the 3 phases from linear to circular or cyclical. Blurring the boundaries and allowing as many re-plan, rewrite, reshoot, and re-edit as necessary. The point is to create space for review, discovery, and play.
It’s not the most efficient method, which is why it's not widely adopted. But efficiency is not as important to me. I'm not making something for mainstream cinemas. My interest is in exploring moving images and sound. And the grand plan and this need to be efficient almost always usurped the art. But it’s just a representation of its aspiration. This confusion between a representation and the real thing happens a lot don't you think? And it's not unique to the arts. A man wears a funny hat therefore he is religious and a moral person for example.
- Altar of the timeline
My recent experimentation with sound is not directly related to my experience in that industry. Part of it dovetails with my instinct to take apart and reassemble things. The other comes from the experience of editing itself. Because it’s so obviously clear that sound affects the way we perceive imagery. But film-making is widely regarded as a visual form despite that. It's an unspoken truth that's begging to be taken apart.
So, prioritizing sound when I edit is something that’s hard to resist. I do this by cutting imagery to sound. The sound leads. And provides a base, a tempo, and a mood for these imageries to operate on. It's not merely a decorative afterthought. TKG is an example of working this way. Those disjointed sounds and reverbs, in many instances, came first and inspired the editing, writing, and staging of the eventual work.
But I don’t do this all the time. I worship at the altar of the editing timeline after all. And the goddess of editing is tempestuous and fickle-minded. I just try to be open to what she reveals. It's not about formulating or following formulas.
Reverb
/ˈriːvəːb,rɪˈvəːb/
Reverb is the persistence of sound after a sound is produced. Reverb is created when a sound or signal is reflected off of a surface causing numerous reflections to build up. They then decay as the sound and reflections are absorbed by the surfaces of the objects around it.
9th Sept 2020
https://www.musicgateway.com/blog/how-to/reverb
The Koganecho Gesture's editing timeline
Bev, I’m very happy lah that you think MVMP deserves a larger audience. And from the get-go, I definitely want to use it to engage students. Ideally, MVMP should be presented in all kinds of spaces, on different scales, and to different communities. I’m in the process of trying to find partners to organize and stage MVMP with me. So, again perfect timing. Yes, let’s talk about how we can use this thing. Because there are some technical and organizational things to consider.
Feel free to ask me anything and I'll try to be as honest as I can. Talk soon.
cheers
gan
B
Selamat Hari Raya
May 4, 2022, 7:53 PM
Dear Gan,
Selamat Beraya Raya, En. Party All the Time.
Thank you for making me google the story of The Blind Man and the Elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant. It was somewhere sitting in the cobwebs of my mind but not something that I remember ever hearing or reading in full. I must find a nice illustrated version to share with my son. (And tangentially, ya, it’s going to be a lot of fun making sense of this jigsaw puzzle of a conversation. Chloe, my editor {at AAP), has asked if it can be ready for online publication 16 May, so maybe this should be our final exchange...
I just want to say I like pictures that tell stories though, and particular aesthetics that offer us a trigger or an expression of visual or sensory memory, or some new experience or sensation. I get that you prefer to ask questions of painting, and test its limits, and enjoy that you find different things to do with your paintings, but I also liked the iteration where you assigned each painting a QR code to the site you sourced its image from and this play on painting/art as a source of knowledge or means to knowledge. I’m looking forward to your moody paintings at The Back Room : ).
In MVMP you talk about your very first video work (your “cat video”), Dreamers, pretty much encompassing the interests and processes that would come to characterise your video-making, and you also talked about it being about your interest in science, and in particular consciousness. I’m starting to think that experiencing your work in whichever medium is a bit like participating in a controlled experiment. But not in a creepy way, more like I’m contributing, through my response, to science, or rather, um, art. What are you referring to when you talk about “science”?
You’ve already given me so much to chew on, I don’t really have another question at this point I don’t think. So a bit of a (very) long reflective aside:
It’s really interesting to know that, for TKG, you began with the soundtrack. Taking off from the experimentalism of making music videos, as you mention in MVMP. Having that contact with sound makes for full immersion, and a fascinating disconnect/reconnect as we make sense of how our aural and visual experience fit together – I think an earlier comparable aesthetic experience for me was Phil Collins’ The Meaning of Style, at Jogja Biennale back in 2011, where he filmed Malay skinheads in Penang. It makes me think of this problem I, and I’m sure most art writers, have, when deciding whether to use “audience” or “viewers” to describe the people experiencing a show or an artwork. Both are inadequate/inaccurate – there must be a better word for them in another language.
Recently I reconnected with radio, via Joe Kidd's Ricecooker Radio Show, and in this way, also my personal soundtrack. It’s been out of whack/a bit of a broken record for decades, and then Spotify came along and just got me even more frustrated and stuck. Currently listening to a series on Radiotopia called Ways of Hearing which you might enjoy if you haven’t already: https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/ways-of-hearing. Also very enthusiastic about https://songexploder.net/ where songwriters and musicians break down how they created a particular song. I now understand how songs are made. For all the horror we may think the music industry has fallen into, it’s just quite amazing listening to real people break down in a really accessible way how they make something (although much more complex, MVMP does similar work). And then there’s what I think of as “community radio” – whether it’s https://www.mixcloud.com/thericecookershop/the-ricecooker-radioshow-prog-04-20161031/ (Merv Espina talking to Joe about growing up with the punk scene in Brunei) or https://www.mixcloud.com/sohoradio/gary-crowleys-punk-and-new-wave-11022020/ (where fans/old punk rockers in Middle England tweet or text in with their memories of gigs, hanging out together, friends with drug problems, favourite bands and songs) – for me it’s a kind of definition of culture.
So two things have happened – one, I remember how powerful sound is in bringing across narrative and getting something under your skin, part of you (much more intimate, personal and maybe naked? than the visual, for me at least), and 2) I more than ever want for everyone to be able to be with “their" art in the way they are with “their” music, and for people to be able to talk about and share art like they do with music and movies, because there are artists out there making incredible stuff. Even as someone in the scene for over two decades, I seldom get that kind of exchange, that sense of shared or common personal investment (other than with Rachel and one or two artist friends). And I find it an anomaly when someone who’s not an artist, collector or other kind of art worker professes some knowledge or interest in artwork aside from its price tag or scandal value. STiLL.
There’s this current wave of seeking this kind of connection with art through traditional cultural practices of communities who (struggle to) operate outside of/beyond our so-called capitalist neo-liberal system and reality. Although this offers a fascinating and instructive route, and it’s important for us to try to see outside of “ourselves”, maybe we could also do with spending more time exploring the roots we (and I use “we" making some very broad assumptions about what you, me, and people who may read this and have gotten this far reading it, may have in common at least in how we relate to “contemporary art") have been growing as a generation. As part of our trapped, urban, globalised communities, we also have strong shared, discrete, hybrid popular cultural traditions that we can draw on.
You know, when I dug out Ways of Seeing for that writers’ workshop session where we talked about Jane Behind the Glass, what really struck me was this:
Because I was one of those kids with a pinboard in my bedroom (at home, through boarding school to university in the 80s and early 90s) full of art postcards, each holding a memory, a pretension, an aspiration of my own projection, as much a part of my personal culture and narrative as my tape collection and shelf of books. Why didn’t the (global) art world follow this logic? (Rhetorical question, the answers are probably stale, obvious and a bit pathetic or sickening). Maybe things are moving towards this logic for younger people (and I think we can talk about younger people now because we are relatively older people) even if we may be wary of certain platforms and “trends” and their shortcomings. Maybe, even while the economics, structures, and language of the (global) art market seem to be crawling further and further up their own backside, walls elsewhere have already been dismantled or simply never been built between art-makers and communities.
PS: Chloe is good with hyperlinks, so I can link to works and texts on your site even in my edited version, which will help I think give a lot of missing context and xxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxxx x xxxx x xxxx xxxx xx xxxx xx xxxxx xx xxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx x xxx xx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xxx x xxxx xx xx xxxx xx xxxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxx
PPS:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Experiencing ATP (and actually Kecek Amplifier before that during the first (?) MCO) reconnected me to that girl with her postcards, broke down walls. Don’t get me wrong, there are many works which have marked and shaped my thinking and choices over the course of my writing and curating, reading and going to exhibitions; and some that have moved me viscerally. In a way, I do in my mind still pin postcards to an imaginary wall (sometimes I call it curating hahaha). I think I just mean I felt that thing you say you learnt from working on community projects: "It’s an incredibly powerful experience to see your concerns manifested in an artwork when it's properly done”. As a member of its audience, thank you for making me part of the work and giving me a sense of ownership and belonging. I’m a fan and would definitely buy the T-shirt.
Take care,
Beverly
Fourth wall
May 6, 2022, 9:43 PM
K
Dear Bev,
Selamat Hari Raya, maaf zahir dan batin.
Yes, even fun things must have deadlines. And I look forward to your version of this jigsaw puzzle.
I like pictures that tell stories too. Sometimes. I’m just happy for other artists to make them at the moment. Who I am as an audience is different from me as an artist. And both are always evolving. I assume that is true for you as a writer too. And you don’t just read art writing. I’m aware of the other paintings I could’ve made but didn’t. Bev, one day I’ll make paintings like Bruegel or Bosch. But moody paintings are all I’m capable of now. haha
The Pleasures of Odds and Ends (OAE) share an overlapping interest with TKG. The breaking of the fourth wall or pointing out the aquarium. Although they operate in opposite ways. Both are about questioning and finding ownership of art or the present. TKG invites the audience to participate in its making and OAE provides entry points to a wider context beyond what’s immediately in front of them.
Paintings from The Pleasures of Odds and Ends
The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this wall, the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall
The history of science (and art) is the history of humanity. I think art and science are parallel attempts at making sense of our reality. Both are the result of our curiosity and need for meaning. Science comes from a rational observation of our reality, and art is a subjective expression of it.
Science provides different ways of looking at things beyond the limits of what our subjective five senses can comprehend. The theory (fact) of evolution is a simple and elegant explanation of our existence by looking at time on a scale outside of our (often provincial) lifetime. Chaos theory offers glimpses into the complexities and the interconnectedness of our reality. There are many more scientific ideas and perspectives that have informed my practice. Taking things apart, examining them, and rebuilding them in different ways is a scientific thing to do. I’m one of those that destroy toys when I was a kid :). Perhaps a way to look at my art is to see it as reassembled toys.
Dreamers is a rookie attempt at acknowledging all of that. I would have been a scientist if not an artist.
Thanks for all the links. I’ve not heard any of them, but I’ll check them out for sure. I remember xxxxxxxx talking about how punk bands support each other when touring to different countries. Where they take turns hosting each other in their homes. Providing logistical support to access performance venues, a share of the ticket collection, and networking with local bands. It’s equivalent to an artist residency program in visual arts. Similar community-level support also exists in our local indie filmmaking scene. And there is also a continuity of inter-generational networking in the theater scene. I’m not saying there aren’t any bitching and backbiting, but I think those scenes are energized by these types of efforts and togetherness. Which our visual art scene seems to lack. Perhaps making music, theater and movie is naturally a collaborative group effort when compared to visual arts. And this has an effect on how its practitioners operate.
The language we used in visual arts can be a barrier to this shared or common experience. Sometimes, I think it’s there for reasons other than to communicate. I mean, if pop songs are written in art speak they wouldn’t be as popular, right? But actually, that’s an interesting and funny idea to pursue.
Do you think music and movies are the media of this era? Especially for the reasons you mentioned. I’ve heard ideas that connect sound as an emotional trigger with the fact that hearing is developed relatively early in a fetus. Our mother’s heartbeat is definitely one of the first things we hear before we can see or remember. This may explain why every culture has its own version of a percussive instrument. And why we can’t help but move to a certain beat. But to be fair, low-frequency sound is something we can physically feel.
Bev, please share with me some examples of the shared, discreet, hybrid pop cultural tradition you mentioned? Ways of Seeing is one of those books that is endlessly useful isn’t it? But I’m not clear about why you choose this passage for that workshop session. Please tell me more. Thanks for being a fan and If I make t-shirts I’ll send you one for sure.
Ok, the web adaptation. Please check out the link below and let me know your thoughts.
1. This is a draft. It’s not been published to the public yet. And will not be published until you’re O.k with it.
2. This draft is a demo of what I'm thinking at the moment.
3. My aim is to recreate the experience of reading and writing these emails as closely as possible.
4. I understand editing is necessary. For clarity and also privacy. But I think we should redact, or figure out other visual and audio means that a web adaptation offers.
5. If you are willing, please also suggest ways to add context to the text. A link here, a picture there, and whatnot. If you don't have the time, don't worry about it.
O.K. good luck with the essay. If you need anything else do let me know and please take care.
cheers,
gan
B
Another corner
May 6, 2022, 11:54 PM
Dear Gan,
Thank you!
A very quick one because I do want to end at I’m a fan : )
I think, and wonder if you might be deliberately simplifying and do too, that the rational and subjective boxes we tend to place science and art in can be a bit too comfortable a construct at times. I really like this reference to toys. That’s a very useful frame for thinking about humanity in the Anthropocene.
An audience spectates and hears, assumes a performance - perhaps it sometimes fits with types of performance or video art that require one. In the sense of requesting an audience with someone, perhaps there is something more interesting here. But an audience for paintings, say, somehow doesn’t quite fit whichever the case.
And then I’m not sure viewers do more than look at something (you talked about the definition of cinema as visual) . And then there are visitors to an exhibition, which I quite like as it suggests that the exhibition is hosting them. An exhibition audience may perhaps fit in with a very spectacular type of show. And then of course what do use with works that are attempting to break down the fourth wall. Perhaps it’s just me and other writers being lazy, and we should just be clearer and differentiate according to who is looking at a picture, visiting a show, or spectating as an audience, or participating in a work. Maybe it’s a case of usage presuming a set form for artworks, hence its inadequacy. I do wonder though if there is some word in another language that describes more openly and dynamically the experience of art (not art-making).
I’m not sure I think of movies and music as media. I actually find the awful word “content” more fitting. If we forget that we need “content” to sell advertising, then content is what we contain right, kind of what holds our meaning. Actually it was one of our main sponsors for Narratives in Malaysian Art (NMA) who put this idea in my head. She said she wanted to support our project because people kept complaining to her that we have no “content” in Malaysia. So NMA was a way to prove them wrong. But I guess yes, I think movies and music are the media we have most universally adopted in our day and age to share experiences and ideas, tell our stories, work out our meaning; they are the vessel that carry most of our content. I don’t think that’s primarily because making music or films is more collaborative.
Narratives in Malaysian Art Volume 1- 4.
Image from augustman.com
Actually I was listening to quite a painful European pop song the other day which spoke exactly in art speak (with radio it’s not so easy to skip a song, which teaches us to give room and be patient and allow for other people’s subjectivities). It was very weird and unsatisfying and far too long. But I’m sure if you had a go at it, it would be much more fun.
This is not a particular passage from Ways of Seeing I chose for the workshop sharing session. I gave them everything before the session except the essay with all the naked women pics xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxx xx xxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxx. The passage on pinboards was something I caught for myself. Between this “missed turn” where postcards didn’t after all replace museums, ATP and DOING Borneo Heart with I-Lann, and many other phenomena I come across in my armchair travels, especially around the region, I am affirmed in my belief that contemporary art for everyone is possible. Maybe that is a little prayer of sorts for me.
Audience at Borneo Heart art exhibition by Yee I-lann
I meant shared/discrete/hybrid popular cultural traditions. Like punk and Pangrok. Like so much of the material you draw on for your video works. Like heroic local hashtag movements. Nothing specific, just stuff that we might feel belongs to us and share in common that we use to pass round meaning, wisdom, values, questions, ways of doing things. Very local or very celup. Stuff that has somehow grown out of being globalised and kampung and cosmopolitan and socially fractured. What is the cultural identity of a banana? (Rhetorical question to illustrate a point, will require a footnote).
Hope that answers your questions, but probably I’ve tortured the whole thing into another corner.
Look forward to checking out the web version. Will revert!
Take care and thank you again,
Bev
Banana
Malaysian slang
A Chinese who can speak English but can't speak Chinese! Banana because… yellow on the outside, white on the inside!
All the Time I Pray to Buddha I Keep on Killing Mosquitoes at PJPAC (2022)
29th June 2022
(External link)
by Beverly Yong
