DUCK HEAD, DUCK AND HEAD, THAT IS.

The duck that I made in casting room photo by Boco

I just had tutorial with Neil, and we had around like 45 mins or so to talk about my plan towards my thesis.

I started with the book that Neil suggested me last time "Folk devils and Moral Panics" by Stanley Cohen.   and also with my recent develop interest in the novel "Frankenstein."  My concept is to use Frankenstein as a structure for my thesis/ novel intervention.  

through the novel and the collaboration, I want to question/ examine how the contemporary art world being shaping and the moral ethic within it.  

Frankenstein was set up in industrialisation background, when people focus on Sciences and trying to mechanising everything and so Shelly create such allegory to warn that it might ending up generating a monster.  I though of what happened now with the booming senario of creative industry.  

Frankenstein as the original novel ---> by copy/ padary/ -----> duplicate 

• an assemblage/ collage of Flesh and different things that actually doesn't fit together. 
• A warning for people/ monstrous 

Neil also suggested me besides to read the novel, I can also start to read some of the summery from Yorknote so that can help me to be able to see more on the structure rather being caught up by the small/ trivial plots.

Rewriting/ Folk telling/ hear-say Process 

     A rewriting process is also one of my concern since I have no intention to just quote Shelly's story and then giving an example about what happened in the contemporary art world.  NO NO NO!

so this is what i'm gonna do and what neil suggested me.

• Donalf barthelme rewrite the folk tale "Snow White" which apparently a good writing of it. His writing has the self aware writing style thus makes you aware that you are reading it, you are being posed as an objected view.  And the speech style. 
• Vladimir Propp -  is an russian Formalist, " The Morphology of the folk tale" examine how folk tale being transformed over time and by different people who was telling it.   Because there must be something changed due to the person who was telling it are different, there might be something missing, something being mistranslated, something being added up to... or using different words.  Retelling ---> Same---> Script.

Frankenstein in Contemporary Art World

     Questioning what this idea of assemblage and collage of different in contemporary art world. 

• "Raising Frankenstein"was telling how curators combine different elements within CAT, and thus to generate the new meaning of it.
• The notion of "Frankenstein Courses"
• Working online (very common nowadays) the webpage itself is also has "frankenstein" element as there are different elements will appear on the same page as well. 

Folk Tale is also has the element of Frankenstein because it is like everyday resistance.

Most people think Frankenstein as a horrible figure/ and something horrible.

Propp---- > like everything we do (to be checked)

Methodology 

in terms of methodology, I can use retell/ examine the iconic figure as my method and to apply "folk devils and moral panics" and "Art & Fear" by Paul Vilrilio   

the spread of mouth/ hear-say.... 

• "Art and outrageous" --- John. A. Walker : folk devil within art world such as Damien Hirst the pissed christ.  

-------> as artist build up their fame by offending people 

• White elephant: nothing going on there.

• A folk devil example by Neil

Occupy London as an example to see the different picture and approach from the sun and the Guardian. 

Idea >> Creating a fake artist as a folk devil. 

• Art&Fear " by Paul Virilio: as an allegory which apply this idea of Frankenstein a lot. 
• we can examine artist who manipulate the body (the body as the site)

Turning harmless people to a harmful thing thus to create moral panic ----> being able to control people and manipulate people. 

In my opinion so far, I think the media is the scientist in Frankenstein who are shaping us into a monster they want and then accusing us that it is actually what we want, in doing this brain wash process, we are ending up generate different monsters and hybrid again and again. 

I also found out it is very interesting that it is always only by creating a fear/ or panic so that we will being able to act and gain public awareness. 

Neil brings up there is this notion within Nazi group the called has the notion of means of achieving happiness is to be physically fit and healthy.  This is also dealing with the notion of being pure and unpure. 

Similar example in Sweden would be Masculine christian, so most of them need to be very fit and pure. 

I also like to mention two films that I'm thinking of the engaging with 

• Dogtooth by Giorgos Lanthimos
• The Boss of it all by Lars Von Trier 
• Idiots by Lars Von Trier
• Baise Moi by  Virginie Despentes (not sure about it yet, but I m thinking this elements of experiencing twisting the whole conventional notion of female as a week role within the film. 

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Nov 8


My tutorial with Angela, 


Angela reminds me to be careful that to put all the blame on "media" and I should also try to see if other  factors is part of the reason to shape the contemporary art world as a monster which being created. 


In terms of methodology, my methodology also the literary references with in "folk devils and moral panics/ Frankenstein can be my resources.  


also take a look at why we have this idea of investing in stock market could be an risky investment however it is safe to invest on art works? and who is behind this? who is creating this ideology?


It might be helpful to create a visual outline map and to help me to linear my idea on pictures. 

SIGUR ROS - INNI

On monday night, Sigur Ros's first live album was screening in the Queens theater, Edinburgh, UK. 

Directed by Vincent Morisset, who's projects include Arcade Fire's " MOROIR NOIR" and web-friendly film project "Bla bla" 


INNI was refilmed from digital image with 16mm film, the optic within the concert/ film became unbelievable effective, each burnt out was like an tsunami covering your every senses. 
It is a very powerful, dear portrait of Sigur ros's soundscape, I was overwhelmed by it, being sucked into the image, maybe even watching it with my mouth open, and constantly numb. 


http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/band/disco/inni/

Cascade Falls ( Installation photo's and Crit)

Photo credit © Yao-Lung Cheng 

   

      To begin with the layout of the exhibition, we decided to try to make these two artists - Lindsay, Yao-Lung's work presenting a jointed relation with engaging with the representation of memories.  The space C2 is a white cube space located inside of the college, it is a room composed by the white walls as a gallery space.  The blue curtain we hang onto the window create a new landscape within the space, which I suggest to input our ideology of curtain as the stage curtain - cover what is behind the scene, or a curtain within the domestic space such as home/ private space/ restaurant/ cars as kind of implication of private/ public, be seen/ and hided from.

      As a curator of this exhibition, I would like to second several ideas and knowledge of the definition of curation, thus to discuss the role as a curator, and then I would like to talk about the artists work within the   project.  "The curator is basically in this case acting as a kind of interface between artist, institution, and audience in "the development of critical meaning in partnership and discussion with artists and publics" as Barnaby Drabble states. which curator act as a mediator, administrator and manager locate themselves within Art World, which Alloway sited as "a shifting multiple goal coalition"and it can also be regarded as an organization "a negotiating environment." Some believe that a good curator should be invisible (Burnett 2005) but the under the circumstance, contemporary curating mostly concentrates on theories of curating and can be argued to do more for the reputation of individual curators or theorists than for the sharing of curatorial skills. (Graham&Cook 2010) The history of exhibitions is one of our most culturally 'repressed.' As Mary Anne Staniszewski stressed, the contextualisation of space and its rhetoric have been overshadowed by contexualising in terms of epochs and the artists' oeuvre, despite the fact that exhibition installations have had such a crucial significance for how meaning is created in Art." (2005, 91)
     
       The exhibition layout was inspired first by both artists' work and their idea, I wanted to build up a installation layout from their meaning and things that inspired them, which I second from Graham & Cook "We believe that a good understanding of the artwork - its behaviours, processes, and cultural context - is vital starting point for all curating. (2010, 11) Lindsay's work engaging with the recreation of the non-human/ inaccessible habitat for human which were being recreated, reproduced by human being inorder to fulfill it's curiosity or to achieve something that is impossible being experience immediately or has intangible factor within it, such as past memory.

     Yao-Lung's work has two key elements within it, he arranging collected objects within the frame, and this time he presents two type of frame.  He uses ice cube and physical frames as the boundaries of his objects, or his story.  The ice cube has a dramatic effect on this space also enact within the people who were inside of the space as well. Every melting moment were participated by audiences who physically engaging with the exhibition, and people can sense its dramatically effect visually through the melting water and psychologically by the pre-exist knowledge of the science of ice.  People founds his work within the ice is giving this idea of "not wanting the edge to be defined." "can't help thinking what's going to happen when it melt --- unpredictable anticipation" with the attention of not wanting the edge to be too defined, Yao-lung's collection evoked people's imagination by using objects with shared memory (a feature of consumerism), which we can see as Ilya Kavakov who was being described simultaneously a poet of facts and a spinner of tales, in his catalogue "The Man who never threw anything away", illustrate this action as "Conceived in ideological grandeur and built on the cheap, Communism's monument were ready-made ruins, encircled, as monuments always are, by the humbler architecture of ordinary life." Not necessarily related to communism but the notion of according the objects (Time shell)  one can travel meta-physically through their past by visually absorb these little collections with differed stories.

      Lindsay's work combines two framed pictures from an aquarium in Chicago, and men-made fountain.  The fountain has a geometric shape which I located it in the middle of the room, because when the water coming out of the water nozzle contains performativity can create a kind of stage central thus make viewers to focus and being aware of.  However, the water sprung out of the fountain edge became problematic and being considered as a failure. and one of the pictures were deliberately heighten above the eye level also frustrating viewer's visibility and so did the way we displayed Yao-lung's work evoked such question.  With the cheap material and artificial colour, Disneyland, beach coma... and something that is produced deliberately to entertain people and thus they pretend to be happy .  Other two pieces on the wall can help viewers to get involved with an experience.

     The water from my point of view is a very key issue within this exhibition, I imagine the melting water, and water which sprung from the nozzle together with the dripping curtain create a coordinating format. followed by the shape of the fountain, a geometric way of displaying can be rather fit with the space and theme.  The sound of water become a distraction of the exhibition which when I was holding as a mean to engage the viewer's intention become somehow a failure or a misread attempt also state the  power of viewer and thus I thought this is a postmodern way of seeing the critics/ viewers by rotating their opinions within the room thus become a break from what happened in 60s as Alloway describe " The interpretation were being dominated pretty much bounded by the intentions of the artist, which there is a corresponding neglect of comparative and historical information (p7)" and point a direction to Duchamp were trying to propose that the function of audience is to determine the meaning of the work when it is out of the artist's hands by variable acts of "deciphering and interpreting."

     At the last, Cascade Falls ended last friday, with thanks to everyone who made it to the exhibition and the crit.  We received varies of comments and I found them highly relevant to the issue that we were trying to engage with, and from this project we founded another starting point, the power of the viewer, blurred boundary between the tangible and intangible lines, shared memory (common timespace)and thus to the interpretation from the viewer, the failure, the melancholic feeling as an aesthetic approach... to take us to different direction.

Days of Being Wild (1990) 阿飛正傳

     Days of Being Wild is the first part of the trilogy ( Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, 2046) from Wang Kar- Wei.
The main actor, Yuddy committed suicide Leslie Cheung (張國榮) on 1st April, 2004.  This film and its story line was often being mentioned when the media tried to find out his intention for committing suicide.

     I love the humid weather portrait within this film, however, that's the least part of Asia that I miss.  I think Wang Kar-Wei's film has a lot of back figure, lots of gazing from behind, each time will be another picture.  Somehow I found his movie full of poetry and humid, and I can only find that in Asian  film, wouldn't say that I ve been a cinephilia though.

     I was viewing the reviews from Hong Kong residents, when this film was out in the cinema, people weren't stop cursing, 70s Hong Kong. Like Giuseppe tornatore pictured in "Cinema Paradiso" people were aroused, evoked by the image shown on the screen, being encouraged or effected by the holistic emotion within the room, the cinema.  
      Hong Kong has been a very weird place for me, people were running around, and they all shouting at each other, I'm not very welcome when I was speaking chinese to them, in taxi, in the restaurant, on the street, at a bar.  Once I told them either I am from Taiwan, or when I start to speak english, tea will serve to the table without you doing any effort to calling the waiter. People look at you in the eyes when they speak to you. And that's my memory to Hong Kong.

    Mandarin or Asian language has a particular feature, and that is the most important message was always hidden between what has been mentioned, and what has been asked.  Same as the acting, using smile or hug to express happiness is like acting, too dramatic, unreal.  You have to look into when the eye moves and how many times the eye lashes vibrates.  With men, that when they turn their head away.

     There is a scene that I particularly being fascinated, I love Leslie Cheung's movement, it took him a while to come out, and I think maybe the decision also become another reason he decided to free himself from the top floor of the building.

I Just Thought Tires Should be Out there Spinning.

This piece of shit I don't even want to describe what does it mean to me or how does it look like.
If you want to be conceptual art or any kind of things in the name of art, AT LEAST THINK ABOUT IT.

Here is another piece of shit that I saw at a rather big art gallery.
Where is the statement? What's the spirit in your art? I couldn't even think of anything there.

I couldn't help but cursing whoever make this is the most pretentious moran in the world.
but galleries love it anyway I suppose.  Should we maybe re-identify gallery as a recycle factory and we should all go to trash dump to find a piece of art there maybe.

oh btw, just so you know who's work is it:  http://www.sarahillenberger.com/index.html

Apparently one of the hight light of Frieze this year is the sculpture by Paul Johnson 'Temple'

Cascade Falls | CO2 Project Space

This friday, me and Lindsay, Yao-Lung are having a project in CO2, Edinburgh collage of Art. 
I will be acting as a curator with these two amazing artist/trash hunter. 


Lindsay's work to me are engaging with artificial world which people create to imitate the environment that can't be accessed easily, but full of certain charm so makes us desire to experience it or to being able to physically be part of it.  It is somehow very ironic how we can so easily being deceived by our vision, and our mind/ brain can easily make us feel that we are actually located where we dreamed of once we are convinced by the environment.  


It is actually very intriguing for me that although somehow we all have different personality, 


Yao-Lung's work is engaging with ordinary objects, there are a lot of unexpected combination between different material.  For this project, he chose limited space to present his works with specific philosophical thinking and good intend.  Every time when I see his work it always remind me of a japanese writer, Haruki Murakami once illustrate this kind of sensory experience in his proses. 
" 小さいけれど確かな幸 “  which means the happiness in your life which are micro but very certain.  


It is certainly a pleasure to work with these two talents, the installation is certainly a fun and cozy experience.  I think the curator's work is important within this cooperation, and working with artists is an rewarding experience, I get to know more about their creative process and I can experience more, also have more emotion with the work.  Even if I m not sure if I should stay objective when I viewing the artwork, but somehow I personally think by observing an artwork, once you start to consider its shape and pattern then you can never be objective, there is an natural connection has built up even if you try to deny it. 


It's all going to happen very soon.   CAN'T WAIT! 


Facebook event - Cascade Falls 


http://relay.eca.ac.uk/

FLESH & FLESH for Frankenstein

Flesh for Frankenstein (1968)

     Recently I came across, actually relaxing engaged with two film from Paul Morrissey.
It might be worth noted that both of them were being written Andy Warhol's Production, or Andy Warhol's FLESH ... sort type of words.

     It turns out is that Paul Morrissey signed a contract with Andy Warhol so that he can shot films in his studio and using his celebrity name as a mean of promotion.  He also using this promoting idea to help/ to promote The Velvet Underground.  Their cooperation was parted in 1975 when the artist choose to concentrate on painting and his artworks.

Flesh (1968)

     The dialogue in the film 'FLESH' to me is very much irrelevant.  It makes you feel very lazy, I would say it seems to be a perfect film for two arty people watching together and have some casual fling.  Or it was suppose to be in that way, you don't need a full engagement during your viewing, but the more important part is to being exposed under the atmosphere that might be seen as a reproduction of the factory.

      I remember i instantly brought into the world by staring at the same profile for about 5 mins, I began feel slight annoyed but then I realised that I don't actually have to take too serious. No wonder Valerie wanna shot him, because she was damn serious about her manifesto.  Oh but I keep forgetting that actually Andy Warhol has not even interviewed any of those actors in this film, so does the others.  So Paul morrissey is either really absorb Warhol's lifestyle, he actually doesn't care about the viewers, or even critics.  We don't need strong propaganda to tell us how to live or how to be angry.  Visual language has certain amount of intimacy and unspeakable power of communication power.  Words can't say how much I hate you, because our signifier can never as specific as our signified. 

Male Prostitution 

The male prostitution scene was the part fascinates me the most, I remember how the prank old man tried to pay loads of money to tell Joe pose as an athlete by acclaiming himself as a artist or actually showing.  It also remind me of another film 'Christiane. F', the zoological garden in Berlin, where the station somehow become a prostitution slot, whoremongers usually moving in a state of travelling.  Like a tourist somehow see the scenery, and then using camera to shot/ penetrate it.  Similar plots happened in Flesh for Frankenstein, these men they all have this beautiful but sadness appears between their eyes.  In mandarin I will call them "yōuyù" I get the feeling that I can never express it in english as although english now is the major tool for me to communicate in scotland, the distance between the signifier and signified is always much further than I can ever imagine. 


     There is one part of Flesh when Joe talks about how the society treat male prostitution, I wasn't even listen to it.  I get the feeling that these people just want to convince themselves what they were doing or what they have done is pretty much what they want or as a mean to achieve their goal. 
Since there is no universal rule neither an ethic value all the society will apply, I think it is basically about how this person want to position him/herself by finding a group of people shared the consensus, and then using this beholding value to convince other people by repeating such process. 


     I've made a clip in Zoological garden, somehow scene can never being reproduce as it has been done in Christiane. F.  The existence of  Museum für Fotografie  makes the place too clean and this station is no longer a place for lost soul to linger and keep warm. 

Flesh (1968)

Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)

At the end I post a video that I shot it when I was in Zoological garden, in the film that's where Christian usually go for finding her boyfriend who is a male prostitute.   She was lumping at the time because she took too many drugs and she injects herself in the toilet.  There were only taxi drivers and some immigrants were kind of standing there.  I suppose it was more lively when the thing was still on, now is just machine and noisy.

The smith apparently an very interestingly, like the combination of broccoli with soysauce (in so doing I hope to narrow down the broad sense of "interesting"), to choose this cover for their album!

Hi V&A, it's time to fire your graphic designer! :)

Hello?
What the fuck is this?

I am literally stunned by these 3 postcards I got when I was down in London to visit V&A.
I personally think this is one of the most boring museum I have ever been, I was also amazed by how can someone turn fashion into such a dead thing.
btw the status of DAVID was placed in a big room, however it was located at a very corner.  Like a standing lamp in the living room.  It reminds me my first trip to London which was 2007 summer, because it was located at the exact location.

why do people bother to duplicate another great sculpture when they feel the need to place them at the corner to perform as a standing lamp with small penis?
Even if they are such ugly stuff, I still keep them in somewhere in my room.  I felt that I have the need to keep it so when someday, someone from somewhere realise the same thing, I will be able to show this very person this.

However, I would love to be there to witness their friday night party.  I remember it looks really well prepared because they have DJ and wine table set up.

So booze and music certainly make thing a bit better.  I suppose.

[CO2] Week 1

C2 Project Space 1

week one

- Ask your family to describe what you do. Place on A4 sheet of paper. Install in C02 Project Space.

Photo selected by my brother, David.

I asked my little brother to describe me with four different images that he chose from. And they are a guy who is reading in the library, a book, gym, rafting.

Somehow I figure that wasn’t me, however the direct message I perceived from my brother’s picture is actually far from what he was trying to telling me.   Surprised by the fact that there are immeasurable distance between visual image and the feeling, I questioned myself if I can ever translate my feeling into images (which I have always thought it would’ve been easier when I was studying literature.)

It was taking place at C2, first C2 project on last friday of September, 2011.

Edit by Yen Yi 

Can I have a Taste of Your Ice cream

This Blog name " Can I have a taste of your ice cream" came from a song by Dalta 5 - mind your own business.  
Thanks to my friend Kieren who make me listen to this song. 


It is not necessarily smart or melodic appealing but full of critical power and swears. (and that's what I like)
So this blog will basically recording what inspired me and what am I doing in the art school, about little bit about how I start to write my thesis/ Project proposal/ fiction/ manifesto 
(However I don't think I can ever write one as magnificent as Valerie did.)


So this blog will be full of HATE and ANGER! 
Sometimes a lot of sexy stuff and maybe some art related stuff, although it meant to be academic, but I DON'T CARE!  


And there you go,  Delta 5 - mind your own business

OH! BTW, my name is Yenyi, I m studying in Edinburgh college of Art, MFA Visual Culture.  My grandma is the love of my life, the only person has eternal residency in my heart.