Having orgasm while you are creating something.

Miranda July's new project "We Think Alone", has been proceeding it's 9th week.  Every week we received private emails of individual participants on different topics or their motif when they were writing emails.

One of the email from Etgar with two book reading attached in his email on what he's working on, a story "Unzipped" read by Miranda July.

It was mentioned in the reading that a Belgium writer- his penis would erect while he is writing.  I found that I have the same feeling before, not the erection though, but the feeling of falling in love. Whenever my thought achieved some kind of senses of enlightenment, I would feel my body just couldn't sit in front of the table anymore and I have to keep moving around or finding other more active things to do meanwhile biting my hands and accelerated heartbeats.

Having been enchanted by film "9 Songs" by filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, the lovers would always make passionate love after each concert they saw. This makes me wonder, maybe creativity is coming from a sort of desire that is to communicate, just like how sperms would automatically swim to the ovum, it is the desire of reaching something that creates the path towards the direction, no matter fast or slow, the path it creates is aiming at the moment, not the result, perhaps.  Apart from the example of the Belgium writer, I also have an example from the TV series "Don't trust the bitch at Apartment 23" where Chloe has difficulties about figuring out her life or next step, she would just go out to have one night stand with some hot guy and during their sex, the idea would come out.

Is it what platonic love really means? Is it how the eternity in an hour (William Blake) is about?
Speaking of platonic love, perhaps it was never about getting "the one" or "accomplishment", it was always about the feeling of longing, the rite of passage.  A good film performance by Nicole Kidman in The Paperboy that Charlotte develops affection towards Van Wetter from the love letters they exchange, he wasn't the only one that got her letters at the beginning, but he was somehow the only one that didn't mention about sex intercourse in the letters to Charlotte, as oppose to other criminals who were verbally raping Charlotte when they were writing the reply. This makes Van Wetter stands out and the desire between the two was so strong that they both achieve orgasm from distance when they met each other for the first time. Their love ends when Van Wetter got out of the jail and they live together.

This has no conclusion, because this post is never about finding out what happened after orgasm, but the process of achieving orgasm.

Post coïtum animal triste is too cruel to be written into this post, perhaps the endless longing for something else is the nature of human being, so why were we want it so much if at the end we won't appreciate it? 

Practice on Curating (1)

Dieter Roth 

This is the day 1 for documenting the research and progress of my project on establishing a curating career from scratch.

Coming back to Asia after finishing my two years of master degree in Edinburgh, I experienced a lot of emotions that I have been prepared for, but still can't handle it very well.

The biggest one is the expectation from family members that was far different than I thought.  As soon as I came back to Taiwan, my relatives started to suggest me to do secretary-like jobs that guarantees me safe incomes and positive social status. My grandmother's biggest wish for me is to get a husband in short coming years also not to travel abroad so much as before.  My mother is hoping me to import luxury brands's products from UK, Europe to sell in Taiwan, or trying to work for any agencies as long as it's from a government organisation.

It is a strange situation that I am in, in the way I am glad that they didn't put too much expectation on the master degree I earned abroad.  What it means is that the sort of jobs that I am looking for, doesn't have to pay me tons of money, they don't expect that I am the one to support the family, but as long as it sounds like a nice job to my future husband's family.
As if to them, the biggest success is to find a good family to marry and to have a good job title.
It is not about my personal satisfaction also they strongly suggested that work isn't suppose to relate to your interest anyway, or it will always end up as a broken dream.

Research Process 4: On Art and Fear/ Moral Panic

Reading Paul Virilio's Art and Fear is just like having a conversation in a park with an old man, who is afraid of technology or an experience like when you trying to teach some old ladies to work Excel (I would say it is a badly designed software though).

I constantly having the feeling that the reason of the whole book is full of warning is because he is just too old and too nostalgic about the world when Hitler or Stalin can easily control or brainwash people with cinema or radio.

Although it seems pretty impossible to manipulate mass's mind as what they did in the past, it doesn't mean that it is impossible to implant or create influential effect on the mass.  Thinking about social networks which is already dominated our life, we don't have to, but we applied for it because other people were using it, the twitter trends, or different portal for blogs, we don't actually need it, and we could simply just say no, such as facebook, but when everybody is using it, the force of connectivity, not only virtually, but when there are a lot of things are happening on these portals, we followed our wills to consent to these things. They didn't force us, but they make us think that we need it.

Talking about the deafness of the contemporary arts in the age of the multimedia, with the tele- age coming, also the digital era, he addresses concerns

"Meta-musical ambient music' what this means is a style music of the spheres without sound, presenting the symptoms of a blinding that would be the exact counterpart to the silence of the lambs... electro-acoustic music will generate new form of visual art. Eletro-optic computer graphics will similarl erase the demarcation line between the different art forms."

He warns that the contemporary art has a crisis of meaning, NONSENSE, just like Camus and Sartre was on about.  However, there are some points that I do agree with Paul Virilio, as the contemporary art is getting hyper violence and hypersexual, the mean of art becoming promoting rather than communicating, later thinking about the media presentation, and the immediacy of art and its ability to be perceived at a glance, to be heard without delay, without the necessitating attention, our reflex was conditioned before we even had time to reflect.

     With the indictment of silence, contemporary art can't quite shake off the accusation of passivity, indeed, of pointlessness       - Paul Virilio


Therefore Paul Virilio in this book challenges the freedom of expression and reclaim the pitiful art and the politic of silence from an art world enchanted by its own extinction because to refuse pity is to accept the continuation of war.

At the end of the essay he said, also stucked me the most is:

What has recently taken place in Austria in the aftermath of the tragedy that has been playing out for ten years in the Balkans proves yet again that POLITICS, like ART, has limits, and that democratic freedom of expression stops at the edge of an abyss, on the brink of the call to murder - Limits blithely crossed by those already going by the name of THE MEDIA OF HATE.    -Paul Virilio 

2012惠特尼雙年展聲明/ Whitney Biennial 2012

2012 年惠特尼雙年展(2012, whitney biennial)將於三月一日開展：惠特尼博物館要求兩大主要贊助公司撤資聲名，與對於所有參展藝術家公開致歉。

雕塑，畫作，裝置藝術與攝影，以及舞蹈藝術，劇場，音樂與電影將於最近的紐約惠特尼雙年展展出。。自1932年開辦惠特尼雙年展（博物館成立於兩年前）以來，惠特尼雙年展持續與所有參展的藝術家藉由此屆雙年展來探討現今美國當代藝術的情況，並於今年邁入第七十六屆雙年展。

今年惠特尼雙年展決定將與多年贊助此雙年展的主要廠商- 蘇富比拍賣會(Sotheby's)與德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)終止合作關係。鑒予其營業方針已對於雙方的合作關係造成不可彌補的障礙。

關於我們的贊助者

惠特尼要求贊助者撤資後仍會持續努力讓今年雙年展開幕，可惜的是在蘇富比提出對其他藝術資產擁有者的惡意要脅之前，我們已經與其簽約。去年蘇富比在拍賣會上創下價格新高，並且獲利超過十億美元，他們支付六百萬給其執行長。然而卻刻意利用合約從八月開始停止支付其員工薪水，在2011年年底，這些員工因此而失去他們及其家人的醫療保險。

惠特尼發現這些藝術作品在被二度拍賣時，大多數的獲利全被富有的投資客納入口袋，而真正創作的藝術家，連帶搬運工人，設展員工，技術人員皆被排除在此的獲利之外。我們瞭解藝術家（以及那些必須兼差來維持生活）與員工皆有權享有基本工資與應有的勞健保，而蘇富比拍賣會對於此勞工權益的霸凌與惠特尼博物館理念 ‘支持與收購在世藝術家作品’背道而馳。基於以上原因，惠特尼博物館決定不再讓蘇富比拍賣會玷污惠特尼雙年展的名聲。

惠特尼雙年展也要求與德意志銀行結束合作關係。基於德意志銀行正面對多起法律訴訟案件與詐欺案件的起訴。美國政府起訴德意志銀行貸款詐欺，並索賠超過10億美元，德意志銀行虛報其發放按揭貸款質量，使美國聯邦住房管理誤認這些貸款合乎發放保險標準，從而獲得政府擔保，目前該行正被聯邦住房管理，教師保險，與年金管理協會起訴。德意志銀行的行為已經對社會造成許多的負擔，並且使許多人失去工作與存款甚至家園。惠特尼博物館基於該行的各種行為與雙年展探討議題產生衝突等原因決定不再接受該行的贊助。

向所有參展藝術家致歉

惠特尼博物館很榮幸的能夠重新分配過去被大型財團與投資所霸佔的資源給與應得的藝術家。特別是在現今政經社會中，所有資產分配被集中於少數有錢人身上，而大多數人面臨破產與無家可歸，無法負擔健保，無法負擔食物的現象。然而，惠特尼雙年展仍意識到有些贊助者會希望藉由贊助此次雙年展來漂白其形象，並藉雙年展來隱瞞其對於社會資源的耗損與累積財富。這些贊助者借機將創意、智慧財產、文化資本化，基本上將整個社會改造成無法生存的世界。惠特尼雙年展意識到許多新秀藝術家為了參與主要博物館的展覽造成其職業面臨威脅，並間接允許前贊助者對於藝術家們的剝削利用致上歉意。本館希望此次參展藝術家能夠與我們共同譴責過去贊助者的錯誤，並信任藝術家們會利用此次的資源孵育出一個更有活力、能夠生存、公平、持續發展的世界。

Translate from:  http://whitney2012.org/
Translated by Yen Yi Lee

The Shocking Value of Art

Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston by Daniel Edwards 

     Reread the introduction of Art and Outrage written by John Walker reminds me of the anger after attending several gallery exhibitions in Berlin during my visit there. 

I remember i wasn't very interested to go into any sort of gallery opening anymore, not only because they stop giving free booze (I don't think I will have to create any footnote for this) but because of the reason that after seeing so many penis in different gallery shows, I evolved a great confusion of art. 

although, it is nice to know that I am not alone.  John walker pointed out in his book that the combination of avant garde ideology + capitalist market in art = encouraged individualism and extremism. 

We went through the age of harmonious, organic compositions to now the value of beauty was replaced by cults of the primitive and the ugly. The change shows that artists' desire to shock and startle the bourgeois class, and their work refused to provide meaning and context because it meant to be experienced as a shock! by withdraw the meaning will direct the reader's attention to question about life and feel the need to change it. 

      However, what happens now when this kind of works have become the norm.  When avant garde became institutionalized, gallery visitor being 'trained' to prepare that being shock before they entre art galleries, maybe the shock value is no longer as significant as they were before. 


     It is certain to me that most of the human attention being attract to deformity, ugliness, sensational objects, which happens to be what mass media mostly interested in, which attracts the most publicity, however the combination of shocking art production and make profit out of shock lead to a recipe of disaster. Producing art that wishes to disgusted where no man has disgusted before is not artistic, but rather for startling people. 


    From another book 'Art and Fear', Paul Virilio was telling about how the contemporary artists live in the time which impacted by Nazi concentration camp and accepted the side-effect produces pitiless art, and how the technology development makes genetic become a culture thus artists started to abandon ethics. 


I have always interested in the ethics in art, and actually that is my original idea for my master project, which now develop into a form of Frankenstein.  I found it is very hard, such a challenge to present the ethical argument as Shelly did in the novel. 

Reading on Art as industry and the commodification of art

Collector Artist Network © Borusan Contemporary

     By reading three articles regards to the creative industry and postmodernism society, also the concerns from academia of our current states of economy development may direct us to a doom future. I found there is a annoying nostalgia state of mind that partake in their arguments.  

    The articles of creative money by Goldsmith lecturer Angela McRobbie that express her concern of the creative industry might direct students who are involved or was involved in the creative economy might ends up being put into a situation that requires constantly marketing themselves due to their state as independent designer/ freelance workers and self-employed soho’s will eventually being dependent on contract from big cooperation, which lead to a direction that the income and working hours become unsteady, also in order to get more cases to get involved within the network that pushes these self employers feel the need to go out as much as possible and keep marketing themselves and hope for one day that will be work for big companies.  The cons were that they eventually being took advantages by the big cooperations assign trivial jobs, their works, design, time management, income resources become fragmented.  

    My tutor argued that it is impossible to keep the society working without pre-established institution, company, infrastructure.

    Later I came across the idea of Relational aesthetic by Nicolas Bourriaud, his relational theory was questioned that the existence of hospitality might actually prevent us from making precise judgements for what we are about to acclaimed for.  The notion of constantly networking blurred the boundary between work and play.  Attending openings, social gathering and gallery exhibitions in order to build up a potentially relationship, you are spending the time that you wouldn’t have to before on socializing with people. This immaterial labour being considered as recreation, and it is not being paid in tangible way. 

    Here I would like to discuss about the possibility of working with people that you are friends. In one essay ‘Who’s Driving’ by Beck Shaw, she discussed about that it is nearly impossible to have a total equal relationship between curator and artist. Talking about if the relationship between these two helps with the quality works to be produced, maybe difficult relationship is more artistically fruitful, so stay professional might actually easier for both to work together. 

     The shared feature that I saw within these articles and theories are the build up of relationship in order to distribute, connect with other people. But the building process and outcome is unreliable, there are no a set of rules can guarantee you to a certain path that you chose to walk on.  The reason that I found these arguments nostalgic is because the distrust element within these arguments of the emotion of human being and trying to make us divide the work relationship and private life apart seems very familiar to the early times. 

      I agree that it is essential to be professional about what you do for living but when most of the artists don't necessarily seeing art as a job that they only do it for living, they do it for pleasure and for fun.  It is a road that based on passion rather than compromise.  We still being given choices when we need to go to openings and talking to people that we are interested in.  It is also preferable for me to discuss opinions with friends or people who we had pre-established relationship.  Work relationship could end up become friendship and work environment is also a social space where people who are engaging a specific theme and thus creates a shared memory, so here I argued that under the circumstance that you enjoy the work you do, it is not necessarily to separate work and private life if you are passionate about it.  

     
    Even if there are pros and cons, but I think there is a very important elements that in the time that we lived in, our perception of time has altered in a speed that we don’t even realize it when we are practicing it.  

     Further more, I think relational art doesn’t necessarily only operates in certain social class or engaging with certain class, or among gallery patron, instead it could be generating another way of communicate inside of the white cube - so called neutral space - by erasing the boundary between the space and country, or geographical elements.  Based on the contacts and human connection. It might sounds bonkers in the 60s but now, it is just what we do. 

Toshio Saeki 佐伯俊男

Toshio Saeki 佐伯俊男

54th La Biennale di Venezia - Illumination [1]

Wow Venice Biennale as the Olympics in contemporary art universe, and I, finally being able to check out WAS IST DAS!?

Due to there are too, way too many exhibitions and pavilions in Venice, I'm going to use a kind of Twitter style way to have a brief view of some pavilion in Venice. But I do have some beloved one which will take up more space. So here we go. 

There are two parts of location where this exhibition happening - Giardini and Aresenale and another part called "In the city" which means countries not yet made it to the major countries.  Somehow I found it really funny about the nationalism within this Grand Art Exhibition.


Start from the one that I like the most,

Luxembourg pavilion - http://www.feipel-bechameil.lu/

Luxemburg Pavilion © Martine Feipel & Jean Bechameil, "Le Cercle Fermé,"

With the twisted space and sculpture, I was draw into a fantastical world by the white colour and numberless reflections by the mirror, which extend the whole space.  The usage of white unreal white colour in a reflective space create a definitely kind of torn world which Alice might want to get out of it as soon as possible.  Be careful you might feel sick there though.

White is a strange colour besides reminding me of pure/ hospital/ or exhibition space, I also thought of wedding dress and somehow in Japan, the new-wed bride always have to be covered by a layer of white powder. On fashion I felt white on white is absolutely stunning match and only people who has strong character or fascial feature will be able to outline with personality.

Tilda Swinton as White witch 

HONJO NAOKI

HONJO NAOKI   本成直季

"Swimming Pool" 
Published in "Small Planet" 
Naoki Honjo

"Tokyo Taxi Stand" 
Published in "Small Planet" 
Naoki Honjo

"Swedish Shipping Terminal" 
Published in "Small Planet" 
Naoki Honjo

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/

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.