1 February 2010 - 1:12 am
by in
my own che |
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I wore my Binna Choi t-shirt yesterday. It was the first time I wore one of My own Che t-shirts for the whole day. It felt quite special. I felt quite special. Did I feel I was Binna Choi? No. Of course I felt that everyone was looking at me. I really felt, however, that especially a group of Koreans (whose nationality I certainly could not prove) stared at me as they walked past me. Did I feel like shouting to them I was not Binna Choi? Yes. Did I think they could make sense of what’s written on my t-shirt, namely “Binna Choi”, even when it’s mirrored? Yes. That was why I was convinced they were Korean. Vive la logique!
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This t-shirt has made me think, the whole day, about my body and the mirror. It just made me realise so much that what I see of myself is not what people see of me. Never. I can only read this t-shirt properly in the mirror, and it says, there, BINNA // CHOI. That’s not how people read it! They would read it ANNIB // IOHC. When I try to imagine how they would see me in this t-shirt - by reflex I would just go look for a shiny window, or a mirror. There, it reads BINNA CHOI. It was a bit frustrating. I remember I kept thinking, I really want to see what they see! It was impossible. Except if someone would take a photograph of me now. But would that image be the real me?
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My own Che is a work examining the relationship between identity, individuality, belongingness and ownership. Che refers to the popular icon of t-shirts and self-determination Che Guevara. As part of this work I manually print people’s names on second-hand white t-shirts to be sold as commercial commodity. People can choose to buy the available single edition t-shirts with a name on it – they could buy one with their own name, their friend’s, or even with a name unfamiliar to them. The names are printed in mirror image, so that the wearer can read the name imprinted on their t-shirts while looking at their own images on the mirror.
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14 January 2010 - 9:30 pm
by in
invasion |
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Invasion is a kinetic sculpture that is a contemplation of geopolitical border.
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As you enter the exhibition space, the first thing you see are the pots with red sands in it on the floor.
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Out of the pots come red threads, all going through an opening on a thick wall.
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In the opening, you see some little metal things - razorblades. They float. It might be magic.
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But obviously it’s not magic. So perhaps it is science.
Or just trickery of the mind. Perhaps the white threads are made rigid and therefore can hold the razorblade up?
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You can’t say - but the razorblades do float: they bob up and down. And when you touch them they collapse.
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Each of them is held up by a rare earth magnets cylinder that hangs from the top of the opening. Each of them, however, is also pulled down by the white threads, so that it doesn’t stick to the magnet, but is still within a considerably strong magnetic field. This, in effect, leaves a gap in between, where the red threads coming from the pots can pass.
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You follow the thread. At the end of it you see kites, hung with hooks at the end of white threads emerging from the ceiling.
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The kites are made of my family’s citizenship documents. They don’t fly, they’re dead kites. Perhaps they could fly, if the wind was stronger.
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And if the wind was stronger the fragile razorblades would surely fall. In fact, everything will fall if the wind was strong enough. If the wind was not that strong, perhaps the wall and the opening will stay, and perhaps the pots will stay, but nothing else.
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All elements in this installation are subtly interconnected. The floating razorblades are as vulnerable as the threads that hold the hanging kites. Thanks to the subtle movement of the air during the exhibition, some threads got cut (and some kites fell down to earth), but some razorblades fell several times as well.
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Photos courtesy of Sari Handayani/Cemeti Art House. Invasion is one of a series of work made during my residency at Cemeti Art House.
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14 January 2010 - 2:39 pm
by in
blah |
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Negativity is like a drop of black ink falling into a glass of clear water. You feel it falling. You hear the subtle microsplash. You can see it forming a cloud. You become aware of the cloud, and try to run away from it. Eventually, however, as dry as you are, that drop of blank ink will disperse. No, it will not disappear. The water is grey now. Another drop. Another cloud, another dispersion. Greyer. You can only try to cope, and wait for everything to flush out.
Drink a lot. It might help.
During twilight you note that your mind works in layers; not even parallel. This one stubborn layer will betray you. It will, that stubborn rebel within you. While the others recede to let you sleep, this one suddenly becomes clear as day, and it wakes you up - melatonin defeated. Then there it is, dancing on the street. It takes over you. You become it. You dance on the street. You think it is you. Consider yourself lucky; this one might be positive.
Drink a lot, and hope that water dissolves. In the meanwhile, just blame it on the hormones, and smile a lot.
1 January 2010 - 9:50 pm
by in
toyhacking |
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“Powerswitch,” reminds me of the Singaporean children’s part in The Adventures of Flo and Kat (2003-2005) project.
I have been pondering on it for a while. My hesitation of course had something to do with procrastination and chickening out. Somewhere along those lines. A few days ago, however, I have decided that it is nonsense that my reason for not having cut any wires until now is because I don’t have a soldering iron. Quatch, as the Germans would say. I could just stick the naked parts of the cable together with tape.
Another reason for my procrastination and chickening out was that I’m not sure whether the powerswitch will take exactly the same amount of voltage from the battery. This is a potential Quatch as well. I like that the Germans start their Nouns in Capitals.
Therefore, I was left with only one other reason, which might be legitimate: I just don’t know enough about where to connect two of the cables going out of the powerswitch.
This is what toy 1’s powerswitch connections look like:
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I can understand that the orange cable goes out from the switch to the positive pole of the battery compartment, and the black one goes out from the negative pole of the battery compartment to the end of the circuit board.
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If I would put it in toy 2, the orange cable going out of the powerswitch in toy 1 will have to connect to the red cable of toy 2 which connects to the positive pole of the battery compartment of toy 2. Where should the black one coming out of toy 2’s negative pole of battery compartment go, though?
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I took a closer look at toy 2, and realised that the big green thing I thought was the PCB was actually just a placeholder for the buttons. So silly of me not to realise earlier. The circuit board is actually just the small brown board with visible resistors. All the buttons are connected to this brown board with cables. I pulled the brown board out of its green plastic holders.
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The black cable turns out to be connected to some end of the circuit board. Just like in toy 1. The next problem, however, is that there is a red cable and a white cable coming out from toy 1’s power switch, and they each connect to each end of the circuit board. Shoot me, Lawd. How can I figure this out?
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These facts might be useful: each of the two white cables from the speakers are connected to each end of the circuit board. Whenever any button on toy 2 is pressed, the speaker would be activated. There’s another thing that gets activated whenever any button is pressed as well: a small light that’s connected to the brown and orange cables which other ends are connected to the board. It seems like the orange cable, one of the white cables from the speaker, and the red cable connected to the positive pole of the battery compartment are all soldered to one, though. I might have sketched this wrongly.
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1 January 2010 - 9:43 pm
by in
palatal direction |
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Boil some water. Put three dried shitake mushrooms in. Measure a plateful of shell pasta - I’m using Lumache 50. Put in pasta when water boils. In the meanwhile, take dried roasted ebi and dried wakame out of the cupboard. Take these out of the fridge: capers, spring onion. Wash spring onion, don’t cut. Take leftover red wine out of the fridge - I’m using Shiraz Merlot.
When pasta boils, pour water out. Get shitake mushrooms out. Leave the pasta in the pan, put back on the burner, and pour a bit of olive oil. Cut little pieces of spring onion with scissors into the pan. Stir-fry pasta and spring onion for a bit before pouring in a good deal of, but not excessive, red wine. Let stir-fried pasta boil in very shallow red wine. The pasta will eventually become brownish.
Quickly take a bit of dried wakame and break it to little pieces into the pan. The idea is to get the wine wet them. Go back to the shitake mushrooms. Cut them small with scissors. The idea is to get all these ingredients into small pieces so that they could be incidentally and randomly contained within the hole of the shell pasta. Put the cut pieces of shitake mushrooms back in the pan. Stir.
Put a teaspoonful of capers in, casually including the water in the spoon, as you would do anyway. Stir again. When ready, put dried ebi. Stir for the last time, put a bit of salt, two pinches of ground black pepper.
Serve.
23 December 2009 - 8:10 pm
by in
toyhacking |
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Last Monday I checked out O’Sullivan and Igoe’s Physical Computing from the library and started reading it earlier today. It’s putting my scattered mind into place. Now I know that toy 1 has digital I/O (input/output) and serial events, toy 2 has digital I/O and parallel events, and toy 3 has analog I/O and serial events.
Projects with digital I/O and serial events, like toy 1, are “easy.” Projects with digital I/O and parallel events like toy 2 are “time consuming, but not too hard.” Projects with analog I/O and serial events, in my case toy 3, are a “bit more difficult”. “The most challenging” projects, according to the book, are ones that have analog I/O and parallel events.
I want to eventually get to projects that have analog I/O and parallel events. That would be a perfect exercise. But first things first.
Recently I was asked to write a 50-word bio. It was quite an interesting exercise. Here's what comes out from there:
"Artist and filmmaker Tintin Wulia was born in Bali, brought up in a music school, and trained as architect and composer in Indonesia and the USA. Her works have been screened, broadcasted, exhibited, and collected internationally. At present she is doing her Fine Art research at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia."
Now. That could have been all cooked up. How could you tell?