crack crack

bluish.

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:02:34 +0000

Installation view of the Great Wallpaper series. Photo courtesy of Cemeti Art House/Sari Handayani.

When I returned, she was still drawing. On the wall. Why, I asked her. Because it is a wall, she said. But why, I asked again. Because a wall is a construct that stands between this space, where we are, and the next, where they are. I didn’t get it. So I told her, I don’t get it. She smiled. Skipping away from the wall, she was careful enough not to spill the light blue liquid in the cocktail glass that she was holding in her left hand all along. She looked at the wall carefully, as though to make sense of it. To make sense of her drawing, I suppose.

It was a big tall wall. And on it, a big tall drawing. Bluish. Vague. In her right hand was not a straw; it was a brush, its bristles wet. A mosquito flew by my ear and, reflexively, I slapped my own face. I woke up. I didn’t sleep well last night.

So why, I asked again, are you drawing on the wall. She skipped back in, with her cocktail glass, brush and all. Why do people scribble on toilet doors, she asked me back. Why graffiti, she asked me again. Why do dogs pee on lampposts. Why was Kilroy here, there and everywhere. Why do you sign letters. Why do you label things. Why do we define. And why do you want to know why. The mosquito landed on her cheek, her nose only an inch away from my face now, and I, reflexively, slapped her.

I woke up. I didn’t sleep well last night. On my palm the remaining of the mosquito, and a speck of blood: mine or hers? So why do you have to know why, she asked again. Because, I said, I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Still not, she asked. Still not, I said, but I still really want to know why. Well, she said. It really doesn’t matter. Just enjoy it. And from that moment on, as though rescued by the baptism, I do.

At the end of the exhibition, she punched a window onto that very wall, right at the middle of her bluish drawing on that very wall, a drawing of the world according to the mapmakers. She then cut that rectangular hole that was the window into small pieces, and sold them away. I framed mine as a reminder of nothings.

understanding

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:50:20 +0000

An understanding of death is what I had a microscopic glimpse of
when I look at my face in the mirror and wonder whether they
will force make up onto it while I lie in my coffin. An understanding of death
is what I had a tiny glimpse of when loving you and being reminded that nothing is forever although
some things are.
An understanding of death is looking at a portrait of my late
grandfather and realising that they say
the dead don’t talk in your dream
and thinking that their speechlessness resemble old paintings.

All in all, an understanding of death is looking,
wondering,
loving,
being reminded,
looking,
realising,
thinking

and impossible.

WOCA.

Wed, 12 May 2010 14:34:56 +0000

The Window of Contemporary Art (WOCA)
a proposal for DICA (Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art)

by Tintin Wulia

King Midas could turn anything into gold. Rumor had it that he had donkey’s ears.

After thinking for donkey’s years, I’ve finally come up with the Window of Contemporary Art (WOCA).
WOCA can turn anything into contemporary art!

The WOCA setup is simple and straightforward.
On top of the usual DICA setup, you would need just any kind of window, any kind of curtain, several stools and chairs, and a desk lamp (or camping lantern).

Using WOCA is also simple and straightforward.
Just sit down on either side of the window, and watch.
You will be surprised how exciting mundanity is when seen through the frame of WOCA.

When the donkey decides to move, the spectators should move their stools and chairs to the new position.
Even a tiny move of DICA’s donkey can make a big difference to the framing of WOCA.

Opening the window also gives a different effect.
You are somewhat connected to the world that you’re watching, but still … not really.
The presence of WOCA somehow allows you to ignore them.

When it gets dark, turn on the solar-powered desk lamp (or camping lantern).
This will provide the effect of reflection in the glass window, temporarily converting your WOCA into a MOCA (Mirror of Contemporary Art).

Feel free to experiment when opening the window: do it quarter opened, half opened, fully opened.
Once opened, the windowpane will also separate you from the other spectators on your side.

WOCA works two-ways.
While people can choose to watch you, you can also choose whether to be watched.
When you’re on the other side and don’t want to be watched, just pull the curtain down.

Looking at the WOCA from the other side is also as fascinating.
Look at those people just sitting and watching, and moving along whenever and wherever the donkey decides to move.

Watching the WOCA from a distance is even more amazing.
Look at those people watching; look at those being watched.

And look at us, watching people watching people being watched.
Aren’t we all part of this big performance?

Windows were once part of walls.
Thanks to WOCA, they are now liberated.
Gone are the days of the window tax and all those daylight robberies.
The show is now free.

“What is contemporary art?” we used to ask.
With the arrival of WOCA, we now ask, “what is not contemporary art?”

The Window of Contemporary Art (WOCA): a proposal for DICA (Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art)
©2010 Tintin Wulia
for Daniel Wolfson
Modeled with Google SketchUp 7.1. Models credit: desk lamp by RDrayMan 101, Light beam by MorBius, Saddle from Cavalry Mount by MorBius, Cartwheel by Aarni, Window by bocian, Rideau drapé by vick, Stool by Graham, Viennese chair by k15a, all other models by Google and Tintin Wulia.

nous ne notons pas les fleurs.

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:50:34 +0000

Nous ne notons pas les fleurs (2010), video triptych, three-channel unsynchronised video loop, no audio (remote control for each video made available to viewers).

Nous ne notons pas les fleurs is a multi-form work exploring the ideas of mobility and the impermanence of political borders in contrast to the tendency to freeze them. The title of this work, Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, is taken from a dialogue in Le Petit Prince (Saint-Exupéry, 1943), where a geographer tells the Little Prince that geographers do not record flowers because, unlike the earth, flowers are ephemeral. The work originally took form as an installation and interactive performance at Soil Bite, Khoj International Workshop 2009 in Patna, India, before taking the form of the above video triptych of the same title. The work was informed by the local context – Bihar, the state of which Patna is the capital, has the highest rate of out-migration in India, and is part of the eastern region in which border problems are prominent.

The video triptych shows the map of India through a single angle, yet from three different perspectives. The single angle is the bird’s-eye view of the recording. The three perspectives differ because each portrays the event partially, through different time-scales and a different time-ranges.

The left screen portrays only the process of shaping the map, referring to the man-made process of nation building. The centre screen portrays only the process of evolution of the shape where no human is visible, referring to the natural process of geographical evolution. The right screen portrays only the process of blurring the borders, referring to the man-made process of a revolution. The three videos – as a triptych – serve as an allusion to the trinity.

It is because of the allegorical nature of Le Petit Prince that I chose to quote the phrase, we do not record flowers, and use it as the title of this work. I chose to use flowers exactly for their ephemerality, and recorded the flowers for the same reason. Based on the four-colour map theorem that I have discovered when I started working with cartography on Terra Incognita, et cetera, I used four types of fragrant flower buds that I took off from the commonly used garlands for celebration and religious ceremonies in India: the yellow marigold, orange marigold, white tuberose, and red hibiscus.

I mixed the buds of these four types of flowers together and spread the mix to form a bed of flowers. Then I shaped the map by painstakingly separating the flower buds in a bed of flowers into regions of the same colour, following the outlines of the map of India and all its states. When I finished shaping the map, I asked the audience to trace their route of movements and migrations from one state to the other. The whole process was recorded with a video camera from above, resembling the bird’s-eye view of a cartographer.

Thanks to: Khoj International Workshop, Shambhavi Singh, Sharmila Samant, Rajesh Ram, Binod Kumar Gupta, Arvind Singh, Naresh Kumar, Suchismita Mohanty, Vichukorn Tangpaiboon, Moe Satt, Akhsay Rathore, Pradeep Thallwata, Ranjeeta Kumari, sister Prema, sister Suma, father Joe, Margaret and others at Taru Mitra.

do it yourself: how to make a new world map.

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:39:53 +0000

Do it yourself: how to make a new world map (2009) is part of the mural, interactive performance and installation work Terra Incognita, et cetera (2009).

Terra Incognita, et cetera (2009) is an art exhibition opening party game where audience members can participate in cutting up a blank map of the world into bordered territories. Presented as a party game, Terra Incognita, et cetera is an exercise in collective painting and, simultaneously, a spin on collaboration and territorial marking.

Thanks to everyone who was involved – especially the audience at Bus Gallery, Melbourne, and Centraal Museum, Utrecht.

Special thanks to Dave Watson for voice-over, Daniel Wolfson for part of acting direction and camerawork. Also to Kim Grondowski, Daniel Wolfson, Fariborz Farid-Afshin, Rogier Brom and Laure-Anne Tillieux for assisting in serving the trays and doing their part of interacting with the audience; Vincent Oliver and Prilla Tania for acting especially to our camera; to Kristi Monfries, Georgia Sedgwick, Meta Knol and Enin Supriyanto for curation; to Camiel van Lenteren and Jet Vermaning for curatorial and logistical assistance; and to Motive Gallery for managerial support.

lured.

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:03:58 +0000

Osage Singapore has an interesting space. Really high ceiling, and some cracks on the floor.

I traced those cracks with my small passports.

The trail goes all over the place. On the walls and the ceilings, the trail is arbitrary.

And the trail of small passports on the floor makes you have to watch where you’re going.

The trail ends just when it’s reaching a power plug. A power cable is plugged into the power plug.

From there, the power cable lies on the floor next to a crack line as well, all the way to the machine.

The other end of the power cable connects to the machine. The machine is playable with 1 Singapore dollar coin. It gives you three tries.

Some people, in frustration, told me I should make it easier to win the passports. But some other people won two passports. I guess it’s just luck – which is the point of the work. Some people told me they believe there are skills involved in winning, though. But can we prove that? And how far back could skills go? Everyone is born with some sort of a citizenship – is everyone born with some sort of skills?

Thanks to everyone in this video documentation for being lured. Congratulations to the winners.

Lure is being shown as part of the exhibition Inventory: New Art from Southeast Asiaat Osage Gallery Singapore, 03 Mar – 25 Apr 2010.

Photos courtesy of Osage Gallery.
Many thanks to:
• Eugene Tan and Yvonne Shih.
• Khim Ong, Shery Fangiono and Mirim Lee.
• All the assistants for helping with the installation.
• The audience for interacting with the work.

home those days.

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:52:52 +0000

Hey diddle diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow …

… jumped over the moon;

The little dog laughed …

… to see such fun,

And the dish ran away …

… with the spoon.

And so, I moved out.

duh too.

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:01:43 +0000

This is a duh sketch I started yesterday. Dum dum.

Dum durlydum too.

marie.

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:33:27 +0000

I must say that it seems to be working. I wore my Binna Choi t-shirt when I went on a train to Bairnsdale last Friday. I went in the gate, showing my ticket to the gate attendant, then realised I wanted to get snack. So I went out again.

At the entrance of the snack shop, I could see a surveillance video of myself on a TV monitor just above the door. Again, it was a mirror image. Binna Choi, says my t-shirt.

A few minutes before my train departs, I hurried in, showing my ticket again to the same gate attendant. He, however, didn’t look at my ticket at all. Instead, he pointed at my shirt and said “[unintelligible] Binna Choi?”

It’s unfortunate that I had to hurry to my train, so I just said to him, “Ah! You know me already!” and ran in.

In the train I imagined how a conversation would have gone on with him.

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.

my own che.

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:12:22 +0000

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!

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?