exploding galaxies
yesterday I stumble onto this image of poutine and all of a sudden I get this punctum thrown at me from the upper right-and-left corners of the image, the text, the indentations on the plastic container, and all of a sudden all I can think about is a lust for displacement, rearrangement, not-being here.
I used to think about this quote a lot, senior year of high school:
Ibn Ata: Where is that, master?
Hallaj: Anywhere. You will know your action. You are present there, not thinking of somewhere else you ought to be.
and it is taking place now, I am here, here. but sometimes there are these other vectors that pull me away, and now all I can think about and all that envelops me is the sensation of foreign money, of a rearrangement of visual senses, not knowing where I am, uncertainty, and the corresponding reach-into-the-self action that happens as a result of pursuing this uncertainty from within. arms plunging in, dragging out an interiority, turning the self inside out.
if the train is a good example of technology that's widely understood as transformative, changing population densities, cities, discoveries, perceptions of expanses, shrinking distances, and so on -- it's also appropriately a linear form of progress, going along tracks, from before to after. and I think (and this is me whistling, having stoppen at a red light on my bicycle with a vaguely ovaloid sweat patch on my back between my backpack and my shirt) that if the train track is a linear vector than it's only appropriately orthogonal to the horizontal line of a frontier -- and more specifically, these two things are the condition of their creation. the frontier only comes about through a directionality that is, for the most part, linear and chartable. the directionality of the train track (and therefore of progress) comes from its direct opposition to the boundary that defines the other. a sort of metanarrative of progress, perhaps. it's interesting to think of American westerns and the presence of the itinerant cowboy with his intelligent steed and the gleaming dark train, and how they are such opposites of each other, both in terms of social roles and metaphors that they conjure up, yes, but more interestingly in terms of a morphological pattern that reflects (and induces) said ideological differences between the two.
grace. grace. grace, grace, grace.
b of e
landing on a better note than the last one; graduation really happened at a single pinpoint, standing on the top of a metal ladder, strangely still, feeling like a statue having locked the storage container shut. loose ends tied up, ends of ends done. I like this idea of having things compact, twisted together. life locked in a box, turtled away. I like the idea of portable disposable toothbrushes not from an environmental point of view but from a convenience/travel point of view. runners while running, throwing cups of water over their faces, tossing these cylinders away. maybe it's time to go.
I have an image of being a wound-up spring. which way? which way = these ways + the complement of these ways; the ways you don't think about but exist nevertheless.
I've got a bit of time, some time, a lot of time, an endless wealth. the endless wealth of youth.
the last week I had this thought while on a bus that the most defining mental characteristic of me right now is the fact that I do not understand that I will die, a currently constant and unchanging being-unconscious. autopsies seen -- ribs snapped, lungs dug out, human hearts held in the hand -- haven't changed this yet. you're wealthy, I want to say to myself, your wealth is being free but being free won't soon be free. hurry the fuck up and stop hurrying.
here's to an earnest start.
class day
two moments. this, now, reflecting on what happened just before another happening...
one: we're in gowns, sky blue, three hours of ceremonies and pomp-and-circumstance. as we slowly file out orderly lines disorient themselves into a mess. turning around I half-step on a girl's foot. instantly I see her face contort into this expression of disgust and pain and regret as my other hand goes out to steady her and say, hey, sorry, but her features twist and wrinkle into that sort of an expression just so expressive and repugnant. and another instantly: instantly I decide that that's not the kind of life I want to lead; I know this stems from unfounded conjecture but I don't know this girl anyways and won't ever see her again; that that's not the kind of place I want to be like this imaginary girl face twisting along lines of repugnance, horror, disdain. never.
two: swirling lines, folding onto each other. I think of proteins, folding, a hole bored through a phone book skewering names together, specific linkages degenerating into arbitrary connections. folded, flipped, turned.
call me
While waiting for a phone call from you I think about the nature of summer break and the sense of laziness dust settling interim periods that they convey. Here I am sitting in an apartment that creeps away from Seoul and crawls towards fresh air slowly, every few years or so, like some ex-terranean hermit-wizard lair moving eastward and future-ward, legs protruding, ground slowly swirling. The sense of time spent doing nothing washes by coagulated in the sounds of kids' voices on playgrounds and passing cars, and the progress of shadows as they swing from corner to corner pivoting at the edges of objects, bedframes, doorjambs. As I stand in the bathroom thinking about the sticky-heavy moments just before a phone rings I convince myself of the rejuvenating nature of these moments -- not necessarily therapeutic but some sort of marinating force, (ha ha cooking metaphors), like the end of a novel (probably paperback) closed with a content enough sigh and active retrospection for a piece of present-now-past held in the hands.
And so I'm here having come here, two years, constantly swiveling my head looking sideways here and there noticing things changed, turned. Coming back out of Jamsil station I notice another building completed, things busier, the line waiting for the 1115 bus still long as usual.
Stuffcalendar: Seoul, Korea, found on May 24th
Seoul has a lot of interesting stuff going on!
A.L.I.C.E museum
예술의 전당 한가람디자인미술관 (Seoul Arts Center - Hangaram Design Museum ), 6/2 - 6/22
This looks incredible, despite the fact that it's targeted towards children (which is nice, I suppose, the idea of media art being directly interactive and accessible enough to be kid-fun). There's a lot of works I've seen before -- Samorost, Cloud by Jenova Chen, Shadow Monster by Philip Worthington, etc. ALICE stands for "Alive Liquid Interactive Creative Expressive".
Lincoln Schatz - generative video installations
Bitforms gallery, seoul 6/1 - 7/14, opening reception 6/1
"Visualizing the memory of an environment, these works reconsider fixed
notions of history, time and place. Each unique artwork records, stores and displays video that recounts its record of exhibition, building a distinct visible aura."
Nurri Kim -- Space Between: Archive, Memory, Repository
Insa Art Space, 5/25 - 6/10, Talk 5/29 5pm
This seems interesting. Memory versus archive: "How does an archive work, as compared to human memory? Are there meaningful distinctions between "memory" and "storage (archive)," and how do these ideas frequently get confused in our overwhelmed technological times? " Somewhat related to an article about MyLifeBits and Gordon Bell I read in the New Yorker about obsessively recording and archiving personal data.
Weather Forecast
Nam Seoul Annex building of the Seoul Museum of Art, 5/11 - 7/1
An exhibition in which artists-in-residence interacted and exchanged ideas upon the topic of 'mobility'.
Sound Art 101
Ssamzie space, 4/24 - 6/17
Springwave 2007
Various Locations, 5/4 - 5/30
A festival encouraging collaboration with foreign/other contemporary artists to create a stronger sense of contemporary art in Korea. May be nice, but is almost over.
Part of Springwave 2007:
Instead of allowing something to rise up to your face dancing Bruce and Dan and other things, Tino Sehgal
5/7 - 5/30, 11-6pm at Total Museum of Contemporary Art
5/27, 2:30pm performance with Nadia Lauro
"I consider communism and capitalism as two versions of the same model of economy, which only differ in their ideas about distribution. This model would be: the transformation of material or – to use another word – the transformation of ‘nature’ into supply goods in order to decrease supply shortage and to diminish the threats of nature, both of course in order to enhance the quality of life. Both the appearance of excess supply in western societies in the 20th century, as well as of mankind endangering of the specific disposition of ‘nature’ in which human life seems possible, question the hegemony of this mode of production, in which the object hood of visual art is profoundly inclined. My point is that dance as well as singing – as traditional artistic media – could be a paradigm for another mode of production which stresses transformation of acts instead of transformation of material, continuous involvement of the present with the past in creating further presents instead of an orientation towards eternity, and simultaneity of production and deproduction instead of economics of growth."
Part of Springwave 2007:
I hear voices, Nadia Lauro
5/3 - 5/30, 11-5pm at Total Museum of Contemporary Art
5/27, 2:30pm Performance with Tino Sehgal
"I hear voices is a project articulated around a visual installation, a ‘live architecture’ and a performance. I hear voices, a kind of science fiction landscape made of hairy mountains, offering a cozy resting place to the spectators during the whole Springwave Festival. It is an immersive space, a cross between a ‘mental garden’ and a ‘warming-up area for the audience’, inhabited with a special event the 9th and 10th of may 2007."
Part of Springwave 2007:
Hey girl!, Romeo Castellucci/Socìetas Rafaello Sanzio
5/24 - 5/25, 8pm at Arko Arts Theater, Main Hall
"Hey girl! is a project about movement and about
gesture. In the end it will be a kind of dance. A series
of pictures strung together but seemingly unconnected.
One might say, a revue of acts that starkly reveals
aspects of human relationships. A portrait put together
out of the vast archive of partly forgotten gestures of
the West."