Beyond Words
When words are not words
even the humid breeze
will play tricks, that freeze
our gaze in the void
between the tempting lines
Then songs meet in the air
when plastic touches dreams
with shadows of concepts casted
at the fading corner
where whisper dies.
(Image: Eno at
Beyond Words curated by
Kobe)
New AiR Project
The local scene seems quite prosperous recently, not just for the number of programs or the quality of them, but also the introduction of some new attempts like the full-time overseas curator Tobias Berger at
Para-site since last week. And the new entity
HKAiR that has just opened with a large-scale exchange project entitled "HK International Artists Workshop", with a good list of organisation and supporting partners.
12 international
artists have already arrived Hong Kong for a 2-week program, working with the same number of local friends. The program attraction that highlights the old district of Wan Chai where a hybrid culture survives organically is definitely a plus to many. To me, the statement claiming that "not only HKIAW is an experimentation in art practice, but also one in social process...(which) engages itself in the livelihood of the district" provokes my expectations.
Before joining the programs, it is also worth a visit at
Triangle Arts Trust behind the project.
Hong Kong Art 20050421
Several events seem quite promising lately. Here are a couple of them which I am planning to visit:
Cotton in the RosePaintings by Au Hoi Lam / Curated by May Fung
Exhibition period: 3 April – 31 May 2005
Graduate House, University of Hong Kong
8am-11pm everydayTalk: 13 April 2005, 4:30 – 5:30 pm
Lecture Room 3 – Library Extension
Moulding World - A Summer in DenmarkCeramics by
Annie WanExhibition period: 19 April – 29 May 2005
Habitus, 3/F, The Western Market, Sheung Wan
2:00noon - 7:00pm (Tue - Sun)Talk: 15 May 2005, 3pm
HK Performance Art: On the MoveAnthony Leung Po Shan + Pun Chi Hung, Chen Shi Shen, Frog King, Ko Siu Lan, Mok Chiu Yu, Priscilla Leung Siu Wai, Project 266, Ricky Tse, Tsang Tak-ping, voila, wen yau,
Seiji Shimoda (Japan)
Performance: 7:11-11:11pm (23/4 Sat)
4:30-8:30pm (24/4 Sun)Seminar: “Reviewing Performance Art”
Time: 24/4/2005 (Sun) 2-4:15pm
Speakers: Mok Chiu Yu, Thomas Berghuis, Seiji Shimoda
Moderator: Damian Cheng/Siu SaiVenue: Para/Site Art Space, No.4 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan
Celestial After-images
5am in the very next morning after I came back from the Buddhist camp, I woke myself like the last few days in Taiwan, but not quite sober. The colour of a new season permeated my little white room. It might be the unfamiliar song outside the glowing window curtain that woke me before dawn: birds. Through the dimness the music depicted an unreal vision of thousands of birds singing and dashing around with joy. A whole sky of birds, I thought I saw it. I was not dreaming I was certain, though the sense might be stronger than it should be. Maybe Spring can explain the uncanny scene which I had never seen before. Anyway, I felt nice and thankful, with my eyes closed but mind cleared, and dedicated in my half-dream the songs to all beings.
Above: Thursday evening, the evening came a bit earlier than expected at Cattle Depot, suddenly, and shocked me with a beautiful surprise. The world had become lovely again. (Note: My-x8 seemed a little more powerful than ever...)
Seeing myself in the Mount
Sometimes, I do associate Buddhism with other self-realisation programs, with a more thorough and solid theoretical backbone about human energy and heart. It reveals more and more the part of me that has been... not buried.. but mostly lost in time and the larger environment, over-weighted by materials and short(er)-sighted goals in life.
As a Chinese proverb goes: You can never see the true face of Mount Lu, just because
you are right inside. Amidst the noise of senses, a clear sight is not far from impossible and a desired distance requires a large, very large effort. (Art is sometimes one.) In this light, Buddhism is just about training how to look more neutrally (or live
mindfully). It involves a critical process of realising oneself as a phenomenal subject in the net of "cultural constructs" (in terms of Structuralism), but Buddhists call it "collective
karma". I think the two are not far despite the latter poses a more proactive role for the subject(ed) in its full discourse.
Last weekend I was in my Master's monastery again for a 4-day camp with a similar theme for debate and discussion. "Brainwashing" slipped out of somebody's lips and one of the fellow monks asked what made us so sure in which circumstances we are being brainwashed and which not. "This is merely not a practical question to ask," the thirty-something who had a nickname as "Intellectually First" replied with an understanding smile, gently. It's more important if you can be honest in examining if you are getting what you want at last, and if your mind can perceive such possibility in a practical way. The young monk impressed me a lot throughout the four-day dialogues which made me see vividly myself standing too proudly at the bottom of the Mount. No, I was not frustrated, but saw more light, with joy.
After I joined the first camp of the same series last year, I wrote my
very first blog post under a thrust of impulse to share with, if not scare, my friends. With the same hope I would like to tell you, that I have made a lot of wishes during the camp that you will see yourselves, with the same joy.
Eternal Enjoyments
Would these goods make death a bit less scary, with all the more choices for various "pleasure"? Dimsum, Amanie suit, Hall (not Hell) cigarettes and more. Seems like the pivate business is expanding the affected "areas", or the creative industry is launching competition with the great kingdom H.
BWG quotes SCMP about even more advanced "underground" enjoyments. Dazzling! When you see how people choose their offerings like some real
alive counterparts, you will find it almost lovely. (US bank notes are HK$2 more expensive than the ordinary
notes of Hell Bank).
A few friends have been talking for a few years now about the idea to initiate a paper offerings art event. Maybe they could think about an alternative EXPO in fact. I shall then buy a new pair of dump-bells.
(Ching Ming Festival, Hong Kong)
Pope
The holy man's death wakes a long buried feeling of being a Catholic in me. I was baptised right after birth, but started learning Buddhism only a handful of years ago. The Catholic practice nurtured in me a mild but sustainable religious temperament, which allows the seed of Buddhism to grow later. In fact, I appreciate much better the good disciples of Jesus only after I learn the Oriental philosophy, from a different perspective. Anyway, I mean to state only my respect and gratitude with condolence at the occasion, despite its "alternative" tone. (You may want to read
Living Buddha, Living Christ which depicts similar cross-religion view with more insights.)
A friend remarked he will avoid any news these two days since the incident seems too sentimental in the media. Well, I say they are much better already than those "reminiscent" comments about Tung, the chief Executive of the HK government, when he resigned two weeks ago. Also, I learnt much more, if not too late, about the revolutionary (f)acts of the first non-Italian Pope, from website like
EWTN, the news site of the Catholic Church. And a less official one with an exhaustive archive of links at
BuzzMachine.
As the best way to commemorate a spiritual teacher, perhaps we can try to fulfill at least one deed following his teaching. I guess it would mean being less sentimental.
Godard and Greenaway
Two film masters' oeuvres over the weekend seemed already a bit too much for me: Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique (Our Music) and Peter Greenaway's
The Tulse Luper Suitcases Part II: Vaux to the Sea.
I liked Greenaway's elaborated visual and music like always, though comment of his over-extravagant manner still prevails among friends' discussions. The focus falls on the adaptation of high-resolution multi-layered digitized images, but the encyclopedic and overlapping narrations and contents are the same intriguing, despite the fact that at some points they are really over the top. (It worsened my headache! ) My problem was the lack of background knowledge about that part of history and the writer, and also the first part of
the trilogy. The play of blackness almost resembles some tricks of Robert Lepage, while the luxuriantly visualized subject of
suitcases helps develop a very conceptual presentation with incessant pictorial stimulations almost
audience-exploratory.
I liked the theme of
Godard's, borrowed from Dante's classic: hell, purgatory and heaven, adapted with the context of various wars at our time. The first part consists mainly of a collage of footages (war documentaries and episodes from fictional films). The main body, entitled "the Kingdom of purgatory" and set at Sarajevo, containing more narratives, is even more philosophical. The highly condensed dialogues/narration are hardly contextually descriptive but poetic for me (e.g. "Some say death is the impossible of the impossible and the other say it's the possible of the impossible.") The director's attitude is genuine and it does trigger my urge to learn more about Sarajevo, Israel and Palestine. Of course, hell and heaven live in every part of our world. We got to ask ourselves deeply to find out why even "humane people build cemeteries", besides libraries.
20 Beans + A Box (art group)
Squidfingers (Pattern, adjusted)