Brook Hates Art?
This
interview with Peter Brook on Guardian Unlimited (8 June) sounds terrible with its spicy topic, 'I hate nothing more than art and culture' (which actually caught me unfortunately). In fact, Brook's answers to the several questions posed by a few renowned theatre artists are not as gimmicky, like:
"The sooner we recognise that we are all mortal, the better... ... (T)here is no such thing as darkness: only the absence of light. There is no such thing as evil: only the absence of goodness. And one can accept death more easily if one doesn't think of it as an equal opposite but simply as no life."
... or as
a part of life, I guess. And...
"I'd cite Beckett, who in Waiting for Godot, through the art of words, silences and innate rhythm, creates something that is both recognisable and ordinary and yet universal. I'm with Hare and other British dramatists in their rejection of a comfortable, ivory-tower, middle-class theatre. But the challenge is how one goes beyond the purely local."
Related: Brook's new
biography by Michael Kustow. (image from Guardian Unlimited Books)
Matthew Barney
Talking to Jamsen for our next collaboration these days and he sent me a link of
Matthew Barney's new work being broadcasted
in Japan.
Drawing Restraint 9 with the same fascinating
images like his
other works, this time
with Bjork. Indeed mesmerizing for me.
Jamsen wants to do something along the line, meaning to base his video works on some installation art works. I have to spend some evenings on writing a few scenes for the proposed idea on the "third cause" out of
12, i.e. on consciousness or conception.
Store Wars
Dear T,
I can't decide. But a piece of
news can stand alone right? Or we may say it's the agenda behind these "findings" (or all acts of ours) that are more important? Air con, temperature or greenhouse gas are only manifestations.
Maybe it's not so relevant, but it may: There is a farm which our
group runs in NT, an organic farm using natural fertilizer and no insecticide. The wonderful taste of the melons and vegetables from the farm is not just the result of the two factors, but the hearts behind, which strive to protect the earth (from being exploited by chemicals) and to offer better health to people. My admiration comes also from the 1st hand experience of the farmers there, about how the work changes their own lives, how the animals and insects survive harmoniously (though sharing the greens), and how the crops grow gorgeously.
When the earth becomes healthier over some years' struggle, the vegetable has become stronger and the destroy caused by insects more minor. More favourable changes start to take place afterwards. All these show me something "more" valuable and reliable - though I believe every single factor here is subject to be questioned and reviewed in a different "phenomenal situation".
You are right. I don't cycle there from the city. But I would rather if the environment allows, than the refrigerator-buses (Wait, I am not blaming the society or the others, I believe my habits and choices play the most important role totally.) And I admit I am just learning...
A pity we don't have much "study" or "research" on our heart (not psychology, you know). Buddha is one of these people who devoted their life for this aspect, apart from many other predecessors and followers. Heart (not just of human but all lives) determines many things discreetly. It becomes a secret zone to modern people, unfortunately.
(Edited from my email to a friend / animation produced by
freerange studios for Organic Trade Association)
Sarah Sze's installation
Elaborate works always fascinate me in a brink. That's how the post about Sarah Sze in
Re-title.com caught my attention. This emerging New York-based artist has her new installation being exhibited in
Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York till 1 July.
"Even the details in Sarah Sze's sculptures have details. All her installations are extraordinarily ambitious and are constructed with fastidious precision." (from NGV International)
Another perspective in relation to the technological development which, I suggest, could be further extended to become a more critical statement:
"Sze's sculptures are flowing structures consisting of a conglomeration of small-scale household items that respond to and infiltrate the surrounding architecture. Like the information flow of the World Wide Web, her compositional language takes form by successively linking small bits of discrete information into a complex network." (from Carnegie International)
Using more or less a similar pool of collected material including mainly the miscellany of everyday life, her
earlier works seems to be more on the side of illustrative, or "formal" in
CCS Museum's term. In comparison, the abstract setting:
"an angled plane carves through the entire room, traced in tethered lines. Objects hover on the lines and on the floor below, gaining density as they approach the plane’s point of origin, in a distant corner of the room" (quoted from retitle.com)
and a comparatively organic arrangement of objects creates a more interesting inter-textual reading and free-associating space, with a unique visual texture.
Like a Monk: Fruit Stop
Fruit Stop situates humbly on Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, on the side of one of the many inner yards of
Harbour City (Shop G119). Branding itself as a healthy food caterer, the shop's fresh juice, organic products, and veggie dishes play important roles in the menu. Yet, it is NOT a vegetarian restaurant despite the refreshing white and green of the interior design looks like suggesting so.
Choices of vegetarian main courses are more than enough, like some 15 items, mainly served with brown rice, spaghetti or angel hair (around $35-40 each). The portion had been small but improved recently, and you can add HK$15 to make the single item a set with carrot soup, wheat bread, dessert and a drink (I picked strawberry ice-cream, Eno had fruit jelly and both of us took black soya milk tonight).
Well, my personal taste contends health certainly comes before gluttonous enjoyment here... because some pieces of cabbage were a bit oddly cold beside the baked eggplant. Also, due to the excessive number of tables, you'd better prepare to have the little chat of lovers/ OLs beside you as the side dish. Not too bad. It's still pleasant, because of the clean environment and the calorie indication of food on the menu, which makes you feel you have been
really good to yourself.
Louvre launched its website
Before reading the highlights of
answers.com today, I have had no idea the
official website of the Louvre was just launched these two days. A few hours ago, there was still a count-down banner which has become a "normal" webpage of a museum, without
RSS.
Your Performance in Singapore
Singapore Fringe Festival is inviting performance groups/artists to submit proposals for the second edition of the festival taking place from 22 Feb to 5 Mar 2006. The theme "Art and Healing" apparently echoes the aesthetics of the community-oriented organizing unit,
The Necessary Stage. The deadline is 15 July. Application form can be downloaded directly from
this link.
LEAD
LEAD,
Leading through
Engineering,
Art and
Design, is a 5-month collaborative educational project of
MIT Media Lab, The Chinese University and The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. Some of us went to the opening presentation of the culmination last weekend at
Cyberport.
The only thing I have jotted down on my note-pad is the reflection of some 12-year-old participating students about their experience of creating:
1. Start simple
2. Works on things you like
3. If you have no clue what to do, fiddle around
4. Don't be afraid to experiment
5. Find a friend to work with, share ideas
6. It's OK to copy stuff (to give you an idea)
7. Keep you ideas in a sketch book
8. Build, take apart and rebuild
9. Lots of things can go wrong, stick to it.
A partner called
CAMP, Children's Art Museum & Park in Japan, has launched some successful creative education projects too.
Paper-Saving Vegetarian Votes
After I have mentioned tree in my
first veggie diary, there have been sporadic/sarcastic feedbacks from a friend suggesting his skepticism towards the "myth" of some cliché-like environmental issues. Not necessarily does he mean that they must be
propaganda, but most probably he is just against his natural enemy: stupidity. Will
this campaign create more sense and rational debates? An entry of paper table-cloth in a vegetarian restaurant is more a joke here, or a more practical concern?
