Kai-Oi Jay Yung Munich Residency

My cross-disciplinary practice confronts spectator with a playful reassessment of identity. As British born Chinese, I seek to understand how we function within particular cultures. My exploration of an unfamiliar location, Germany; its associated language, customs, history of rule and its people unravel from my anchor point at Villa Waldberta, Feldafing. Pulling together fragments of personal stories; Dachau’s turbulent history and neurotic glory-fall of Ludwig II; I have interwoven my own enchantment–uncanny fairytale that reconsiders interpretation of artist role through media of performance and video.

Video Stills and Images
http://www.slide.com/r/bxd3Smj15D9wANq1_ec48Q-wQNsUlZEt?previous_view=lt_embedded_url

Video
Madly Into Night, 5 minutes 30 seconds
See www.myspace.com/kaioi for showreel excerpt

Madly Into Night interweaves the enchantment of fairytale, perverse pleasure of horror/thriller, and extreme brutalities of the Nazi regime to dismiss any unified cohesion of nation and self. Set in Bavaria, Yung fragments three realities; the global shame of the holocaust, local history of Ludwig II’s colurful, mysterious rule, and the personal love story of a Munich inhabitant. Interlaced, they recreate and destabilise viewer’s voyeristic position within the simulacra.

Assuming both role of the mad king and fated empress Sissi, Yung deploys physicality of body to enact her internal interpretation of these truths in relation to specific locations and prop/objects. The obscenely multiplitious nature of her arduous physical tasks deploy the non-reproducibility of performance to transgress art into life. Simultaneously, the extent of viewer interactivity and the ambivalent potential of such socially engaged art/life is questionned; she reinserts her actions into video’s signified representation as visible phallic.

The resulting five minute dialogue engenders a strangely beautiful alienation between artist, viewer and reality; our own experience of dream-death-love is left to unfold.

Progress

It's Wednesday morning and I've been up since the early hours to ensure that I manage my own work and those other small and big tasks /activites that need to be done e.g finishing the archive, the spring party preparations, translating text... nevermind truck activity . I dont want to compromise on the quality of my work so I am working hard, but Iam feeling pretty knackered too, hope i get a chance to recharge batteries a little for onslaught of activities until we leave e.g press conference performance....wow , it will be great to finally see everyones work together!

I guess the group has become quite close now and we had the first true glimpse of how our work may unravel together at The Pony Bar, which was a great night. Got lots of positive feedback in terms of my paintings and video, it was good to be able to talk a little about my work and then to be amongst a sit down audience's focussed attention too rather than video on exhibtion loop. Olivias photos incited much discussion between myself her and a Romanian fellow we met in terms of her subject, disenfranchised tsiganes, plus, finally got to see Evas sewing, and peoples reactions to it.

Tonight its the Spring party, I am working with Tomas and Eva to perform actions around the station and everyone else also has roles, then later we will all return to the villa for goulash that we cooked last night, plus I am going to concoct a cream fraiche cucumber dip for the masses. Experimentation....

Ok, must dash to fit a 2cm lightbulb into a wooden stage for my performance still within a box

jx

tired days

hello, it's 1fifty one am and I have this week mostly been strapped to the laptop. so far, sixty hours of editing for five minutes of footage... keeping it tight.
I am happy with how I've managed my practice out here so far, i've got my performances and footage completed, plus I've been able to get my head down and balance this with getting to know Bavaria....
tomorrow its the opening of the Pony Bar exhibition, I am showing drawing/paintings I've completed here plus a video performance short and this will be fluxed with Tomas' root amplification and Eva's sewing... should be a good night.

Ok, sleep then into the city to get perspex and materials for the truck archive.

choos

Blurring

It’s been a wee while since I last blogged, but that’s because I’ve been quite a busy art bee. Things are progressing well, if not at whirlwind speed, everyone has expressed that they are feeling the pressure - the truck is soon ready to go on its journey…! It arrived yesterday and seems like a mythlogical beast yet untouched waiting to take my work on a mighty adventure= towards Liverpool. I asked if anybody had been in it and they said no. I think we are all heads down…

Hmm, where do I begin? I began with painting and drawing some of my automatic doodles and naturally they have taken me to performance/video. I am really feeling that I have taken this aspect of my work further, now I feel like I am really traversing that fine line between performance and live, non and to video. That’s because I am not only visitng sites, but assuming characters and weaving a narrative all of my own that has taken from the history, theory and encounters I’ve absorbed so far. I think I’ve used my time well, the time has blurred space and place because I feel like Iam constantly between my art and me. I have been filming all around the villa, locally and further afield, and because the audience is constant= they may wonder why I am behaving acertain way, or dressed in ridiculous clothing, they don’t see the camera and I don’t announce this is art, I am not in the gallery. So it’s almost my secret that Iam doing art, or just doing me. It makes me feel; a little anxious, vulnerable, a tourist? and at the same time completely in my skin.

It’s a strange feeling.

I am having some great discussions with the artists here, I feel like we’re truly working together. Tomas and I have plans for some video action next week, and Eva and I share similar views on where our art can take us. Iam enjoying speaking my French with Olivia, we’re playing the YMPH documentors tommorrow and will follow the trail from the U Bahn to the glass cases. There we will also leave our contributions and perform our act, can’t wait.

I feel Hamish has also gained a lot, he left on Monday. He mixed his sound with his painting and also his surprise sound/tactile activity on the train post too many German pints and soup. Mixed media, 5 minutes 46 seconds. Well, I guess you can always be sure of an audience on the rail routes. Images soon.

Onwards…

Accidental Tourist

So, I am reading Traveller’s Tales from someone close to me and it keeps me close to home as I pass each station on the S Bahn. Today I travelled to Dachau, why not, if I am going to explore overarching concepts of migration, then let’s go to the extreme, I am in Germany for fucks sake.

So, if home is where, as one interviewee pointed out today ‘the heart is’, then the antithesis must be coerced displacement. We travel to broaden our horizon, to enjoy alienation in disguise and conquer another place. Nourishment of soul, the physical external journey that reflects the internal, mental or just leisurely escape from routine.

So, Dachau was the first model concentration camp, not to dwell on the fact that I stood in a gas chamber today, for some reason they were never put into use at this site, but a day walking around and being bombarded by the vast space and history that took place here makes me feel barren. A same kind of unease I encountered whilst in Nanjing, China- 300, 000 massacred at the bayonets of the Japanese. Here we are talking trans-border atrocities that are incomprehensibly beyond skin and territory.

The fact that it hasn’t stopped raining hasn’t bothered me until today.

So, I bought the book, souvenir of course, and feel proud that today I got off as a tourist at the right stop that announced ‘Concentration Camp’. Not quite the usual hotspot. But it’s ok, I only feel mild guilt because yesterday I spent the whole day mostly speaking to Karin Sommer, the director here, and she uncovered some ‘native?’ truths.

It was a good day, I made a connection with a personal story to here which could not escape borders and crossings, Ludwig and then for tea ice cream and wine… it helps the fish (Czech style) swim, so goes the saying.

I like it here a lot, and the people too. I am aware of how my time is passing rather quickly, but it’s only been four days I guess, but I feel strangley at home. Maybe I am used to moving around now, flights take you as far as you want them to. I am staying rooted to here and venturing outwards and returning. That’s the pleasure of this journey. Only 56 euros for a one month ticket.

See you soon,

jx

Filming and Drawing and Lines and Windows

Hiya

Wow, OK.

Work going well. Drawing and painting on these big long rolls of different sorts of paper, on the studio floor, is really great. It's opened up a whole big bunch of stuff in my practice to do with film an music and landscape and journeys. And the way marks and lines and Compositions can function in different ways when worked on and presented/viewed in different ways.

the idea of looking at a whole painting, with bits everywhere. There is movement created within the work that propels the eye from part to part.

Snaking these lines out - always moving forward on the roll (10 meters long, 33 cm wide) - means that you don't need to propel the eye around the picture. the movement is generated, and the marks and lines become alive when the piece is filmed. or viewed with only a section of the picture viewable at any one time. It's like animation. Its like Film storyboards. anyway, i'm in a bit of rush, just to say that where this work is going is ticking a lot of boxes. it's making more sense of how my practice relates to film and music and landscape (the stuff i like). Well it's making laods of sense.

I was on the train yesterday comming back from the massive Bauhaus do it your self harware store near Laim. It involved exploring a new route. Going on a tram i hadn't before, navigating a new part of town. I then looked at a shot from my studio that morning, one with a big brush mark across the wall and then two rolls shooting out towards the camera (lots of perspective...roads and things)......anyway, this shot spoke load about what i had just been doing...even though it was all paint marks and abstract lines and things, but it related completley to the real stuff i had been doing in the real world. woooh, real wolrd. It all relates to everything.

Windows. Perspectives. Layers(but not in a painterly, build them up....more in a real way...i need to find a new word for layers.....and thats what all this is about. New ways.

Cool

bye

h

day one in...

Hi all,

So here I am at the Villa, wow!

I arrived early Sunday morning following a non-sleep lofty sat-sun, into the rain of Munich airport and off the Easyjet in the safe knowledge that my hand luggage had fitted the dimension checker cage, phew.

Navigating the s bahn was rapido, it was good to know that once you’ve conquered one tube map not according to scale, Uground London, you can do any number coloured of criss-cross lines. Proud I was when I realised a grade 3 English speaking German couple pointed me in the wrong direction and I was able to hybridize my French into something somewhat foreign than Polish in a bid to make my own decision.

Sunday was a great warm welcome meeting with my fellow residencts. Hamish met me at the station and in my surreal haze it was odd to see him on the platform in Bavaria, when I had only met him a few times in Liverpool. He was a new and old familiar. I was met with borsche? Russian soup from the fantastic Sir Tomas, who is bubbling with ideas, Greek Eva and I enjoy talking about art, life and boys till early hours and Peruvian Edgar has alrady challenged me about various aspects of performance. It’s good to get the old French cogs in motion too with Olivia too, it’s amazing how much can be lost in translation to be made up with noises and mime. Good practice for conversation with Berta, cleaning lady at 8:30am Monday as she swept through my room and I hid under my German covers. The cosmopolitan house could be anywhere but it’s not, it’s here, so I want to decipher what that means.

We had a meeting with Judith, the project has come along and it is almost like I have just been landed into the final stages of an A-team plan where everything is more or less assembled but hopefully is all still open for my input reformulation. It’s a good way to get stuck in. Before I arrived, I thought I would use this time to just start making, but I think that I can’t escape my process= site/viewer, theory, retention, inversion/conversion, production, site/viewer. It works best for me and I would not feel right if I missed out any of those stages.

Is this as systematic as what I have seen of this nation so far?

Everything is extremely efficient ,clean ,tidy. None of this scruff, metro, sorting of litter, lack of street scrap, everything just doing it’s job fantastically.

The photos were deceptive, the Hansel Gretal villa is not how it seemed in the photos, and the lake not how I imagined, distance wise. But this is akin to tourist guide, all the more for me to discover. Once the rain subsides, Iam going to go through those tall graphite trees encapulated by Hamish’s snap and investigate.

Yestersday I went into Munich , looked at x amount of meat and marvelled at the oversized reliefs on architecture here. Today I am in to get batteries and materials, a few ideas concoting already, but needs must read and let brew for a while to get full froth.

Thanks for the playdoh poo left in the corner of my room, it’s great to know that remnants of Shaun and Ele are with me.

Soon x J

prep

hey Hamish, you seem to be having a blast and getting stuck into it in every way- i like the look of coded dot line black marks. deliberating what to pack.... to bring editing or not to bring? Iam definitely taking my video camera but it would be quite nice to remove my arm (laptop+edit) to see if i can use my feet and get back to my blob aesthetic via visceral again.

must forego shampoo and underpants for paintbrush and canvas for fear of plane too heavy.

sean, ele, let's meet friday before i head off to london to catch flight,
jx

Stop start gap continue - photo withoout looking

Scrunched up paper can move quite well

right, here are those fancy dress photos, in the party. We where the only people who made our costumes out of paper and seleotape......Tomas made Judith a Princes Costume out of paper (all from the cuboard in the basement) that she changed into on the night. She had the countries of Europe drawn across the dress and then people started to add things as the night went on. Tomas Filmed a lot of it, so we managed to get some art in there as well!

Lists

Back in Liverpool and haven't blogged for ages!
The last week in Feldafing was great and I spent my time hurrying to get enough shots for a new video as well as showing an old piece of work at Pony Bar (an exhibition platform at Laden gallery in Munich city centre), which was so useful in terms of thinking about how my practice has evolved and getting some feedback, and in furthering my pursuit of new perspective while in Germany.

I am now trying to cling to the new perspective I found amidst numerous lists and plans. There are lots of practical things to be done now we're back and the challenge, as usual, is in the balance.

Maps of a different kind!

Hamish- please post fancy dress pictures! What did you all dress as?
Are you enjoying the space? What was the decision on the bedroom?

Jay- can we meet up before you go?

Drawing Thoughts

Hiya

Right, I've got some ideas, after making pancakes, which actually came out rather well. The first one was a bit more of 'batter fritter' but then they got better...with ice cream...and nuttela...yes. Anyway, i'm moving away from art a bit there. Had a good chat about ideas and things for the project with Ava. thinking about how my drawings can be work in the truck environment......thinking about maps, and unfolding things. UNfolding drawings. getting people to look at the work in a different way...give them a nudge to think about the drawings in a slightly different context.....just a nudge....i'm not going to suddenly start making map-o-centric drawings for the sake of it.....its more to do with the presentation mode.........it even starts to move into a bit of performacey stuff.....the idea of documenting/recording the steps i go through to make these drawings is also on my mind.......

today i did a charcoal drawing on 8 pieces of paper stuck together, in the studio (good walls) and heater).....i didn't look at it until it was finished...but took photos of it before i could see the end thing......it's a pretty chaotic drawing.........lots and lots of lines.......with forms and shapes appearing......but lines everywhere.....they seem to be the first thing i draw....before blobs...................like i'm charting (not mapping...aaargh!) out the territory, feeling the space, opr something.........anyway, for the next one i want to see if i can do it with out using lines.....

it's to do with lines being lines and when you come to make a form or a shape, well, it gets me thinking, what do i want this shape/form to be.....and at the moment i'm not so sure (i'm not worried though)........so lines (where you don't have to think so much about what THIS LINE is) are a way in, and happen, the blobs and shapes come after.......well so far they do.......thats what i want to see about tomorow.....blobs first...........then lines.......hmmmmmmmmm, maybe if the blobs become marks, and not actual defined shapes/forms............well they will be, but what if there root is a mark.....or an action.......right.

The drawing i did today was the biggest i've done so far...........i feel the large amount of lines present are indicitive (hmm( of this......it was really big, so i was stretching all over the place to (fill it?).........maybe i didn't know what i wanted to say within in the space....so i was drawing out to the edge..........anyway, when i looked at it at the end (i had an hours break drawing the trees and the long shadows in the garden/grounds)............i felt that the lines where the things that brought it all together and connected the different parts.........the parts being the big forms or arrangement of bits......and that these forms where still quite seperate from each other...so for next time i plan to make bigger forms that use the space more..........and on better paper.....this was all slimey.........and waxy...........i got it from the basement...in the big green cupboard. we also made fancy dress costumes from it..............its got a grid on the other side (drawing on a grid. hmmmmmmm).................right, anyway, tomorow........experiment with folding map idea...do more drawings....in studio space......not in kitchen area....need studio space...........drawing on small pieces of paper....as long as i'm in big studio space may work better......drawing at a desk..........doesn't do it for me.

ok.

There we go,

quite a dense one that one. a little trigger happy on the old full stop button.

HOpe everyones well,

chat soon

h

Walking, Looking. Drawing, Sticking

Hello,

Well, this week has been interesting. trying to carve out some kind of routine has been on my mind. With the villa not being very studio like in appearence (you know white walls and things, messy sinks and stuff) it has been hard, or trickey, to get my head round making and doing. I#ve spent a fair old chunk of the time thinking about what i want to do, or happen, instead of actually doing it. It's not such a bad thing, but i feel more comfortable when i've got stuff happening around me in terms of things i've made. Something to engage with, maybe in a more direct way, where you can make intuitive moves instead of planned ones. I suppose it's to do with responding to things. In the villa itself there is not that much to respond to....except the other artists! wahey, yep, there it is. Anyway

Doing and Making....hmmmm. They are wrapped up for me.

Doing something...well, i had a great day in Munich on tuesday visiting galleries and wandering about the city. I went to a great gallery called the Lenbachaus Stadtschie Gallery which was full of paitnings by Kandinsky, Klee, Franz Marc and Franz Ackerman and Gerhard Richter. As i was looking at the Ackerman paintings (massive, in your face, not much space to breath, everything painted in the same way) i concentrated hard to just look at them, and not think about anything. I could do it, but i had to stop myself if i thought about anything else. I wanted to focus on the act of looking at the work, otherwise the paintings would overload me too much and i felt i wasn't taking them in.

After looking at the paintings i had a great apple cake and coffee in the cafe, right up until closing time. I thought there is something nice about being in a public building at closing time. it's a bit quieter and you get to notice whos there as you collect your jacket from the Cloakroom. If you have time to think about it. I don't know, but i was in a good mood. Being in new surroundings allowes my mind to wander freely, well in the city at least. It's about getting your head in place where it can take on new stuff and look for new connections.

Wandering round the city taking things in - doing

Drawing and colouring bits in and sticking paper together - Making.

I am trying to bring the action of doing, the free way i moved around the city - into my work.

Bye for now

hamish

Next things second

Greetings all,

Welcome home Sean and Ele, looking forward to meeting up in 3d soon, do I carry on blogging you I wonder? I was told I walked past your house earlier plus I have your number, but it's late + Good connection online. I'll call tomorrow :)

Hamish! Wow, amplified tree roots, howling and electroid organisms ahoy, jamming sounds art deelish and hope I get to join in somehow when I get there. Will bring avocado.
I am glad you are relishing the opportunity to get stuck in and expereience all, I was thinking about it-if sometimes you investigate an idea/location too much if it can negate the motive to act/do. The world with internet shrinking and growing. I think you can risk any process overruling the thing itself. Art for art's sake then? No, but definitely not toast dry either.

ok, yesterday was interesting for me, was the Liverpool Biennial Independents meeting, got me thinking again about what I am intertested in and why- can't wait to get making and to see how Munich shapes my direction.

tell me more as you go

xxx

first things first

Hello everybody

Hi Jay!

I hope your well and sorry i haven't got on the blog sooner, i've just been having a bit of difficulty hooking my laptop up to the net. I'm now on one of the pc's that come with the apartment and it's all in german which is fun.
anyway, yep, the saxophone made the journey! all wrapped up with heavy duty parcel tape/bubble-wrap combo, it went in the hold in the end as a fragile item. anyway, its good to have it out here. We had a big house jam last night after a dinner, with tomas playing his amplified tree root instrument and a guitar and sax and people howling and electric organs and glasses filled with water (quite loud amongst everything else). It was a big old mess of people messing around with sounds and things. good fun.

Sean and Eleanor left at lunchtime today and now i'm the only Liverpool person here. It imiediatly felt different when they left, and i went back into with the other artists to the house. It's them and me now. It's a good feeling. i can get to know these people on my own, it's exciting.

The main thing that has been going round my head since i arrived is how the place has met with my expectations. I mean, since i arrived i've been taking everything in as it comes - here's a new train station, here's what the outside of the villa looks like, this is that bit we've been talking about, and on and on. Well, it's funny becuase thats kind of seperate from the images (on the blog) i was taking in back in Liverpool. They still retain their mystery, even though i can now look at them and then go and look at where they taken. Hmmmm.

The blog kind of drip feeds you images of what's going on here, creating faint hints of what it's like, but nothing concrete in a sense. Well, maybe all images used in this way aren't concrete. You can never get the full picture. and i can see that now.

This is a classic thing about travel and going on holiday. Whenever i've been about to go somewhere i've had an image of what it's going to be like in my head. But then that soon goes (as you're on holiday) and you don't have anything to really look back on and go 'thats what i thought it was going to be like'......but now with the blog you can look back at those trigger images. I can still imagine what i thought it was going to look like and those images fit in with that, but not necessarily with what i see now.

anyway, thats enough of that. It's fun and exciting out here.

Home

So, we leave in a couple of hours...

Hamish has settled in well, learnt the lingo, made party, drunk some absinth, it seems like our cross-over work is done. The time has gone so fast but it's been very valuable and productive, and we've also made some great new friends which always seems like the most valuable thing.

We had a brilliant time at the PonyBar event on Saturday evening. Hamish showed some beautiful drawings he'd made the day before, Eleanor showed an older piece of work on VHS called 'untitled (sugar)', and I did a fairly lively presentation of my work which got a couple of laughs! It all seemed to go down very well.






There is a bit too much to write about in terms of a summing up, so I think I will leave that until we are home and have space to reflect. But something brief:

Things we did do:

1. Ate a traditional Bavarian breakfast - peeling the skins of sausages and drinking beer before midday is awesome
2. played the finest 70's electric sythesiser you have ever seen.
3. Eaten cake in a supermarket carpark because it took over an hour to find it despite it being 8 mins walk away.
4. Worked, rested and played in the deepest snow I've ever seen.
5. Sat down to pee for a month (it's the rule).



Things for next time:

1. The clockwork figures in Marienplatz.
2. The monastic brewery across the lake.
3. Postcards.
4. Replacing the plastic crow which I ended up selling for €15 to (apparently) the most important arts journalist in Munich.
5. Fishing.

Haha - now that's culture.

So, for me it's very important, to realise we're all in the same boot.

Cheese! Chairs! Smazi!

to fro

happy arrival Hamish, did the sax stay in London or greet you at Munich airport>? :)

Sean, Eleanor, just wondering how you guys are planning to spend your last days at the Villa/in Munich? See you soon!
hope everyone is well, snow in the north west but not quite enough for dinner trays...
jx

Basel

Hi,


Yesterday I went from Munich to Basel Airport on a bit of a research trip into what could be called non-places. It was a long day - I left Feldfing village at 5.48am and got back at 11pm - I spent 10 hours altogether at the airport, not going anywhere. It was a really strange place, so quiet and empty, at times it seemed like I was the only passenger. It was depressing and inspiring at the same time - the huge expanses of space, rows upon rows of black leather seats, corridors that seemed to go on forever. Marc Auge, who I think coined the term 'non-place', suggests that these places seem transient in part because they have no memory, or they inspire no memory in us. So perhaps home means memory, history.

No performance developed, but 've brought a lot of ideas and plans home.

Hamish arrives today, which I'm really excited about - It will be a few days of madness before we leave! Tomas had to go back to Prague this week for some work, and it's proven that he is the Dad of the group - he does a lot of cooking and yells up the stairs for people to come and eat, and wthout him we haven't seen quite as much of eachother. El and I are trying to work out ways to remedy that though!

I don't really want to go home, although in lots of ways I can't wait.

I ordered two more books from Amazon which I'm looking forward to. The lack of performance yesterday does make what I will show at PonyBar on Saturday interesting. I need to work something up.


Sean

Thanks for that, I'll look into it. Hopefully bringing my saxophone with me, got eveything else sorted. The introduction and invite e-mail came through today from the villa. Looks pretty comprehensive. Hopeful speak before i leave tomorow. (I'm going down to london tomorow, staying the night there, and going to stanstead on wednesday)

c ya

h

Plug

Quick message for Hamish,

We're using normal adaptors for power here but I think it's not great for laptops- might be worth investigating. Maybe you would do better to try to get hold of some kind of adaptor which will convert the voltage too?

More later on.

miouch

oh, i can't play anything but I can sing like kitten being washed. I'll bring soap.
xxx

Sean Sean no be forlorn

Hi Sean,

You have fully reclaimed winged creatures and listings, all good stuff. I just went ahead and invested in some IT so I’ll await Ian’s comments and bite the bullet later. (internet shopping is too E-sy.)

Sorry to hear you are feeling it a little, movement is tiring and so is thinking. All combination of factors can lead to much culture and then inertia. The way you are talking about non-place is interesting to me- I remember reading a book about The Bigness of Nothingness (will try and dig out of garage). I recall when I went to The Bund in Shanghai, 25 years after my first visit. The architecture made me feel like I could have been in any city in Europe, it was almost a non-place akin to the felling you get encountering expanses of spaces +metallic sheen- airports, or even the patch of grass outside Urbis and along the river near Tate modern. People become specs coming and going.

Re the production front…I have been worried about my own arrival as last stage and where everyone one will be etc, will it be a case of pack up and go home just as I arrive fresh, what stage of making?? But, hey, there are four - approaches, media channels, head direction and production=us together construct. No need to worry head grasshopper re oncoming deadline-self defeating, can polyfiller and extend each others puzzley bits + pressures. note to self too.

For you:
http://icwdm.org/handbook/birds/birdAirport.asp
http://birding.about.com/library/weekly/aa032898.htm

I went to an engaging talk at FACT on internet art projects. It was useful and encouraging because it addressed a lot of the ideas I mentioned in my last blog, particularly in terms of how we are working in context of our geographical separation. The talk involved about 15 participants of all ages and focussed primarily on Liverpool’s Chinese community and also a project interlinking Shanghai and Liverpool via the internet. I am thinking:

• How can you facilitate communication between groups without aeroplanes/physical displacement
• ‘Cognitive mapping’ exercise- I am building up pieces and parts of your setting in Munich, the people, your thoughts etc through your signs and pointers. How can we understand another history and culture through a city’s architecture/social/industry infrastructure
• When we encounter another culture/location, it makes you question the place you have left more
  
  I am going to the library to get a copy of “ The empire made me” which I think may help extend this discussion. If you don’t get a myspace instant response, please don’t think I’ve fallen down a hole and am not keeping up with how you guys are progressing- just head room brrmm brmmm.
  
  Good news about the Pony Bar, possible any scope for me to take part?
  
  jx

Non-places

Hi.

I'm feeling quite low today - the lack of routine is getting to me a bit and I feel a bit overwhelmed by everything that has to be done. But it's good, it's good.

I have made a plan for a new performance (somehow) next Tuesday 6th. I will fly to Basel Mulhouse airport (in France/Switzerland) first thing in the morning, and spend the day there, flying back in the evening. I've booked my flights.

I'm thinking a lot about non-places. I have a memory of seeing small birds flying around in supermarkets and I've been thinking about supermarkets as non-places, passing-through places, and how amazing it was to see a bird (from un-controlable nature, a very place-place) intervening and messing up the system. The airport is another non-place, a passing through place, where no-one engages, where no-one talks, with huge cathedral-like architecture and strange modulated retail units. Even the people who work in non-places seem strange, as if they have to enter this nothing-ness for work - I don't know, there's something about it.

I am working on what I will do when I get there, what I will spend the day doing. I hope to document the trip and make a distinct action in the terminal in the same vein as other work.

Later on this evening loads of people are coming to the Villa after a book-launch at the library. The Villa feels like a non-place - it's meant to feel like home (I think) but it's quite empty, quite pristine. And they use it for events like this one.

Jay - your post was excellent, encouraging, inspiring.

Hamish - really looking forward to seeing you next week - many many saxaphone requests from everyone.

Sean.

Claim that crow

The Plactic crow was mine! (As were the detailed details about the Villa!)

More later

Sean.

Thinking allowed

Hello all,

Ele- thanks for your thorough answering of practical qs :)

It’s been really good to revisit this blog after a few days absence; I’ve been thinking about this whole process of how the four of us are collaborating in terms of space and place. This sifting transfer of knowledge over the net, how I am navigating my thoughts to see what you are experiencing/your ideas through blind sight: only snippets of your directional clues and images, quotes and descriptions; unravelling like a Wim Wendes narrative.
Ele, I can almost hear you swooping down into moments of clarity with your interconnection especially with Hamish- like how you speak of assessing space and editing, then finding your place through the 3d purchase of a Crow.

In the same way, it was good to see physically see Hamish’s work, I interpreted his drawings into the sense of flurry and movement of city scapes without verbal clarification. It was exciting to see how he was dealing with the same questions as I may through my doodles, but his way of seeing ‘four marks’ on paper can mean something else entirely. This is prompting me to think of cultural disparity, in particular, it’s making me think of geographical location in terms of being lost; right and wrong place- arrival and departure. I am thinking about the contrast between outside, movement, constant flux, nomadism, and clarity, inertia, home, belonging- how we function in another culture.

I think this is because of where I am right now. I am drawing directly on my current experience. I am feeling unsettled right now, in terms of; age, personal loss, living at ‘home’ with my folks, somewhere I haven’t considered home for sixteen years, not having a studio at present …I am thinking a lot about where my abode is, where I should move to, why I chose a location, and why I wish to return to a place and also the making process in transition itself (from makeshift studio to making something in this presence/absence collaboration- currently intangible for all of us). It’s been hard concentrating, I am feeling slightly uneasy and unable to gain that inner stillness that has a commanding presence in all those silent snow scenes. There’s a tension, for some reason, David Hockney’s Mr and Mrs Ossie Clark and Percy springs to mind- but I never really liked this piece. I think it’s their direct gaze and our yearning to avert this through looking through the window for reprieve. I have been battling against my sense of unease, but in fact, I think my personal experience can feed quite productively into this project. Personal stories are becoming important to me in terms of trying to find that clear space amongst all the dissonance.

I’ve just read Chinese Liverpudlans by Maria Lin Wong and she talks about many facets that led to the growth and decline of a group of people who came from outside to a different place. For instance; themes of alienation, (ostracization- language barriers, cheaper labour, different customs- food/leisure), attempt to integrate- to establish and make a place home (setting up businesses, community relations, education, interracial marriage, adapting…)
On a general scale, this boils down to the formations of boundaries, territorialisation and arborescent ideology in direct opposition to the nomad in flux - threatening disorder against ‘home’.

“The population of any area in this country has always meant the population actually present within its boundaries…”

In parallel, I am also reading about Munich:

“at the end of the 8th century, the Bavarian tribes..[are] in conflict with the Saxons, who took the Bavarian throne… after the death of Ludwig iV… the youngest Wittelsbachs were given the West and North empire….Karl VII, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was unable to repel troops… Bavaria tried to remain neutral but was unable to protect its possessions in the Plantinate from French occupation.” and so on…

I am questioning why are we still dealing with the same age old problems today (at the very base all the ‘racism’ outcry taken with the delightful Jade)
I am thinking about the exhausting domino rally to protect national identity, itself nomadism into other lands, ironically, this blurs boundaries further. The flight and plight of the individual to another location results in a multicultural melting pot that results in a never ending? search for home. Or perhaps we arrive at not having “a home to which one must return”.

I am not sure how this will translate into art work we’ll see. I would really like to collaborate somehow Edgar’s partying and Tomas’s plasticine and Olivia’s language,

Ok, must stop ranting, wow, it’s late. Wrap up warm, take care,
jx

Hopper

I thought as we've been talking about Hopper I'd search out some images.

I think it's something about the frozen stillness; what is it that makes the characters look frozen instead of looking "captured"- as though the images were photos? They look posed.. When the subject is looking at the painter, that's one way of doing it, but what about the others? The straight backs, the rigidity of how they're standind/sitting? Or is it the light? A bit too bright, everything a bit too angular and "placed"?

I've been trying to tie down my ideas today and starting to feel the time pressure now that we're over halfway through. Sean and I will be exhibiting at Pony Bar in Munich on the 10th Feb, just before we leave. Hamish, you will be able to exhibit something there on the 17th March I think. It's a platform event for an evening, with a week-long exhibition following on.

I feel like I'm re-examining the whole context, content and aesthetic of my work. I like to have rules to use as a starting point and feel like I've come to a point where I'm having to re-discoved my reasons for doing things. I guess I'm trying to look at the foundations of my practice again in order to have a firmer base to build from over the next few years; but in the process I'm feeling a bit shaky! It's confusing to start to question everything, but necessary I think sometimes. I need to identify what has changed.

At the same time, I'm wrestling with the question of whether rules are a good base for my practice anyway? I feel in some ways that I should re-approach each work from a completely free and fresh place... I don't want to impose limits on myself... And yet I feel that boundaries are necessary in order to be able to explore ideas in depth. I guess these two approaches can co-exist withought negating each other, which is where I need to be heading, and the reality (as usual) is in finding a balance- neither black nor white but a working equilibrium.

And so for the next few days I will be wrestling with about a dozen threads I'd like to persue, and trying to clarify in my mind how to bring these elements together and define something work-able.

Again, I'm thinking about windows, theatricality, frozen moments, knitting (weaving), editting, portraits, distancing, truth, birds of paradise...

Hmm. As you said Hamish, I'm thinking and then typing. I hope this makes some sort of sense, it's all a bit jumbled for me today, but I feel like I'm gradually ironing out the tangle.

You also asked where the others are up to.
They all tend to work with their context and particularly in collaborations of various types with groups of people. As the official theme is "migration" they're for the most part meeting migrant groups/individuals for the time being. So everyone's still got time on their hands really as we try to forge on with our accelerated stay.

We had a group meeting on sunday and spent a lot of time talking about the format of the truck and the inclusion of archive boxes (for objects and documentation as well and exhibition artworks).

Do you play anything Jay? Hamish- There have been numerous requests that you bring your saxophone!

Paths and things

Hiya!

Nice to hear about what your thinking about making work about Sean. A plastic crow! cool. Hows that going to fit in, are you going to look at it and think, hmmmm, what can i do with this? anyway. Is their much evidence of making or messing around with things in the villa? I mean, what kind of stage are people at. maybe i don't want to know until i get out there, anyway, just thinking out loud (and then typing it).

At the moment i'm getting excited about how are different working practices are going to come together, or, more to the point, just learning a bit more about how we work. I feel the making and the processes i go through are where my ideas come from, so hearing about how people make their art is cool.

Jay and I had a good chat at the royal standard on friday. We talked about what film means to us and how we go about making work. I've been doing some big 2m square(ish) charcoal drawings. Kind of giant doodles without looking at the big picture or where the piece is going. Instead focusing on each little bit, kind of one after the other. Looking at my footsteps close up, but not the big path i've taken (to get it into a bit of a travel vibe there). If i step back from the piece (and see the whole thing)...well, then i say the picture is finished. It's tyring to eliminate a designery feel from my work..., focus on the moment. when i do step back, it's like, wow, i went there, and this bit here makes sense with this bit over there, and that bit i thought was a bit blunt actually balances this out....so it all come together in the end. or more to the point it's not about it comming together in the end and being right, more it's about looking and observing something that was made through following ones nose. ......theres a bit of studio sketch book ramble for you.

looking at the drawings they talk about music, cities, paths, hills and things relate to each other.

(oh yeah, i watched that film Gerry...wow, pretty full on, lots and lots of long slow shots of the utah desert where these two guys get lost, hardly any dialogue, very open ended. It felt like they got lost for no reason.

take care

h

Panna Cotta oder Harry Potter

The snow keeps falling, the time keep ticking by... We've had a few busy days, a meeting on Wednesday all together in the Villa with the head honchos - just to be welcomed to the project by the city council etc and meet a few of the behind-the-scenes people. There was a great moment when all the organisers had to have an important discussion in German and all the artists went outside and sledded down the (fairly steep) garden on plastic bags - definitely my highlight so far. 48 year old Edgar was brilliant, adopting a luge-style pose and almost ending up in the street beyond the fence...



Yesterday we met Judith and had a meeting at a space where we will have some events together with a project called 'PonyBar' (as in Pony and Bar...). Following the meeting we went out to a Bavarian/Japanese restaurant for Sushi/Weisbeir which was good - if a little low on portion size. El, Thomas and I all had a green-tea panna cotta, and when we came to pay Thomas brilliantly referred to it as 'Harry Potter' to the waitress - brilliant in a Czeck accent (try it!).




It's hard to find good working time - everyone works differently - Edgar made the amazing comment 'for me, every meeting is a party', which Eva looked very concerned about. I've been doing lots of writing and reading, trying to work my ideas back to the bare bones to find out where it could go - I've always had a deep interest in where we are going, in new things, how we will learn and relearn to relate to other people as society moves forwards and grows. The German chancellor has spoken at a global business summit in Davos this week saying globalisation needs to be made more attractive to voters, but being with all these people and talking at length about movement and diversity even in Europe makes globalisation look a lot like an opportunity for economic growth in business but not much like an opportunity to bring people closer together in a dynamic cultural way, or to develop ways of integrating over greater distances.

I found a brilliant life-size plastic crow in a shop today - I think I will go back and get it. I want to make work about migrating animals and nature encroaching and receding around us, historically around people, leading people across early migratory routes and giving settlement and travel one of its first purposes. People also migrate mainly, always, I think, with the hope or knowledge of finding better places (inside and outside?).

Meetings and windows

We are having meetings this afternoon to discuss the project and talk about preliminary ideas. Karin served proper German coffee (with cream) and cake (on a cake stand), everyone's place was laid in the dining room with cup, saucer, spoon, plate, desert fork.. I love it when things are laid out before the people are there, it looks so symmetrical and expectant, but funny without people- perfect rows of little white and silver objects, as if living was that symmetrical.

Hamish I really liked your post. It's funny, I've been thinking about Hopper too- I should investigate and have a look at his work again. I would also like to find out more about Wim Wenders.
I've been thinking about still images and windows. About how lots of elements of life can be woven together in one image, viewed from outside. A lot of the houses here have big open window panes giving onto (now white) lawns. There's something about them that keeps inspiring me, can't quite put my finger on it... I think it could be that framed through such open clean glass, the interiors look like magazine pictures; unreal, staged. But although motionless they are living...

I've also been thinking about portrait photography, and how photographers used to place people as if engaged in daily activities, then ask them to remain motionless for ages to capture the photo. So the end result becomes an image of a staged fixed moment in time.



These ideas seem to resonate really well with your quote:
'People often imagine that, by not going anywhere, my characters are missing out on something, a place to go. In fact, the opposite is true: these characters have the good fortune of not having to go anywhere. I find it liberating.
But less about travel, more about the liberation of representing something, motionless. A moment of clarity...

It also has something to do with editing, taking lots of confusing information and suddenly producing a painfully clear sharp image that somehow expresses an overriding truth that is inherent in all the mess.

Please tell me what you think about this! I feel a bit confused about how this all links up. Also, how do you go from these kinds of thoughts to creating something? I'd appreciate your thoughts...

What is your understanding of 'a moment of clarity'? Have you ever experienced something like that really clearly?

here's how it looks this morning...

and it's still snowing!

crow and snow

It's just started snowing - brilliant. It's dark now so I'm very excited to see how it all looks in the morning!

We had our first proper meeting with Judith and the other artists here at the Villa on Sunday afternoon. It was just going over the basics really, talking about the truck a bit, about the time scale for this part of the project, and about some of the things we might be doing - the performance nights Judith mentioned in Liverpool (10th + 24th Feb) and a possible exhibition space which there will be more info about later. We also had a chat about various people's experience of migration and migrant cultures which was interesting - Thomas is very clued up about the history of the Balkan countries which is fascinating, and Olivia talked about her practical work with Gypsy communities in Arls where she lives. We also had a great conversation about migratory habits of animals and how they have affected peoples' movement across continents - I think any project I develop will have this kind of idea at its heart.

The truck is currently with a technician who is transforming it from a bicycle-carrier-thing and will be here in the driveway soon. It was decided that there will be a meeting every Sunday with Judith to continue conversations about the truck.

Ok - to answer some of Jay's pratical questions: (asked in her comment on post No.1)

- What to bring materials-wise depends on what you want to do! There's basically nothing here - each apartment has a (basic) computer and there is a photocopier we can use, but that's all. There is, however, an amazing art/office/stationary shop in on 5 floors in Munich which is far far better than anything in Liverpool or Manchester - so if you forget anything you should be able to find it.
- There are no editing facilities on the computer - it's a PC with windows and is a bit old - only really good for internet access. There is wireless in the Villa so if you have a laptop I would bring it.
- The Villa is really easy to get to and is about one and a half hours from the airport over two trains - one into the city centre and one back out the other side. The station in the village is very close to the Villa - 10mins walk. To get the train into Munich takes about 35 mins but seems very quick and easy.
- There hasn't been much talk of working collaboratively except in making decisions about the truck. But it's early days...
- There haven't been workshops - all the lessons learned have been self-taught!
- The apartment has two bedrooms which makes life easy for sharing!
- We've been to Munich quite a lot. It's nice and German and we found a MUJI where I bought a much needed new bag. It's nice to read on the train.
- No update with Ian really - he popped in to say goodbye. He is putting a lump of money into my account to cover some production - the amount hasn't been specified exactly - I'll let you know (and give you your share! when I get it).

I bought a book on Amazon from the UK on Friday and it arrived this morning! That's German efficiency for you! It's on an artist called Tue Greenfort who makes work about nature (ish). He's represented by Johann Konig in Berlin - you can see his work here.

Things feel like they're settling down a bit now - people are relaxing and starting to work and it feels good. We're quite aware that time is going very fast - I'm looking forward to making some work!

Yesterday I learnt the difference between crows, jackdaws and rooks.

Things i've been thinking about

Hiya!

Well i've finally got signed up to the blog and now i feel a bit more connected. cool. anyway, theres loads of interesting stuff flying off the blog from your posts, and pictures, wooo, nice. I like the way we are getting snapshots here and there of what the place is like. It's all quite dramatic, tall blowing trees, shots of people round tables and those shots of what i presume is your room. hmmm, they show us the place (a bit) but with no real personal stuff, or only hints, or more that, as we haven't been over there yet, how can we get a feeling from these picutres. I suppose thats where your words come in. anyway, i'm thinking about images at the moment - stuff that has a feeling of this search or movement or travel, looking into a distance. Rooms are part of this, maybe the place where you stop off on whilst traveling. from big outside shots, to small interiors. hmmm. i'm thinking about Hopper now.

and Wim Wenders. His book 'on film' is really ace. Travel and movement is important to him and goes into his work. I found this quite interesting...

'People often imagine that, by not going anywhere, my characters are missing out on something, a place to go. In fact, the opposite is true: these characters have the good fortune of not having to go anywhere. I find it liberating, being able to go on without knowing where. Not to have a home to which one must return - i see that as a positive and attractive situation.'

This comes from shots of his characters looking, or wondering, with a few guitar notes playing, starring off into the horizon. Lots of roads. I'm thinking about roads. and Looking out of the window at things passing by. The distance.

I think this stuff relates to your quote about moving from wrong place to wrong place, or rather, looking at these situations where we have to move as positive things. It's all to do with prespective.

Right i'm going to stop going on. Hopefully this gives you a snapshot of the kind of things i'm thinking about..not sure how it's all going to come together..anyway, thats the fun part.

oh yeah, question...are there computers in the apartment already or will i need to bring my laptop?

right, i'm off to the library, my fingers are cold from typing in the royal standard, its sunny outside and the bike area has been cleared by jim, cool.

take care

h

Architecture

Today I have been learning to use my new camcorder to take still shots. I have also learnt to use the washing machine in the laundry room, which is computerised and much fun. The winds across Germany killed an 18 month old baby in Munich yesterday, by ripping a door off its hinges.

I'm researching blogs, I'm interested in how they narrate life. The writers edit their lives down into first hand text and photo accounts.

This is taken from a blog I've been looking at:

"In the book Intertwining the architect Steven Holl talks about how “architecture can elevate the experience of everyday life” by weaving together form, space and light. In the last few days as I prepare material for an architecture studio I teach, I have been thinking about that word, intertwining. Such a beautiful and complex word - it suggests intangible, changing layers, filled with phenomena.

My perception of this word is what I strive for in my life. Lots of layers meshed together."

http://uniform-studio.com/journal/?p=195


Architecture weaves elements into a location for a life. A blog weaves experience into a compact, edited, well-presented narrative. The houses here have big clear glass window panes through which you can see perfectly framed motionless images of everyday life. A blog or open journal is also like a window, woven.

This is something I'm thinking about.

Storms

We were meant to have our first official meeting today with some of the people who have been organising the project, but it got canceled at the last minute because of massive storms right across Germany - the same ones that have caused chaos at home. We haven't even left the house, and the wind seems to be getting stronger and stronger. It's been really bad very close according to the BBC website.

The whole house is surrounded by massive pine trees that look like they're about to blow over - they're bending really dramatically and all the big crows that nest in the branches are blowing around like leaves... Old houses can be pretty rattly! We've barely seen any of the other people in the house either - we got up this morning very early because someone came to sort out the wifi for all the people with apple computers, and after that everyone disappeared to baton down the hatches I think.




I'm reading 'from Studio to Situation' edited by Clare Doherty, and read in it today a fantastic essay called 'The Wrong Place' by Miwon Kwon. In it she says this:

'The more we travel for work, the more that we are called upon to provide institutions in other parts of the country and world with our presence and services, the more that we give in to the logic of nomadism, one could say, as pressured by a mobilised capitalist economy, the more we are made to feel wanted, needed, validated and relevant. It seems our very sense of self-worth is predicated more and more on our suffering through the inconveniences and psychic destabilisations of ungrounded transience, of not being at home (or not having a home), of always traversing through elsewheres. Whether we enjoy it or not, we are culturally and economically rewarded for enduring the 'wrong' place. It seems we're out of place all too often.'

I found the whole essay really interesting - not because it threw doubt on the positive aspects of being here but because it encouraged a new way of approaching the idea of the residency - because we're encouraged to think about the notion of migration, about moving from wrong place to wrong place. Kwon suggests at the end of her essay that we should strive for a new way of approaching the lack of settledness that our increasingly homogonised and globalised cultures impress on us:

'Yet it is not a matter of choosing sides - between models of nomadism and sedentariness, between space and place, between digital interfaces and the handshake, between the 'wrong' and 'right' places. Rather, we need to be able to think the range of these seeming contradictions and our contradictory desires for them together, at once.'

So I'm thinking about settledness; temporality; birds migrating, as Hamish said. Still thinking a lot about birds.

J + H - looking forward to hearing from you! I sent emails so you can join and post - what do you think?

Chairs!

Tomas arrived today so now we are six and all here. We got to know each other... downstairs!... over a glass of wine amid calls of 'sante' and 'cheese' which was not quite right- so replaced quickly by 'chairs'! The clinking of glasses happens every time anyone refills their glass and is observed by all.

This is the first time we've ventured into the spacious and grand ground floor rooms, apart from a brief escapade made only by Sean and I when we discovered the electric (and very loud) piano. It later became apparent that no-one had heard the racket we made, electric beats etc, as the walls are so thick they seem to be fairly impenetrable by sound. When we arrived it took us almost 2 full days to realise anyone else was here, only to discover we were the last but one to arrive!

Towards the end of the evening Tomas disappeared and when he came back produced a round tin which he ceremoniously placed in the centre of the table and opened to reveal a thick white sticky substance. We all stood back open mouthed, wondering what kind of turn the activity was about to take. (NB. Edgar was demonstrating the use of snuff the other night)
Tomas excitedly exclaimed " You can make some sculptures!"
It's a fancy plasticine from the Czeck Republic.

Grüss Gott!

Off we go...

We're sitting in the studio of appartment E in Villa Waldberta, in a village called Feldafing, on the shore of Lake Starnberg. It's 9.07pm, and we just ate a great steak cooked on our funny electric hob.

It's been a fantastic start to the project - the days are disappearing so quickly! We've spent a bit of time with the other artists - Olivia, from Arls, just outside Marseille; Edgar, a Peruvian from Vienna; and Eva, a performance artist from Greece (via London). The final artist, Tomas from Prague, arrives tomorrow.

Language has been an adventure - Olivia was very pleased to find Eleanor speaks great french as she has little English, Edgar speaks about 10 languages and Eva is pretty multi-ligual too, although no French so her and Olivia kind of wave at each other a lot. I speak GCSE French and German, so I'm getting quite confused, although people seem to like it when I spontaneously shout words I've suddenly remembered.

The house is amazing, absolutely beautiful. J + H, you need to tell us how much you want to know! It will be interesting to see how much we give away and how much you will want to know before you come! It took us over an hour to find the shop on the first morning and it's actually only ten minutes away!

We went for a walk by the lake today and started talking about our work, and yesterday I bought the perfect stapler for making artist's books. We're both thinking about animals a lot. There's an owl in the garden of the house that you can hear at night.

Ask us questions!


S+E