Quality Control & Mr Kant

If anyone stumbles on this blog, please see my website

Also these posts related to a new project 'Tales of the Laundromat - Coin Operated' 

Hey yo my quality control, captivates your party patrol Your mind, body, and soul .... Hey yo my team Dreamworks without Spielberg or spill words Communicate from the Earth throughout the universe I transmit, transcripts, transcontinental lyrics Deeply rooted in your spirit Up, I love the power of words, nouns and verbs The pen and the sword, liquid stick on award 

No folklore or myths in my penmanship The Panther Scholar Warriors is what I present, uh Verbally decapitating those against a Jihad (foreign language) words make sense 

You gots to get up on your vocab, you gots to have vocab Letters makes words, and sentences makes paragraphs Yo, I make the pen capsize, the verbal with the planted eyes Planning knives ever pair that I utilize Spit juice, crack blood from your tooth Inflict truths, speak Allah's 99 attributes 

These lyrics by Jurassic 5, from their song Quality Control just came to mind as I have been thinking about the subject of social engagement quality control and the aesthetic of the art and the place of the auteur within this medium. Recently, my conversation with Esther, one of the organisers who commissioned me and my strand of launderette enquiry, posed a request that had a very guttural response for me. 

My video and audio interviews have been gliding along, though I have instinctively come to a close with the number and geography of launderettes that I wish to contact. There is no particular rhyme or reason to this end, I could have continued indefinitely, but alas timescales bring me to the point of edit. 

So, I sent across a sample audio file for Esther to listen to, she enjoyed it and reaped some positive observations and learnings it seemed from it. However, her point was:

don't you think your voice should be included?

Of course, these conversations audio - and visual via video with the owners and customers have seen me initially seek to strip all final content of my voice. Yet... Esther underlined that I am of course kind of integral to each of these works - I guess they are works. It's not something that I had overlooked but it was a decision to attempt to edit myself out, for the facilitation of the participant and the accentuation of their voice. 

There is a lot of humour, sometimes, difficulty of understanding, but mostly quite fast and natural connection with each caller that sees me doing what I love most, exploring people's lives and who they are through their specific lived histories, and what I have mostly in this project is blind conversations or Zoom dodgy wifi connection calls. In me, I felt the rise, of 

- no that is not an option

I am the catalyst for the voice of others, this is their time, their chance to be heard and to share their experiences. She told me my gift was connecting with others, for making people feel safe and open up quickly.  It is that my work is so defined by the umbilical receipt of the audience/participant who at once co-creates and is beneficiary of much of my works. 

I was rather defiant, clearly in my performances like Military Craft , Shadow Dance or Tarot De Marseille, I am just a curated body that enacts what social/political/contextual expression needs to be transmitted into the audience/participant realm. There's no Me/I, these can be released and, simultaneously, it is when the Me and I feels the most empowered and invisible. 

So, how can I possibly reveal the behind-the-camera that is me, the facilitator, trying to curate the best out of those unfamiliar or generous enough to give themselves to this space I have unfolded? That would be my voice and this is all about this voice. So, thoughts about quality control. 

I guess Kant and I would have a headache right now, trying to define beauty in the rooted reality of the local launderette. 

That's why on in our group call with organisers and fellow artists I said - 

 'everything is mundane and everything is goldust' 

I was being flippant but I think it's true.  

Almost as a derision of this process and the fact we're talking conversations between me and launderette customers and owners, and how the editing process has posed me another perspective on quality control. 

Editing has always been my joy. Not so much in this project. Zoom has split screens and the conversation is .. relational, intertwined, a rally, like most natural conversations depending who you are speaking with. I think that is part of the golddust, to be able to quickly bridge a gap, faceless and get to a place instantly where you are talking mundane and able to laugh together, like you are not strangers, an old friend. Vulnerable. 

I am vulnerable with my voice to enable others to be strong. It's giving, probably why after each call, it's quite tiring or energising. 

The phone conversations have been a sound editing RSI, because, there is chemistry and laughter - I am also inputting and prompting or laughing along with the speaker so how to abstract from the political and lived context of the launderette and the voices that are so rooted in a tough Covid daily that has unreliable wifi connection and machines whirring in the background? 

To edit myself out, seems, a process tonguetwister as well as making the conversations seem a little ... one voiced? So, my compromise has been to leave surprise snippets of myself for the patient listener as a little gift into the party of voices -I like those secret gifts that are unexpected - so a snippet of my part where I haven't edited myself out because the prompt or question or retort I've made is embedded into the response. Plus, I and My voice are very much part of this project, irrefutably, a performance in thin air across the wires. So dear Kant, for one person I  had to edit, every other word was 'erm' and I spent 5 hours editing that conversation of over 800 'erms' it felt, and that was ... very patience heavy... 

and the result was a slick, flowing conversation. 

Now that is quality control and beauty, alongside some snorts of laughter.

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