Thaipusam

Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.
— Victor Hugo
“Thoughts,” in Victor Hugo’s Intellectual Autobiography, (1907).

It's pretty fascinating the way people (all over the world) push themselves into extreme experiences. This festival is one of physical testing. It reminds me of stories of saints, of the Catholic pious inflicting pain in order to prove worth. But instead of it being dark and depressing as i imagine those examples were...this is joyous, colorful, communal, festive.

Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is.
The torments of martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Courage,” Society and Solitude (1870).

In Thaipusam, at least as far as I've gleaned from Arul, the idea is beauty. It's all about asking for beauty and creativity. To ask properly you fast for 30 days, abstain from physical intimacy, think pure thoughts and prepare for the procession. Here in Singapore the procession is 4 km, repeated over and over between two temples, for 24 hours. Faithful walk and families join and encourage each other on. Those who do not bleed show that they abstained. Most do not bleed at all.


Everyone carries milk to the temples or buys milk at the temples, to be poured at the alter. There is an incredible smell of milk inside, which totally contrasts with the physicality of the followers. I imagine pain, but none is apparently experienced. and the milky contrast is like yin and yang. male extreme pain (or self inflicted tests that do not apparently cause pain) fused with the smell of mothers, of life. wild.

Mother,
strange goddess face
above my milk home,
that delicate asylum,
I ate you up.
— Anne Sexton “Dreaming the Breasts.”

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
— William Penn, No Cross, No Crown (pamphlet) (1669).

huashan

“In the morning worship the Great Dipper, in the evening worship Hua Shan, from the mountain, view the stars, in the stars see the gods…”

inscription on Hua Shan

http://picasaweb.google.com/srcgxs/HuaShan#

The next mountain on the grant horizon is Huashan. We are in for an adventure. Huashan is 'The Number One Precipitous Mountain under Heaven' and is also one of the 5 sacred Taoist peaks. Recently there has been a lot of excitement over Huashan on the Internet. When I applied for this grant, I only saw images. Once the grant was approved, I began to see references to "The Deadly Huashan Hiking Trail".

This has really affected my life in a way that is almost absurd. In order to climb I need someone to watch my daughter. I want someone else to be with me to video, while I map with GPS. Ideally there will be three of us climbing at once, while another always babysits. I do not want to be responsible for any dangers, deaths, dramas. I also need to be fit. So daily jogging and swimming has become more intense. At the same time in the back of mind I've been counting how many months are left for me to get pregnant in this lifetime. I figure I could climb a mountain up to 6 months pregnant, but I shouldn't fly in the first trimester. Basically I may have to cancel having a second child in favor of climbing this mountain. I need to climb in May, it's a dramatic climb. A mountain instead of a child? Or a 40 year old pregnancy. Life goes so quickly.

Anyhow according to wikipedia "Huashan was also an important place for immortality seekers, as powerful drugs were reputed to be found there". I like hunting for immortality.

what color will this mountain be?

translating — thoughts on the nature of the designer

Call it what you will, translation, solution, answer, gift: the role of the designer is to take what exists and reintroduce by making fresh connections to a new, often specific audience. We recycle culture. We archive, search, research, collect, deconstruct and re-present. It is the nature of making meaning. And so our role is not so different from that of an archaeologist. The archaeologist sifts, sorts, categorizes, connects, and re-introduces something that exists or has existed to a waiting audience. The archaeologist also must convince which again is a major role of the designer.

There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.

Edith Hamilton
Three Greek Plays, introduction (1937)

The difference seems to me to be that designers are creative archaeologists. We sift through everything up to now, our past is the immediate. But we are free to connect and reassemble using everything from now on back in time. our work is montaging the past. we use letters, words, thoughts and ideas to create new messages or immediate messages. We use images and styles and photos and people. we are, like archaeologists, the sifters, collectors and keepers. It's an enormously important role. recycling. but what are the consequences? i mean in the long term?

how confusing for someone 2000 years from now to see the works of today. for how much of what we make is 'authentic'? from my hand? or yours? we mix time up in these doughs that then we reshape and re-present and they are so 'now'. but what is now other than a fusion of then or everything up to now? perhaps creative making is always this: reshaping the past, making meaning which is sometimes seen as 'new' but always a collection of old.

I think that's another reason why i prefer the live art aspect of creation. the immediacy doesn't make me ponder authenticity. there is no plagiarism in collective spontaneity. or is there?

The job to entice, surprise, engage, entertain, inform, persuade—in short, communicate with readers—has been the burden of the artist from Day 1.

Upper & Lower Case magazine
Jun 80

preservation and communication.

Govin Tan photo: George James Parel

Live art, performance, ceremonies and rituals are ephemeral by their very nature. It is the responsibility of the creative community to capture and preserve these moments by whatever means available in order to understand identity and history and to communicate to wider audiences and future generations.

astrid almkhlaafy

This last Sunday, I took my designed experiences class to the Sri Sivan Temple in Geylang for an immersive experience into Singaporean identity and culture. My idea was so put the students into an unfamiliar, possibly uncomfortable setting, task them with documenting and let them unfold and observe, absorb and record. The goals of the workshop were multi-tiered: to confront identity, to record and document, to collect ingredients for future projects and to become comfortable in the role of cultural archivists.

This class is quite fascinating. we are working towards the first youth Olympics, briefed with creating content—of an experiential communicative nature— for the opening and closing ceremonies. The actual youth Olympics are in 2010, here in Singapore and the youth village will be on our university campus.

We've been invited by the Olympic committee and Johnny Lau to be actively involved in putting forward concepts for the events, and so ADM has jumped on the opportunity. My course is starting with the meta. What is a ceremony? a ritual? what is identity? what do we hope to communicate to an enormous international broadcast audience about Singapore? who are we? and how do we shape our concepts within the context of something rather sacred? a ceremony of national importance?

Our first field trip then was one of immersion. we were graciously invited by Arul Ramiah to come and observe and document the performance of Sita Jameison and Govin Tan, an Irish female, deeply spiritual chanter and a 17 year old Chinese Singaporean tabla player.

Sita Jameison photo: George James Parel

The setting was within the temple, surrounded by devotees, priests, sounds, smells, colors, details and action. The audience sat on the floor and faced the musicians while to our backs the temple continued on in its activities. The majority of my students were not Indian and none were Hindu by faith. Many had never stepped into a Hindu temple. There was some initial trepidation, but the role of documenting, and the cameras, notebooks and videos helped to remove the focus from self to task. All students had to document in at least two ways. they were asked to take note of colors, of architectual details, of sensory ingredients within the temple. To notice processions, motions, gestures. To observe the actual performance and to document that as well.



This workshop focused on important aspects of a designers' research duty: observing, collecting, archiving, and eventually in sorting and presenting. In the long term i hope to see Olympic proposals that incorporate and borrow, mix and 're-present' details from the experience in original shape and form.

We will continue immersing ourselves in culture over the semester, with the emphasis being on identity and culture. I expect to see some brilliant proposals for the Olympics. It was a very generous first step into understanding the richness of this territory, and special thanks go out to Arul and Sita for setting this experience up.

Here was the temple etiquette we received from Arul

TEMPLE ETIQUETTE
For Camera/Video Crew & Visitors

An Indian temple, like other places of worship, has its own set of unwritten and written rules. Visitors who wish to document temple traditions or temple concerts are encouraged to do so in a culturally sensitive way. Attitude of temples to photography, filming and interviewing devotees and priests vary vastly across temples around the world. To encourage temples to document their oral and social history, Studio Arul encourages you to observe the following rules of etiquette:

1. Attitude of Reverence. A temple is a sacred space where a meditative and contemplative attitude is encouraged. Adopt an attitude of respect and reverence on the temple grounds.
   
2. Respect Elders and Priests. There is a deep reverence for elders and priests within the Indian tradition. Putting your palms together in a prayerful manner when greeting elders and priests is a sign of respect that will be highly favored.
3. Dress Code. A formal and conservative dress code is the best. When in the house of God, there is an expectation that you honor the divine by wearing your Sunday best. Silks, jewelry and formal tailored attires are preferred. No shorts, tube tops or revealing clothes which are considered disrespectful. Socks and shoes should not be worn on the temple grounds.
4. Wash your Feet. If possible just after you enter the temple wash your feet and look up and contemplate the gopuram. This serves as reminder for you to shift your energies towards heavenly matters and humble yourself before God.
5. Sit Cross Legged. Sitting and meditating on the temple grounds after prayers is encouraged. Never point your feet out to the deity or to the performers on a stage when sitting on the floor. This is considered deeply sacrilegious.
6. Smile and Nod. Indians often study another person’s attitude, aura and vibration. A smiling countenance and a humble/agreeable attitude will score top points and typically grant you favors that direct verbal requests will not. Being aggressive and pushy however is culturally unacceptable and will often backfire.
7. Do Not Step Onto the Stage. The stage is often demarcated by a carpet where artists sit and perform. The stage is considered a sacred space and non-performers should not step into this space or allow their kids to run across it.
8. Do not touch the Statutes or Musical Instruments. Certain statutes are considered sacred and should not be touched. Musical instruments are also considered sacred and only the artist is allowed to touch them.
9. Getting Good Shots without Intruding. Many devotees and priests do not appreciate a camera being thrust onto their faces when they are in the midst of deep prayer, meditation or rituals. Keep a respectful distance when filming. And do not block the devotees path or sight of the sanctum to get a better shot.
10. No Meat, Smoking or Alcohol. The temple is a space where the consumption animal meat, and other forms of toxins like drugs and alcohol are strictly prohibited.
11. Learn through Observation. The best way to learn is through observation. Observe what the other Indians in the temple are doing – where they stand and how they partake in the prayers etc. Most priests and devotees do not appreciate being bombarded with questions on the whys and hows of their traditions from strangers. Build goodwill slowly through repeated temple visits before asking questions. The receipt of spiritual knowledge is considered a privilege, not a right.

Taiwan Ghost Festival — OISTAT 2008

OISTAT post workshop poster | that's me in black

Since coming to Singapore, and being back in the diverse and rich festival worlds of south east Asia and greater Asia, I've been on site researching and recording as much as possible. From August 13th (arrival) to 24th (departure), 2008. I was invited to join From Ritual to Theatre – Asian Ritual Festival Workshop, organized by OISTAT Secretariat and supported by Taiwanese Governments. The workshop took place during the Ghost Festival in Taiwan.The opportunity to work with theater people was a first, and housed within this the focus on ritual was extraordinarily ideal.


As one of the international artists, I was asked to present my work in order to be invited, and again, on the second day of the workshop, to the participants. The response to my own work was positive (being a visual communication I was nervous that my work would be too left field). But the live art and the intersection of performance with graphic design history, and my body of work in staging and documenting live art experiences, somehow connected well with the participants who were enthusiastic to collaborate They compared my most recent grant work at Taishan to Christo.


The workshop consisted of a two-day trip to visit the Ghost Festival ceremony in Keelung to observe the Taoist Shaman’s ritual performance, lantern pole erection, folk art parades and the “ water lantern releasing to the sea”. We also were guided through rituals like the “Grand Putu” as well as the Hakka Holy Boar Competition. In the workshop we were expected to share our observations and inspiration with the Taiwanese performing art professionals (directors, designers), as well as theatre apprentices/assistants who toured and worked with us. The intention of the workshop was to encourage intercultural exchange and dialogues based on the grass-roots culture and to transform the ritual into theatrical ideas.

Hakka Holy Boar Winner 2008
a boar, fed like a king for a year, then stretched out and painted and displayed for competition

It was expected that after breaking into smaller groups during the workshop, that we work intensively together in the conceptualization, making and staging of our projects on the final day of the workshop in the form of installations, story boards for a potential production, video/photo documentary and its transformation, design as performance, etc. My group consisted of one of the leading choreographers of Taiwan, Hsiao-Mei Ho—leader of Taipei Crossover Dance Company and Associate Professor of Dance Department of TNUA—and her four dance students, as well as Francis Shen—one of the top costume designers and also one of his students. We worked intensively and were able to bring our areas of interest together into a performance on the last night.

The mandala floor

My contribution was in the concept, the space, the stage design and the experience of the audience. I also staged a ritual using the paper money for the ghosts, which ended up becoming the floor for the audience. For an entire day i layout the papers one by one, into a perfect mandala like shape. It was exhausting. but somehow the absurdity of what i was doing (i had no idea what i was doing until i began and then i was too stubborn to quit) attracted the attention of nearly everyone, and the combination of these papers, the possible presence of ghosts, and my obstinacy in finishing it completely made the entire process elevate on it's own.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Somehow within this collaboration i was able to stay true to my own research and interests while working with 2 strong directors. It was incredibly satisfying.

The response to our collaboration was very positive and we are in the process of exploring how to make this into an actual performance in both Taiwan and Singapore. Hsiao-Mei Ho is looking into funding in Taiwan. Further development of works from the workshop has been strongly encouraged and OISTAT is hoping the works may be presented in future OISTAT events such as Scenofest, World Stage Design, or even end up as production in Taiwan.

Angkor Wat

“Mountains are cosmological symbols of the divine—human meeting, as well as the point of creation—creation of community as well as cosmos. Depending upon the era, culture, and text, the cosmological emphasis on the mountain might be one or more of the following: the assembly place of the gods, the connection between heaven and earth, the center/navel of the earth (and thus the locus of creation), the locus of revelation.” — Donaldson, Terence L., Jesus on the Mountain. A Study in Matthean Theology.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
— Chinese proverb.

From Borobudur, my research lead me to consider other locations dedicated to conveying religion through architecture and the pedestrian experience. Spaces that are associated with mountains, that are mystical, that have the power to draw crowds, and which were made for spiritual purposes and for the benefit of the pilgrim and to help in enlightenment.

“The mountains ... are a passive mystery, the oldest of all. Theirs is the one simple mystery of creation from nothing, of matter itself, anything at all, the given. Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.” — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Angkor Wat was next. Obviously the mountain is embedded deeply in the architectural iconography. Mount Meru is conjured up as is the procession of a mandala, from the profane into the sacred. The fusion in south east Asia of animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, into these shrines, temples, mandalas, and processions weaves history and culture and creativity together into living rites of passage that keep alive older pilgrimages and history and refer back in time to other spaces and countries. knowledge is stored in these paths, but reading is also untangling and sifting. the threads are so intertwined and complex.


Following on the footpath of research from Thailand’s Wat Tham Sua (Tiger Cave Temple) and the work into the Nalanda trail— the spread of Buddhism into south east Asia— while focusing on the walking experience as physical communication, and while continuing the mountain research from Sisyphus to Borobudur and the mythical Mount Meru, I spent a week in February 2008 GPS mapping and absorbing Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat, located at 13Δ˚24’45”N, 103˚52’0”E is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire’s state temples, the later plan of concentric galleries, and influences from Orissa and the Chola of Tamil Nadu, India. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean.

The spaces however do not end as metaphors that are simply physical duplicates of a physical or mythical mountains, they also become representations of centers of the universe:


omphalos:
in Greek and Roman religion, navel-shaped stone used in the rites of many cults. The most famous omphalos was at Delphi; it was supposed to mark the center of the earth.” — The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.

“Along the southeast Asian peninsula, mountains were regarded as sacred territories as early as three thousand years ago. As sources of water, and therefore of agricultural fertility, mountains were the subject of reverence and ritual celebration. But as burial sites, these same mountains inspired ore profound questions of death, impermanence and the fragile balance between humankind and the forces which could destroy fields, crops, families, and on occasions, entire generations living in villages which were swept away by floods and landslides falling from neighboring slopes. Given this reverence in which mountains were perceived, ancient peninsula civilizations such as the Cambodian Funan people of the second century AD, enthroned their sovereigns and emperors on these mountain summits. Indeed, the word Funan can be translated as either Sacred Mountain, or King of the Mountains. Following the downfall of the Funan, the Khmer dynasty began to spread it’s civilization from Cambodia in the ninth century to govern most of southeast Asia over the next six hundred years.” — Adrian Cooper, Sacred Mountains, Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meaning.
The Khmer people continued to draw inspiration form local mountains, in fact building their cities and temples either with respect to the views, in alignment with, or in reference to local and mythological mountains. They too, called themselves kings of the mountain. By becoming the mountain, these rulers direct the gaze of their people. They are the center. Their capital and magnet. The man-made peaks beckon the faithful and center the pilgrims both to look inward — at their rulers and their monuments and their direct descent from mountains, and outward from a common home from where they go and return on longer pilgrimages. These metaphorical mountains, the palaces and temples of the mountain rulers of Angkor Wat, Burma, Java, and Bali give their visitors religion, history, culture, and guides towards spiritual attainment towards a larger pilgrimage of the life well lived as a Hindu or Buddhist. So the monuments are mountains of knowledge as well as physical metaphors for the mountains they represent. This is a universal metaphor:

“It was common in the ancient Near East to construct temples and altars with mountain symbolism.The religious center is thus accorded cosmic significance. That is, the mountain-temple or temple-mount—especially in the political capital—manifests a divine sanction, a sacral quality, and thus a relationship to the cosmos which other places do not possess. — Clements, R. E., God and Temple.

“Besides natural mountains, the ziggurats of Mesopotamia and the Canaanite temples were constructed as sacred meeting places between humans and the gods, as gateways to the heavens, as divine thrones, and likely also as altars: that is, locations for the enactment of ritual at or upon the axis mundi.Egyptian pyramids also bore this cosmological significance. In the inscriptions found in the pyramids of Mer-ne-Re and Nefer-ka-Re (both Sixth Dynasty, 24th century BCE), an analogy is made between the primeval hill that emerged from the watery chaos at creation and the building of the pyramid. — Wilson, John A., 1969 “Egyptian Myths, Tales, and Mortuary Texts.”

So in the manmade mountains we receive a sense of identity as far as group. we belong to a larger unit. and yet beyond the immediate connections to our community we also are guided through visual narratives along the designed pedestrian experience that allude to grander pilgrimages, meta journeys of life. Angkor Wat alludes to the Ramayana and Mount Meru and Mt Kailash. Borobodur to Mt Sumeru and the the way towards the life of a Buddha. These created axis mundi, mountain centers are centers and also guides. The pilgrim can then absorb the lessons and head north.

“And often, guarding and overlooking the man-made omphalos, generally to the north of it in the direction from which disruptive forces are traditionally supposed to emanate, is found a lone, conical mountain. It’s mythological prototype is the mountain at the centre of the world. The chief god of the pantheon resides there, presiding awesomely over the rituals in his sanctuary below. The traditional sacred landscape,
— John Mitchell, At the Center of the World, Polar Symbolism Discovered in Celtic, Norse and other Ritualized Landscapes

So when we seek a mountain, or enlightenment, as the Chinese like equate the two, we seek our own center. The pilgrim goes physically on a quest to a location that represents the center of a universe, the universe as a whole, but also the center of the pilgrim. By moving outward we somehow move inward. By seeking we see ourselves from a new perspective, and in many of the instances that have been examined, that persepctive is one of centering the pilgrim at the heart of the mandala. The axis mundi within.

There’s no Discouragement,
Shall make him once relent,
His first avow’d intent,
To be a Pilgrim.
— John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Borobudur

The mountain stood there to be pointed at.
— Robert Frost.

“I keep a mountain anchored off eastward a little way, which I ascend in my dreams both awake and asleep. Its broad base spreads over a village or two, which does not know it; neither does it know them, nor do I when I ascend it. I can see its general outline as plainly now in my mind as that of Wachusett. I do not invent in the least, but state exactly what I see. I find that I go up it when I am light-footed and earnest. It ever smokes like an altar with its sacrifice. I am not aware that a single villager frequents it or knows of it. I keep this mountain to ride instead of a horse.” — Henry David Thoreau.

The mountain as a spiritual pilgrim destination is not specific to any one region; it is an archetypal metaphor that transcends location and time. Think of Olympus, Ararat, Zion, Sinai, the Temple at Delphi, the Tower of Babylon, Ziggurats, Pyramids, Manchu Picchu, Temples on Mounts, Mounds, Tells and so many other upward looking locations where we are inspired to consider if not engage in intense communication . We have real mountains where real gods reside, and man-made mountains where we see the achievements of civilizations. This holds true for the Americas, Africa, Australia and of course Asia. But it is the mountain in Asia that inspires my imagination. It’s the small temples perched on hilltops, the monuments of Borobodur and Angkor Wat, and the gaze of the regions religions up to Mount Meru, Mount Sumeru, and Mount Kailas. The first step into climbing up in a pilgrimage and physically experiencing the bliss of the summit made me hungry to see mountains in a range of locations and range of manifestations.


The next location was Borobudur. A man made mountain metaphor in the shape of a mandala, where the circumnambulation and the visual richness of the striated friezes leads the pilgrim through a symbolic 10 cycle walk mirroring the 10 steps of enlightenment towards Buddhism.

pil·grim·age: 1. A journey to a sacred place or shrine.
2. A long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.
— The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000,

The sophistication of the experience is made clearer by researching the nature of Buddhism. By walking Borobudur you live out by physically enacting spiritual concepts which are extraordinarily complex and conceptual. The experience of Borobudur is one of the most advanced spaces made for pilgrims to read as they walk. It’s impossible to put into words how much information is packaged into the mountain monument.


Being on site for three days, in the only hotel within the complex walls, meant we had full access to the monument whenever we became hungry for further reading. it is a tranquil and harmonious space. It takes time and transcends time. It is a bold statement and unlike anything in the region.

Mount Meru: a sacred mountain in Hindu, Buddhist cosmology, and Jain mythology considered to be the center of all physical and spiritual universes. It is believed to be the abode of Brahma and other deities. The mountain is said to be 80,000 yojanas or leagues (450,000 km) high and located in Jambudvipa, one of the continents on earth in Hindu mythology. Many Hindu temples, including Angkor Wat, the principal temple of Angkor in Cambodia, have been built as symbolic representations of the mountain.” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Meru.

Mount Sumeru: the polar center of a mandala-like complex of seas and mountains. The square base of Sumeru is surrounded by a square moat-like ocean, which is in turn surrounded by a ring (or rather square) wall of mountains, which is in turn surrounded by a sea, each diminishing in width and height from the one closer to Sumeru. There are seven seas and seven surrounding mountain-walls, until one comes to the vast outer sea which forms most of the surface of the world, in which the known continents are merely small islands. The known world, which is located on the continent of Jambudvipa, is directly south of Sumeru.” —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumeru.

“Some beliefs, local to that area of the Himalayas, associate mythical Mount Meru with a mountain called Kailas near the Lake Manasarovar in Tibet, which can be traced to some later layers of Mahabharata.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Meru.

Mount Kailash:“The most sacred mountain in the world. Uncannily symmetrical, this remote and remarkable peak located in the forbidden land of Tibet might have built by superhuman hands. It stands out of a primordial landscape: a horizontally stratified plinth thousands of feet high, crowned with a perfect cone of pure snow. To Hindus it is the Throne of the great god Shiva. Buddhists associate it with Chakrasamvara, a powerful Tantric deity, and with the sage Milarepa, who fought a magic duel there with a shaman priest in ancient times. To the Bonpo, the followers of the indigenous religion of Tibet, it is the giant crystal on which their founder, Thonpa Shenrab, descended to earth from the skies.” — John Snelling, The Sacred Mountain (Travellers and Pilgrims at Mount Kailas in Western Tibet and The Great Universal Symbol of the Sacred Mountain).

With the understanding of or at the very least the point of reference of these mountains in mind, every mandala, every stupa, every 5 peaked architectural wonder suddenly becomes a reference or a metaphor for at least one of these mountains, pivotal to the regions grand religions.

“The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.” — Aleister Crowley.

On interviewing and gathering

Taishanred | Taishan Mountain, China 7.2008

in this flux
are assembledges, or shapes,
or patterns of relative intensity
and fixity, and certainty. paradoxically solid
and fluid,the images are moments in the
flow of human experience.
— charles madge p48

Part of the process — of researching around a topic — requires interviews and contact. To understand points of view, to map subjectivity, to make physical contact with people on the same path or to gain information from people encountered. The group expands my understanding and takes my research from the self to the group experience.

The more people gathering firewood, the higher the flames will grow.
— Chinese proverb.

It's not with ease that these interviews are done. There is discomfort at times, but pushing beyond stage fright and shyness is imperative to gather facts and stories. The group wisdom and the individual stories are essential. It is also a method to humanize what could be distant or dry. By reaching out and engaging with strangers i force myself out of my shell, my self — and relate. When it's in the name of work, i manage. Sometimes it's excruciating. to go up and smile and ask for help. It's help really that I'm seeking. Help in the sense of adding to my research. making my project have content, or in the case of the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, of coming up with the 'independent' typeface

But pushing out is the point. This work in general is about getting off the computer away from routine and engaging in contact. Immersing myself is as important as creating immersive spaces for others,

from the risd student gallery

On documenting

My eyes, however strong or weak they may be, can see only a certain distance, and it is within the space encompassed by this distance that I live and move, the line of this horizon constitutes my immediate fate, in great things and in small, from which I can not escape...Now it is by these horizons, within which each of us encloses his senses a if behind prison walls, that we measure the world, we say that this is near and that is far, this is big and that is small, this is hard and that is soft: this measuring we call sensation— and it is all of it an error!

— Gary Shapiro
Archaeologies of Vision: Foucault and Nietzsche on Seeing and Saying, 2003

Convey —London College of Communication | 2006
an experience in making meaning

By looking down I have a god’s eye view. capturing all that is within the frame. limited only by the rigidity of my self imposed rules. the camera locks my wandering eye. and so I see details I would have missed. a shadow cuts across the frame and has a narrative unintended, yet so much more real than what I planned. I have my lens that captures what my experience misses. is this the role of technology? of the documentarian? to capture the otherwise unnoticed? to trap the invisible? to remind us of what we miss? to rewrite our past? to alter our memories? Inspect my events through my lens please. see though my edits. I cut and trim and subjectify with a desire to share. is this any different from truth?

Convey —London College of Communication | 2006
an experience in making meaning

There are so many issues to capturing. Immediately subjectivity enters the process. It's impossible to be objective with a camera. But then it's impossible to cast an objective gaze. I see where my eye travels. there is much that is leftout, unnoticed. The role of the camera then, in this work is to act as an Argus, to have eyes watching from as many angles as possible. To be multifaceted and wide ranging. to see what I can not see. This manifests itself in my process. My collaborators use cameras, i use a camera, there are more static cameras set up from other angles, and always the overhead is used.

What is presented as evidence remains evidence, whether the observing eye qualifies itself as being subjective or objective. At the core of such a rationale dwells, untouched, the Cartesian division between subject and object which perpetuates a dualistic inside-versus outside, mind-against-matter view of the world. The emphasis is again laid on the power of film to capture reality “out there” for us “in here.” The moment of appropriation and of consumption is either simply ignored or carefully rendered invisible according to the rules of good and bad documentary.

— Trinh T. Minh-ha & Renov

Theorizing Documentary p.95

Stretch — University of Brighton | 2006
an experience in translating

astrid almkhlaafyi

Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long.
It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of god offers in the world of faith.

— Salman Rushdie
Herbert Reade Memorial Lecture (February 6, 1990)
“Is Nothing Sacred?”

On a practical level — a preservation note — the saving from oblivion of these moments is also what motivates much of this research. The ephemeral nature of performance is not an excuse to avoid attempting some kind of documentation. There is far too much of value in these moments — culture, history, creativity, play — to be lost. It is imperative that creatives task themselves with preserving not only tradition but also contemporary live experiments.

Lost Histories
Tate Collection 14 November 2003 - 25 January 2004

It was only with the invention of photography that performance began to make its mark in the history of art. Prior to this there was no instant means of making a visual record of live events. As film and video equipment became more readily available, artists with access to this technology experimented not only with recording live action but also with the moving images they created.

Many well-known figures in the history of art have been involved in performance during the course of their careers, from scandalous dance performances of the late 1800s to the happenings and actions of the New York loft scene in the 1960s. However the focus on the art object has meant that the ephemeral elements of these artistic practices are often lost or overlooked.

And this is the final meaning of work: the extension of human consciousness.
The lesser meaning of work is the achieving of self-preservation.

D.H. Lawrence
Study of Thomas Hardy
Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, p. 430, (1936)