Wednesday, November 4, 2009

up&down @ night & day


finally the exhibition is here, one week to go and things are coming together. have sound, videos, materials, a great venue, books, images, typographic elements. Have been working for 2 years on the project and for the last few months more on the production. there's an enormous amountof editing that has gone on. making a cohesive compact thing from two vast mountains and 2 enormous histories.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Preload-Honf and night & day


After becoming acquainted with the House of Natural Fiber (HONF) during the cellsbutton#3 media arts festival, and hearing that the group had members coming through singapore, I wanted to make a local connection for the group with the downtown venue Night&Day. On friday, August 28 members of HONF and international artists Marko Batista and Tengal Drilon performed within the bar sapce of Night&Day to an intimate crowd of academics and artists. Kelley was gracious and gave her space for the session, and the HONF team now have made an excellent connection in the city.

Tengal performed solo and also collaborated in an improvisational duet with my video. His spontaneous piano and sound performance had a fascinating effect on the video pieces, changing meaning and emotion. This type of collaboration is an area to further explore.

Marko Bastisto. video and sound

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

cellsbutton #3

The thrust towards new media arts in many of the Asian countries seem to be caught between two parallel and related trends – a) the need to develop culturally specific and located ways of engaging with and incorporating the new information, communication, experiential and biotechnologies; and b) the need to respond to the global imperatives that drive these technologies and their related artistic developments. While the media and technological developments in these countries indicate a constant juggling between these local and global imperatives, many of the media artistic developments in these countries pose interesting ways of reevaluating and significantly expanding the current discourses and practices in art, media and technology....(Gunalan Nadarajan)

....Now let us visualise a framework for this setting in which people resonate with media through simulating processes. I remember hearing the words intelligent interfaces, disappearing computer and smart environments for the first time at a conference in Sweden, Jönschoping. Bewildered I listened to academic researchers painting scenarios of strollers in the park being able to point at trees with their smart ( rfid/bluetooth enabled) watches resulting in... a screen rising up either from the ground or next to the tree. On that screen? ...information, data rather - about that tree. I'm sitting in my chair and look around me for smiling or laughing people, but nothing. This audience, top EU researchers and technical wizards, does not think this is ridiculous, strange, unnecessary at all. Instead, on the contrary what they see is open territory, a vast unknown adventure. Room to play. Yet I visualized a framework for this setting, grasping its radical
potential immediately- as that tree had always spoken to me, as trees do to people who feel as well as see and hear. Or towers for that matters, my towers. Do they not realize that what actually matters in this vast grid of affordances that overlays so called material objects is their potential? their imaginary? Unaware they raise issues of alchemy, of witchcraft, magic....(Rob van Kranenburg)

....One of EFP’s methods is to organise accessible, ‘hands-on’ workshops that allow the audience to share knowledge and explore different forms of artistic collaboration induced by technology. Furthermore, these workshops are based on a ‘Do It Yourself’ philosophy, which enables the participants to use, subvert and adapt technologies for the specific requirements of local communities. This perspective is examined in the ‘bricolabs’ workshops, for example.
Besides participatory authorship, another goal of the EFP is to stimulate a critical and reflective approach towards technology. What are the implications this new artistic practice for art, design and sciences for Indonesian context? In discussions and presentations, the aesthetic, social and philosophical context will be analyzed and debated in order to create a critical, practice based approach towards media arts in Indonesia....(Deanna Herst)

PARTICIPANT :

more than 100 Artists / Scientist / Activist / Researcher / Professional / Musician / Theorist / Local Communities from
Indonesia ( Jakarta - Bandung - Yogyakarta - Surabaya - Medan - Batam - Bali - Semarang - Pekanbaru - Makasar - etc)

+

Astrid Almkhlaafy / UK - US
Andrej Boleslavsky / Slovakia
Michal Marianek / Czech Republic
Mar Canet / Austria
Vladimir Todorovic / Serbia
Ondřej Skala a.k.a JTNB / Czech Republic
Darina Alster / Czech Republic
Alex Scraub / Netherlands
Jan Torpus / Switzerland
Rene TA Lysloff / US
Marco Batista / Slovenia
Varvara Guljajeva / Estonia - Austria
Peter Tomaz Dobrila / Slovenia
Deanna Herst / Netherlands
Marc Dusseiller / Switzerland
Tengal / Philippines
Somaya Langley / Australia
Dan Gregor a.k.a Initi / Czech Republic
Magdalena Peševa / Czech Republic
Alessandro Carboni / Italy

natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=57&Itemid=79


- VENUE :

19 venue for 8 day program

natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=58&Itemid=80


- SCHEDULE :

natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=59&Itemid=81


- Featuring Presentation and Project on :

HONF - Fablab
natural-fiber.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=184:prosthetics-workshop-at-fablab-amsterdam&catid=85:concepts&Itemid=90

Indonesia Bricolabs 2009
cellsKIT
HONF - AKPRIND
akprind.ac.id/

HONF - INHERENT
inherent-dikti.net/?modul=bv&artikel=vicon/C48525D299C9


---------------------------------------------------------
HONF lab
the house of natural fiber, yogyakarta new media art laboratory
natural-fiber.com/

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

upcoming exhibition and festival

Just invited and approved by school to attend the 3rd Yogyakarta International Media Arts Festival, thanks to Vladimir. Excited. I get to show the recent projects of Huashan and Taishan and my GPS works. Should be an exciting week.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

life and death. up and down.


Getting somewhere with this last trek up Huashan. Perhaps it was obvious from the beginning, but I don't remember picking the mountains based on location. In any case I did intuitively somehow opt for the eastern most and western most of the sacred Taoist mountains of China. Had I thought about it before I would have thought of the sun. I'm sure. Taishan was birth from the research early on, but for some reason Huashan eluded me and my research assistants. Once there it hit me. so obvious. The mountain is constantly referred to as the most dangerous in china, the dwelling place of the gods, of the five immortals, a place pilgrims go to seek immortality. Huashan is the west. the setting sun. Taishan the east, the sunrise. Taishan is birth and the bloodline and king-line of china. Huashan is death.

The trek up was gorgeous. lonely. solo. precarious. rainy, cold. by the time I reached the midpoint where the majority of the 'pilgrims' start from the cable cars, I was wet with sweat and drenched by the rain. Unlike Taishan where there are regular covered rest spots and cafes and even hotels and restaurants, Huashan was (although crowded) without a dry place to sit and get warm.



I walk fast and compete when there is a slope. I had pushed myself hard and really needed a place to dry off and warm up while I waited for my students and family. Instead I sat in the rain and my body warmth quickly turned to extreme chill. I waited for 50 minutes and by the time they arrived on the cable cars I was shaking and chattering and as close to hypothermia as I've ever been. I had to descend. It was on my cable car decline that I had the space to reflect on the nature of the mountain (Kaatje was on my lap warming me up). It was then that death and the west and the setting sun hit me. so obvious. what else is seeking immortality but a wishful attempt to avoid death? The death mountain.

Friday, April 3, 2009

challenging orders - humor that pokes.

Two new favorite movies. Sedmikrásky (Daisies) by Vera Chytilová and Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Céline and Julie Go Boating: Phantom Ladies Over Paris), by Jacques Rivette.

Fantastic fun. a fusion of Dada, fluxus and
Agnès Varda. the laughter, magic, gender and narrative play are inspirational.

by name

i was just enlightened in a delightful way that if you translate my name into japanese (after a decade there it's funny i never found this one) it's:

あす(明日)とぅ(登)れっど(赤)
it's a treasure. it means "Tomorrow climb with red"
and so as the days begin to count down towards the next mountain, Hua-shan, I have this new focus. an absurd new drive to paint the next mountain red.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

creative genius and inspiration

This talk by Elizabeth Gilbert at TED touches something so wonderfully deep. I love how genius is the pixie, the shoe-making elf, the imp outside that touches us, passes through us, comes to us but is not of us. Creativity comes to us from daemons, from a divine genius. It removes the pressure of blocks, in some ways. Of course we need to work, to exercise our craft and skills and be ready, it's not that it can lead in all ways, but that there's this possibility of a spirit of creativity that can come through us. wonderful.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

crayon art

Picture: CHRISTIAN FAUR


this has nothing to do with what i do, but it's so deliciously simple and so hilariously complex.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

goals


When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

— Jenny Joseph, Warning, Selected Poems (1992) Bloodaxe Books.

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).

Friday, January 30, 2009

Thaipusam

This Sunday, my dad's birthday, is also Thaipusam. Arul has invited us to come with her to Little India to document and reflect on the nature of this extreme festival.

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?

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Taishan Red

astrid almkhlaafy


My explorations to Thailand, Borobudur and Angkor Wat fueled on my interest in mountains. The DNA of Singapore also pulled me to China, so in the tradition of the pilgrimage — in Chinese “ch' ao-shan chin-hsian”g – or 'paying one's respect to a mountain' — with the intent of better understanding some of the cultural roots of this new home, I proposed and received a grant to research, visit, climb, document and finally exhibit my findings of the pilgrimages to Mount Tai Shan and Mount Hua Shan in China. This is a report in progress.

You must ascend a mountain
to learn your relation to matter, and so to your own body,
for it is at home there,
though you are not.

Henry David Thoreau, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 6

In July we went to Shandong province in China to climb Taishan. To pay respect to this mountain and the pilgrimage we walked, documented and mapped with GPS...all the while wearing red. In effect, we painted Taishan red by walking everywhere in red. This action made manifest the pilgrimage itself, while also conceptually conjuring up an umbilical cord, or a red bloodline.


The son of the sun
Taishan is red. it's the color of the calligraphy, the stone carving, the wish trees, the temples. From the summit, Mao claimed "From here, all of China is Red". Taishan is blood. It is the bloodline, it is the male bloodline.
It is also birth, it is the east, it is mythologically from where life began.You could say that Taishan is the linga of China. It is where sons come from and where the sun first rises. It is an incredibly complex site.



So with my collaborators, we considered these thoughts and more. As women, we were most curious about gender. So many women have climbed over so many centuries to pray for male offspring. And to a goddess they prayed. How did a goddess land the top of Taishan? Taoism usually puts the female at the ground level and the male towards the sky. How did a female deity get to reign supreme with a temple at the top of a linga?


Bixia Yuanjin (pronounced BEE-cha you-on-JEEN) is the Chinese Taoist Goddess of the dawn, childbirth, and destiny. As Goddess of dawn, she attends the birth of each new day from her home high in the clouds. As Goddess of childbirth, she attends the birth of children, fixing their destiny and bringing good fortune. Dawn and childbirth are two concepts often, and quite understandably, linked in world mythology: the rising of the sun, the bringing of light to the earth, is equated with the child emerging from the darkness of the womb to the light of the world.

Tai'an City is a stretch of ancient and mystical land. Five thousand years ago here originated the brilliant Dawenkou Culture, which reflects the whole course of the transition from matriarchal society to patriarchal society and the disintegration of the primitive society.
www.asia-planet.net/china/taian.htm

While on pilgrimage, women enjoyed a degree of freedom from some of the restrictions of their daily life. They were able to travel beyond their local area, they stayed overnight outside their own home, and they met people from other regions. Although women customarily played a minor role in rituals, they were the primary or sole actors in rituals associated with the Goddess of Mount Tai (Taishan Niangniang 泰山娘娘 or Bixia Yuan-jun 碧霞元君). In addition to physical mobility, pilgrimages allowed women to exercise ritual authority and agency and to establish new identities as mothers and ritual experts.
Brian Dott, Identity Reflections: Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China


Over the week that we were at the mountain we climbed altogether over 8 times. Sometimes as a group, other times solo. Most often in red. When not in red we were documenting and interviewing over a hundred pilgrims. On the final day we performed an 'ode to the pilgrimage' at the base of the mountain, outside the temple to Bixia.


In the way
The most important 'performance' piece was at the top, leading up to the gate of heaven, here is where every pilgrim passes up to the summit. At this location, i walked zig-zag down, along every step, passing by everyone walking up, being in the way of the way. This was documented with gps, video and photography as well.

In a time where we are most often in urban settings, focused on screens, communicating virtually, it is easy to forget that the grand events of the past have often been on foot, up mountains, with strangers, to pray. On a meta level, I hope that by embarking on these pilgrimages, documenting the journeys, researching and studying the locations and finally exhibiting and sharing my findings that somehow the content will inspire others to explore heritage sites and become inspired by historical and cultural wonders.
The foot of the heavenly ladder, which we have got to mount in order to reach the higher regions, has to be fixed firmly in every-day life, so that everybody may be able to climb up it along with us. When people then find that they have got climbed up higher and higher into a marvelous, magical world, they will feel that that realm, too, belongs to their ordinary, every-day life, and is, merely, the wonderful and most glorious part thereof.
— E.T.A.W. Hoffmann, The Serapion Brethren. B, vol. II, sect. 5 (1892).
So far this has been partially exhibited in Tokyo and most recently in the 2008 Fall International Digital Design Invitation Exhibit, South Korea.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

GPS poetry — ISEA exhibition

While learning about the creative possibilities of my Garmin GPS I began to experiment. I wanted to write big messages and began immediately after the desired technology caught up to my ideas. For my first experiment I created an alphabet along the beach in Krabi, Thailand. Halfway through I realized it was backwards. The scale was enormous but not a typeface I wanted to continue in Illustrator.

What I gleaned from this was the tide and the topography affect the ability to carry out the task. These are walked, I mean, I walk up and down and back and forth on the beach, imagining what the letter will look like from a plane above. It's pretty amusing to the people sitting and relaxing at the beach bars. I was asked if I was treasure hunting, lost, in need of help—when i answered that i was writing it really made for instant conversations with very curious questions. After the slightly successful alphabet, i moved on to bigger and grander ideas. I had a quote that i wanted to write along the other side of the beach, ideal for the location, so it became a site specific piece of walked poetry:
May the tide be soon enough on high to keep our abstract verse from being dry
— Robert Frost, Etherealizing.

When viewed in google earth the quote is often shown with the tide in, and so the abstract verse is rarely dry. When written, the descenders of the ‘y’, ‘g’ & ‘p’ touched the water. The reaction of onlookers was never dry, nor the intention of the project, and so the walk (over 10km) physically expressed the location, the quotation and used the technology in an unconventional yet clear way.


I also discovered en route that script was far easier to walk than a serif or sans serif typeface. since my track was always being recorded i could relax in general within one word. when it came to word spacing i leapt quickly (since there is a time factor in this process of being recorded) to the next word. in general the legibility of this improved dramatically.

The next location was in Bintan, Indonesia. I researched the location and was really drawn to the historical drama of the Sultan of Malacca (Malaysia), Mahmud Shah, who fled the Portuguese and escaped to Bintan, bringing with him Islam to Indonesia. The survival and adaptability of a man, who was probably one of the richest on the planet in his day—the kind of the spice trade route—really intrigued me. He lives on through the religion, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population on the planet. That combined with the nature of this kind of writing, and the gorgeous location (we were staying in a resort on the island) led to this quote (roughly of the same period):
My trade and my art is living. He who forbids me to speak about it according to my sense, experience, and practice, let him order the architect to speak of buildings not according to himself but according to his neighbor; according to another man’s knowledge, not according to his own.
— Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) “Of Practice,” The Essays (Les Essais), bk. II, ch. 6, Abel Langelier, Paris (1595).

This led to another 'walked thought' based on my experiences in Angkor Wat. Angkor is extraordinary. but it is also so incredibly fragile, Siem Reap depending so heavily on it's past for basic survival now. I was overwhelmed by the scale of the space, and by the ruins of boulders tumbling down everywhere. I'd also spent a day exploring Tonlé Sap which geographically explained the location of the Angor ruins, such a futile source of nourishment, but today surrounded by impoverished communities dependent on weather and tourism. I hired a boat and explored the floating villages of Vietnamese and Cham communities and this influenced my quote:

These fragments I have shored against my ruins
— T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: “What the Thunder Said”


I had spent three days already exploring the site and found only one location possible for walking type. It was along the edge of the eastern baray leading up to the Bayon. This was my first attempt at writing on soil: dusty dry, weedy. I imagined that it was once water, or along the shore of the artificial lake. In reality I ended up bumping into a tuk tuk parking area and had to write and navigate the word 'ruins' around the crowd. it was not easy, and that made the quote feel even more appropriate.

"these fragments"
I like the way i can merge my love for walking and reading and archaeology and poetics into a space. I also enjoy the invisibility of the message. I know what I'm doing, but no one else has a clue. There is so much potential in that. Peace signs in war zones, poison signs in toxic waste lands. it's an open palette.

Through these experiments I was asked to show at last year's ISEA conference here in Singapore. I met some fascinating people, Ema Ota of Dislocate Tokyo was one I'd like to show with in the future.
isea exhibition — NTU, singapore 2008

Thursday, January 15, 2009

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

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Intersections

Just presented today to Johnny Lau— our SYOG connectionour experiences at the temple Sunday night, and low and behold— what a small world— Johnny knows and just played with (in the last few days) Govin Tan, the gifted tabla player from our temple night. Such an overlapping lovely world.

Our entire class was mesmerized by Govin and his art. One of the things I put forward to Johnny was the necessity of including him into the Youth Olympics in some way. He embodies such a lovely fusion of identity and represents the creative potential of Singapore. And it seems quite possible!

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.


archaeology of festivity

Visual communication is a field that constantly expands and absorbs. This is the lure that brings in so many students and makers. We can self define as designers, and master areas that may seem left-field, only to find that those very 'esoteric' areas represent a core of what we call visual communication.

I came to graphic design from the past. the deep past, specializing in classical & near eastern archaeology. It was artifacts and pieces of extraordinary civilizations from before that grew this love of documentation. I mean, who are we if we leave nothing behind? What greater challenge than to preserve, package and save snippets of our cultures for an unknown future observer?

" 'No one,' Pascal once said, 'dies so poor that he does not leave something behind.'
Surely it is the same with memories too — although these do not
always find an heir."
— walter benjamin.

There is something of Mnemosyne in all this. Sure we may leave a footprint trail behind, but it will dry out with the time. it's only by being carved or made of stone, by being baked clay, by flukes of volcanic or natural fossil making quirks that things really get passed along down thousands and thousands of years. Our recent abilities to retell collective memories (oral traditions) have faded completely in most western communities. we rely on paper, electricity. Neither of which last long at all.

And yet there are festivals and they often DO connect back.

In Tokyo, I designed my way up from a production artist to an art director to a Media and Design Manager, and the big thing I worked around consistently, was events. promoting, staging, branding, and of course documenting. It was exciting. but my creativity wasn't pushed enough, nor my archaeology. I threw costume parties, followed matruris and in general tried to celebrate. But in the end grad school beckoned and I finally was able to fuse and focus.

I call it the archaeology of festivity. it's a field of research that explore feasts, festivals, processions, rituals — in general very ephemeral communication pieces — for the purpose of preservation, deconstruction, and translation.



This was my first attempt at defining the world I wanted to research. It's a book called Celebrate. It categorizes the universality of the celebration into 6 chapters. Fertility and Harvests, the Sacred, Mapping Power & the prince, the State, the Rebellious & the Personal Journey.


It was a first statement. An attempt to map out and present, to contextualize and declare that the immersive experience is ancient. It is part of our DNA. it is universal and it communicates. The festival/ritual/dance/procession/pilgrimage communicates. Each communicate culture, identity, history and self. As such they are living threads of the past. they are often 'alive' archaeology. They communicate through immersion through physically engaging the body. They are part of an area of the performance or communication world that I'm calling (at least here in this blog) 'physical communication'.

astrid in tokyo


Just back from my fist solo show in tokyo. A great opportunity to return with my work and introduce to a creative gathering the projects that have been done since leaving in 2002. Andrew Thomas of Hybrid Gallery invited me to have a one week show and also give a talk on the opening night. It was a great feeling being back, immersed in the warmth of his hospitality and generosity. ADM also was quite supportive of this project and backed my trip fully.


photo — Aiko Wakao 2008

The talk included my work from 2002 until now, and focused on the history of graphic designers who have been involved in performance and live art. I showed Futurists, Dadaists, Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, and discussed the Fluxus happenings as well as looked briefly at some contemporary examples of commercial pieces and flash mobs and that come out of this experimental spirit. It was well received and later I was asked go present again at the Pink Cow.

The presentation press release:

Graphic Design History books are full of adventurous creatives who go beyond the printed page and screen and into the world of events and collaborative happenings. This talk will discuss the rich history we share as designers, explore contemporary examples of communication pieces that include the performative, and finally will introduce the methodology and works of the presenter.


The history of twentieth century graphic design includes many significant practitioners who are highlighted in performance art history textbooks. Twentieth century performance can be viewed as an experimental laboratory where certain leading graphic designers have tested out manifestos and new art forms in collaborative and improvisational settings. Performative examples from the Futurists, Dadaists, Constructivists, Bauhaus and Black Mountain College will be introduced and related to the graphic and typographic works that simultaneously emerged from these groups. The talk will then move into contemporary examples of designers using performance and live art in communication pieces.


Astrid has been invited to present her work, stage experiences and lead workshops at Central Saint Martins, London College of Communication, & Brighton. She currently resides in Singapore - teaching designed experiences, graphic design history and typography - and is working on two grants that have taken her to China, Cambodia, and Borobudur to stage and document experiences. In July she staged a collaboration in Taiwan through Oistat. Her current work is gravitating towards the creation of rituals for communication.