Northern Exposure, New China, Entropy
This post collects a set of disparate recent
experiences and/or observations. Other than perhaps being associated with art
and me, they have nothing else in common (of course, you know that isn't true,
don't you?). The items include an interesting random encounter with a former
television show cast member and more on the Seattle Art Museum's current
exhibition of Chinese photography and video. Plus a few ramblings on other
topics.
This past Sunday I headed back to the Center on
Contemporary Art (CoCA <http://cocaseattle.org>) to see the current
exhibition, "Help Wanted: Collaborations in Art," again. I'd seen that show
once already, middle of last week, and there were a few works which were
compelling enough to see again. Plus, I had a friend who couldn't get to the
earlier visit and wanted to see the show, giving me two good reasons to head out
toward the South Lake Union area - a section of town which has the inappropriate
neighborhood name of "Cascade" and which I've been trying to rename "Vulcan,"
for reasons I'll probably explain at a future
date.
I decided to leave quite a bit early as I needed to pick up some postcards and have been thwarted in trying to find them in drugstores, dime stores and the rest of the local shops. I knew, though, that one of the news vendors at Pike Place Market had an extensive and representative collection of post cards and ostensibly that was my first stop.
I'd walked down from our house to Morgan Junction as much to get into the habit (that's where the local monorail station will be) as to get some exercise and enjoy a lull in the much-needed rain we've been having. I stopped at Tully's for a drip coffee (which means it was just ordinary coffee, nothing fancy or requiring steam or espresso). Got it, added half-and-half, and headed across the street to the bus stop. There were already three other people waiting, as it turns out, for the same bus as I was going to take. We struck up a conversation - first about the much needed rain, and then about how much more convenient it would be if the monorail were already built and running. The woman said she didn't like the monorail and had voted against it. One of the other men said he did like it and had voted repeatedly for it. The other guy was listening to headphones connected to a CD player (though he did nod his head when I arrived to acknowledge my "hello"). I said I, too, wanted the monorail and that the three of us seemed to represent the city-wide perspective of 66 percent in favor and 33 percent opposed. The woman smiled at that remark and we moved on.
The monorail-approving man then started to talk about senior citizens, the infirm, Native Americans and other minorities and we all agreed that we needed to do much more work for all the above, but particularly for the elderly and infirm, especially with respect to public transportation. The gent then started to tell me that he was on the Mayor's senior citizen advisory council and they had just broken ground for a new, six-story, senior center right behind the Pike Place Market to serve both the downtown elderly and the many homeless who congregate in that high-tourist spot of town. Next thing is the bus arrives. I let the lady get on first and the other two guys let me get on next. I head for the back, where I almost always head, and sat down in the back bench seat on the right side. The gent I'd been talking to comes toward the back and sits in the opposite corner of the back bench seat. I remark that I really like sitting in the back, he acknowledges same and says it gives one a much better view out the windows and of all the other folks in the bus. I concur.
Northern Exposure
He then introduces himself as Robert "Sonny" Nicholson and says he was one of the actors in the TV series "Northern Exposure" <http://www.tvtome.com/NorthernExposure/guide.html>. When he says that, I look him carefully in the face and say "yes." He played the roll of the cook in several episodes, and was cast in a variety of roles for the five-year run of the series. He is a Native American from Montana and has been in a few other movies, television shows and commercials. He says he's still getting residuals from the TV show, which is now in re-runs here in the U.S. (Hallmark network) and is making the rounds of nearly every country with a television system overseas. He also says he's got 1,000 acres back at his homestead in Montana, just east of Great Falls, and that all this has made him very comfortable. He tells me he's got a nice house on Fauntleroy Way, basically around the corner from where we caught the bus.
For the rest of the ride downtown we exchange stories and comments about "Northern Exposure." Sonny gives me some insight into the real-life actors who played some of the main characters and where they are now. He tells me that a number of cast members have died but that Hollywood is working with screenwriters and producers getting ready for a movie version of the series. The show was filmed in Roslyn, Washington, just north of I-90 and about half-way between Seattle and Yakima. It's high in the Cascades. The town is real, the town as seen on the TV show looks exactly the same as the real town because they used the real town for location shooting, covering up one sign with another and making a few changes to local street names. There was also a nearly complete set inside a film studio in Redmond (yes, THAT Redmond, the hometown of the Microsoft campus and the global domination headquarters of the Evil Empire). The outdoor scenes along the creek and in other places were shot nearby in woods and along creeks which naturally flow through the Cascades around Roslyn.
I was fascinated by Sonny's insight and participation. I was a huge fan of Northern Exposure, though I never had the time and didn't even know it existed during its prime-time run from 1990 through 1995. Basically I caught it on the rebound on Bravo at the time beginning in the late '90's. What I like about it was the simple and uncomplicated setting and the relatively deep and philosophical story lines. It was all about the people, basically, and since it was set in the wilderness in Alaska there were relatively simple lives being led, but, even simple lives can get complicated and that's what I think drew me to the series.
Sonny continued to go over some of the plot lines and I kept asking him about this or that character and if they were acting or were really like in person. At one point I told him "you're famous." He denied that and said instead it was the best job he'd ever had. That he would wake up in the morning rearing to get to the set because it was such fun and the crew and cast were having such a grand time. That part of the production showed through in the series - it did, in fact, seem that the entire cast and behind the scenes crew and production staff were having a blast.
I also asked him lots of questions about the mayor and various council members because in addition to being a senior citizen advisory member of the mayor's staff, Sonny also sits on one of the oversight boards for the Pike Place Market - which is run and managed as a non-profit organization overseeing the use of a huge number of historic properties. He and I exchanged and shared opinions about the various present and past council members and the various issues associated with the Market. When it came time to get off the bus, Sonny says to me, "come with me, I'll show you some things." At that point I had no reason not to tag along. I was way early to meet my friend at the CoCA and had intended on schlepping around the market anyway. We get off, wander north on First Avenue to Stewart Street and then turn left and head down a steep set of stairs just around the corner.
Inside is the existing senior center and Pike Place food bank. It was Easter Sunday so the kitchen was really busy getting ready for the festive lunch which looked like it would be baked chicken breasts with about a half-dozen side dishes. As we wander around the crowded and nook-and-cranny filled mezzanine level of the senior center about every other person yells out "hey, Sonny, how ya been" or "whatcha up to." I certainly was impressed. Sonny introduces me to another senior, a very distinguished African-American gentleman, who Sonny says is involved in the Folklife Festival. Since that's one of my favorite Spring treats I ask a few questions beginning with "are you a musician?" "No, I'm a former promoter." I say, "well, that's certainly appropriate isn't it." Sonny is heading for yet another group of people and pulling at me to follow so I bid the former promoter adieu but we both agree that I'll probably see him on the Seattle Center grounds come Folklife Fest week. Now, I really am looking forward because I suspect he'll give me more inside skinny and get me into places during the festival that I might not even know about.
After about thirty minutes of "I'd like to introduce you to..." and short conversations with probably a dozen folks, I tell Sonny it's now getting time for me to get some of my errands done before my museum date. He asks where I am first heading and I said the Market to get some postcards and he insists on walking through the Market with me. The same thing happens at the Market. We start at the outside stall end and head towards the main entrance and along the way just about every other vendor yells out his name and they exchange a few pleasantries and he asks "how's business" and "is there anything I should know." We stop at one food stand to borrow a pen and he and I exchange notepad paper with phone numbers and addresses. Sonny then heads for one of the Market offices and I head for the news stand.
It was incredibly enlightening and inspirational to be shepherded around by Sonny in the Senior Center and the Market. He's about as outgoing and gregarious as me but is ten full years older. Nearly everyone at the Senior Center was at least ten years older than me and I must tell you that I felt really odd and out of place. It's been a long time since I've been somewhere where it was clear and obvious that I was the "junior" kid on the block. It's not the "youth" thing which grabbed me so much as the enthusiasm and verve these folks had and the really positive and almost reverent feeling they had for Sonny. I had concluded at the bus stop that this gentleman was a true kindred spirit of mine. We both had this tenacious and unrelenting attitude that people were good and worthy and that we ought to help in some manner. He and I even discussed the whole notion of Marxism and helping out one's neighbor and giving time back to the community. What a boost to my spirits.
Plus, like me, he had a great run with his career and did it the whole time having fun and looking forward to going to work. I did that. For nearly thirty years I'd ask myself occasionally if there was anywhere else or any other organization I'd want to move to - for money, or more responsibility, or fame, or the imposing challenge - whatever the "want" of the moment was. And, for thirty years I kept answering myself by saying "you've got everything you want right here - even when you're being admonished, you get to do great nifty things." That's a hell of a feeling to wake up and have to go off and make a living and do what you want and be happy doing it. It's almost like Sonny and me somehow managed to cheat the system. But, damn it, folks. That's the way it's SUPPOSED to be. It shouldn't be or feel odd that there are people for whom it really does happen. Anyway, like I said, Sonny was a treat to hang with. I got my postcards and headed for CoCA, giving me a chance to cross town through Belltown and the old Denny Regrade area.
I won't go into the art at CoCA just here, rather I'll comment using photographs I took and post those relatively soon. There's two really involving exhibits there - true collaborative works of interactive art and sociology. Both are much more involving with more than just oneself. I had a great time with Manuel <http://buffoonery.org/blog/> (same guy who was at the Frye with Samantha <http://gingerlee.blogspot.com/> and me). He's off to visit a friend in Seoul for a few weeks. Since I was there last, Seoul has sprouted a go-everywhere subway system that I'd love to try out. It's one complicated, complex, humongous, urban density with some stunningly beautiful neighborhoods, vistas, bridges, temples and markets - that's not even including the new, sexy, high rises. I sure had a great time in Seoul when I was in the Army. About every other weekend or time off I was crawling all over that city. It's more like Paris, or Madrid than Tokyo in layout and feel. I'd enjoy another excursion in Korea.
<brief Korea excursion>
Despite being drafted and working as battalion clerk, which had its own set of fun properties, living in Bupyong, a nearby village (small city) to Seoul was the best part of that leg of my Army stint. But then no one would ever imagine me sitting at home in a strange new place anyway. From Bupyong, it was a thirty minute train ride (yes, they had lots of trains which ran everywhere - still do - it's not just Europe, it's Asia too - we're the only ones who fail to grasp how useful, convenient and fun a train transportation system is) to Inchon where I could gaze out over the Yellow Sea and imagine Beijing one time zone away, but basically straight west of me. Back then (1971-72) it was known as Peking, and between it and the evil-nuclear-do-badders north of me (N. Korea), I felt that I was sandwiched between the two "baddest" countries on Earth, but it still didn't graze me. I thought it was unimaginably cool that I could almost "see" Beijing. Plus, I knew from having lived there a while that no one wanted to destroy either Korea - the country, the peninsula hanging off the Chinese mainland - was simply too mythical, too old, too much tied up with the multi-thousand-year history of the Chinese and Japanese dynasties and its own meritocracy. I think Korea has been a thorn in the sides of China and Japan for ever - literally. I think that part of Asia (or the Far East) is one of the most impressive outposts of evolution this planet has come up with yet. Korea impressed me no end. It's cultured and quaint at the same time. It's trés moderne and ancien au meme temps. It doesn't have China's mountains or Japan's volcanoes, but it does have this hilly peninsula feeling about it with some hellacious summer torrential downpours (making Houston seem veritably dry in comparison) and sunrises and sunsets over seas. Put me down as one who always was drawn toward the Orient and who, when finally seeing it in person, was only more drawn. Ever since I was a kid in LA (younger than eight) I have had this hankering to see the Yangtze River and the Steppes of Mongolia. Powerful places. So, anytime I know someone who is actually going to be in this place I'm drawn towards, I am even more interested since I've now got someone I can ply with questions. For me, if I know someone and they've been someplace I haven't been but want to get to, I can ask them questions, which because I know them and they know me, can be honed in meaning and enriched in detail so that I can actually get a real image and physical feel for the place. Doesn't beat being there, but way better than any other method of learning about something. That's why I'm always talking to strangers, I never know where they've been and more often than not I learn something I wanted to learn.
</end brief Korea excursion>
Between Past and Future: New China Photography & Video
The art I do want to delve into is the modern/contemporary/revolutionary photography and video from China. The Seattle Art Museum's current show - "Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China," <http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/exhibitDetail.asp?WHEN=&eventID=7771>. Most of the artists seemed to hail either form Beijing or Shanghai with a few from Shenzhen or Chongqing and lots and lots of others from small villages in the west and north. Do not be misled by believing that the Chinese are merely running robot machines and are basically the new human widget maker. These are and have been for a hand's worth of millennia some of the smartest, most erudite and complex people on the planet. The 21st Century Chinese are no less than that and they are so much more than we can imagine. It's true, their government gives some of us the willies and the policies of the government of China - probably going back as far as one would like - have almost always been opposed to the individual. Notwithstanding, there have been and are now a huge number of imaginative, brave, dramatic, and challenging individuals in China. Good grief, with nearly one-and-a-third billion individuals, how could thousands to millions of them NOT be imaginative, brave, dramatic and challenging. By the way, that's four times as many citizens as America has. For every New York or LA or Chicago of ours they've got four.
There is a very strong current of anti-authoritarianism running through the show. Beijing and Shanghai are changing rapidly and much of the photography and video tries to either capture, interpret, or rail against this rapid change. There are a lot of currents of the many incarnations of China - the various dynasties, the Cultural Revolution, the whole new Tiananmen Square incident, and the recent unfurling of a level of independence and the impact of emerging soon as the world's largest economy. Much of the art which is presented is reflective, providing only a mirror - sometimes a really fine front-surface mirror - but really only a recounting done with a fidelity which creates believability. A few of the works take a very opposite approach and present serious and sometimes shocking or even offensive partisan points of view. Many of the artists whose works are being shown have spent quality time of their lives behind bars as prisoners of the state or have been ostracized or otherwise tainted as citizens by their country's government. That there are these many who are alive and thriving or trying to emerge as artists proves to me that the human spirit itself will outlast tyranny even if one believes the tyranny is absolute. It's about time we - the citizens of planet Earth - had a new set of heroes. For the longest, longest time it was the Americans. And, to a great extent in a huge number of areas we still are the heroes. But, I'm really happy to welcome my new heroes - the imaginative and daring new Chinese individuals whose time is dawning. The dragon is awake and I like it. For my two cents, being an American is about being a free individual. Even if the reality is that we're "not" that free, the "ideal" of America is that the individual can do anything while being a conscientious and responsible citizen and I'll allow also being a "god" fearing person. That means one has ethic and moral fiber and abides in conscience. But beyond that one is free to explore an amazing array of possibilities. To think that there may soon be twelve-hundred-and-fifty thousand million new individuals who have the ideals of Americans is an exciting prospect. No, I'm not dismissing all the human rights, or environmental awareness issues of China, but with regard to these matters we Americans can not cast the first stone. We're simply and equally guilty on all counts. No, it's the awakening of the individual that's the illuminating element here. The curators at Seattle Art Museum are to be lauded and congratulated for bringing together such a diverse, compelling and involving set of works as these from New China. Really! Anyone in the Northwest who doesn't stop in at SAM is missing out on an important look into the evolving Chinese soul and a vision of their cultural future.
It's all visual and much of it requires a concentration and level of examination which can be almost conscious. That's probably to be expected. The history of Oriental art - drawings, paintings, poetry, sculpture, furniture, buildings, gardens, clothing - shows an almost beyond-belief attention to the most minute of details with elaborate embellishment taking place in the oddest of places. The same is true of the contemporary Chinese visual and motion-image art. I'll try and describe a few of the works which managed to burn some deep images even on a first-look basis.
I'll describe the works without knowing the name (in most instances) of the artist or the work. That's why I'm going see "Between Past and Future" several more times - there's a lot to grok at the show.
The Tibetan
The first piece I'll describe I'll call "The Tibetan." The Tibetan is the face of a Tibetan monk photo transfered to a sheet of either linen or muslin which hangs from the ceiling and is about ten feet wide and maybe fifteen feet from top to bottom. The cloth appears to have been prepared with a photo emulsion so the image of the monk's face is as finely detailed and subtle in its gradations as if it were a fine silver-halide print. It's black-and-white. As one approaches the hanging image one sees these little dots randomly placed directly in the area of the monk's central face. Moving closer shows that there are probably a handful-and-a-half hundred of these dots. Looking at the dots closely shows that they are knots in a single thread. Looking on the other side of the cloth shows that these individual strands of thread come out and get woven, all of them, into the characteristic single braided strand of hair which emerges from the back of a monk's head. This braided thread is long enough that it becomes completely braided, braid after braid themselves braided together into finally a single "rope." The braided thread is probably thirty feet long. When you look at this from any half-angle perspective such as off to one side of the cloth's edge, it very much looks like an ethereal representation of a Tibetan monk. And, depending on which angle one chooses, it can appear as mystical as the apparition of the Wizard of Oz or the holographic image of Princess Leia in the first Star Wars. It's an incredible work of art and shows a level of detail which I thought might have taken months to achieve. It's stunning. This one I know the artist - it's Lin Tianmiao and the SAM literature says she's one of China's most progressive women artists. This piece is characterized as a sculpture using thread, photographic imagery, and multimedia.
Sim Shanghai
The next piece I'll call "Sim Shanghai." This is actually two works of art which are also sculptures. The artist photographed city life - people on bikes, cycles, in cars, people walking, people shopping, buildings, bridges, buses with people getting on or off, sports activities, the whole gamut of urban life. He took these photographs and reduced them and printed them on cardboard, which he then cut out in the same shape as the element of city life the image represented. These little "models" of people doing things he then placed in a clear acrylic case about a foot wide and three feet long and a little over a foot high. Inside this case one could look at any angle and see an entire urban civilization carrying on with whatever they were doing. There are no streets or any grid alignment. These little urban slice-of-life cardboard cutouts are randomly arranged to appear almost as if they really are happening now. One can look down, from any side or from below and see a convincing representation of Shanghai life. The cutouts have images on both sides so the city is truly three dimensional. On the other side of a central display explanation of the artist and his work is an identical tableau comprised of identical slice-of-life cutouts and arranged in an identical manner with respect to the individual figures. The only difference is that in this tableau the faces of the people, or the representation of the act they're portraying have a "feeling." In the other tableau everyone is neutral, all the acts are neutral, all the buildings and structures are neutral. In this one all the same elements have personality. The personalities of the individual characters are not all the same - some are clearly not happy, some appear perplexed, some appear dazed and confused, others appear defiant, some of the structures or infrastructure is broken or burning. Again, the level of detail in this work of art alone would take long minutes to appreciate. The overall effect is of "getting" the impact of this change on a lot of people, from each person individually, with the aggregate effect right there in front of the viewer to see at once (in one sitting). Sort of like a sociological snapshot of "before" and "after" the realization of the change. The Chinese are undergoing a fantastic but probably agonizing metamorphosis and this artwork seems to try and capture that. Since I'm not living through it I can't attest to its validity from that perspective, but as an outsider it shows me there's a lot of angst and soul-searching going on.
Snow Sheep
The next work is a pair of photographs which I'll call "The Snow Sheep." In these photographs, the artist first takes a large format picture of the frozen and completely snow-covered landscape near a rock-fall which has some ancient markings. It's a serene landscape and one which evokes the solitude and solace one might need to study the stars or paint that silk landscape. Contemplative and serene. The other photograph is different. These are large format originals enlarged to twenty-four by fourty-eight inches and looking like Cibachrome prints in crispness, detail, purity, and saturation. The landscape is identical, the image shows the same set of fallen rocks with the same boundaries as the other image. They were taken by the same camera from the same location on a day which produced identical lighting conditions. In the second image are the still blood-red, dripping with sinew and muscle, raw and naked backbones of some magical number of sheep - REAL sheep. I can't recall the number, it was either 12, 18 or 20. The number meant something too. These curved, bloddy and butchered backbones are aligned in the snow almost as if they were going headlong directly into the rocks with their ancient markings on them. The snow has been mottled by the blood and fallen muscle. There is nothing showing but the bare backbones but one is aware that a lot of meat and guts were hauled off. Clearly the reality (explained in the accompanying text) is that the sheep were slaughtered elsewhere and brought here. But, the snow speaks of a slaughter and the bare and grisly backbones of these sheep occupy the central plain where in the other photograph that central plain is serene, pure white, and reflective. In this image the central plain is one of carnage, of slaughter, of rape in the sense that the snow has been bloodied by the evidence of what happened. This is the most powerful set of images on display at the SAM exhibit and it is so powerful that I went back to that set of images throughout the three hours I have spent so far at the show. I'll go again. What's compelling about this set of images is not the grisly nature or the obvious disregard for life and landscape, but rather the brutal honesty of the set of circumstances and personal impact this represents. Not everyone is pleased with the way things are evolving in their country. An awful lot of the genetic glue which is China has been built up over multiple millennia and this work of art seems to suggest that some of what's happening now is having a deep and perhaps very negative effect on the Chinese zeitgeist.
One such example which comes to mind is the damning of the Yangtze at the Three Gorges. Thousands of years of Chinese visual art will be now be historic as well as evocative. I, who have never been there, have mixed emotions on the Three Gorges dam. On the one hand I'd dearly love to see the landscape of the art - which I now can't. But, the other hand holds this incredible promise. The Three Gorges hydro plant produces as much electricity as something like eight to ten or our Grand Coulees and Hoovers. Man, that's a lot of electricity! And, I'm a big fan of electricity. More power to the Chinese - literally. And besides which, the Egyptians already did this with their Aswan High Dam, and that was an equal wreck on equally multi-millennia-old cultural artifacts.
Man with the Gun
The final work I'll describe is a video I'll call "Man-with-the-Gun". The SAM exhibition has four video stations, each a set-aside small theater with bench seating for probably six max. Each of the video stations has a DVD player and projected LCD display which creates an eight-by-ten foot theater image. The audio looks like it's piped to be able to support Dolby 5.1 (a few did have some pretty interesting soundtracks). Each of the four theaters has a DVD loop containing anywhere from five to seven individual works, making the whole of the video element some 25 or so separate videos . Each of the video works has a running time of from seven to nineteen minutes, giving a total show running time two to four hours. This one was twelve minutes with a silent soundtrack - that is to say silence. The entire video is shot from the shoulder perspective of a person carrying an automatic hand gun held out in front by the right hand. The perspective only shows the arm, hand and gun and whatever is coming toward or around the front of the person holding the gun. The video starts on a shopping street in what's probably "any city" China. It shows people moving out of the way or stepping aside as the man moves forward but doesn't show any fear or response. The shopping street is probably twelve blocks long, at the end of the block the street opens to a large, modern, multi-story indoor mall. The man-with-the-gun continues up an escalator and into several stores, where, again, people move out of the way but no one looks surprised. The man-with-the-gun leaves the mall and goes down a long ramp towards a subway. The same things happen, people move out of the, a crowd in the distance sees the man and they all move to one side to let him through. The man gets on the subway and moves through the car pointing the gun down and at each of a number of individual passengers. No one does anything but look up and then look back. Finally the man-with-the-gun stopped moving and simply stood in one place while the subway was moving and pointed his gun at a particular passenger. After a minute the passenger starts getting agitated and "shoo's" the gun away with his hand. The man-with-the-gun turns and then turns back pointing at the same irritated passenger. This continues until finally the irritated passenger gets up and finds another seat. The man-with-the-gun gets off the subway and heads up another rampway to the street encountering the same type of crowds moving out of the way as before. This is one of those kinds of either documentaries or experimental films/videos where it's not clear what element - or maybe all - the director/videographer is going for. The disturbing element is not that a man can move through a crowded city pointing a gun in front of him but that no one takes that action as anything other than normal and make accommodation for it. That's disturbing, but then that's probably one of the themes. China has seen too much government intervention into individual lives and whole cities to be surprised by the motion of a man with a gun moving through a city. Especially if it was "official" as I'm sure this would have been perceived, what with the gun and camera both. And maybe that's the point, to illustrate the degree of ennui which has set in with regard to authority. This is a rebellious video because it throws light on something which should be reprehensible but isn't. The silent soundtrack? Deliberate I believe, as proof of the lack of concern or care over this issue. This is one of those works of art which is both brash and subtle simultaneously. That also seems to be a consistent element of many of these works and that would be consistent with the whole Oriental concept of yin-yang.
The really scary thought to me is the notion that these billion-and-a-third Chinese will become as avaricious as us three-hundred-million Americans have and the impact that would have on this planet. We're six percent of the planet's population and yet we consume up to a third of a lot of its resources. The Chinese are a fifth of the population of the planet. There aren't enough resources to support an avariciousness like that.
Other than that, did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln? I'm expecting a couple of items which will allow me to test another notion using electroluminescent wire. I'll have spent a fair amount of moolah to enable this "proof of concept," but if it works I'll have struck something which I think has potential for exhibition. I'm pretty much always willing to waste a few dollars on an idea. The number of hours an artist or craftsman or tinkerer or diddler spends working on a project or the endless dollars and extra hours others spend on executing an idea never ceases to inspire me. What exactly is it about humans that causes us to want to "create?" On the one hand it's a great solution to entropy - keep creating complicated new things thereby adding order to chaos. It's pure anti-entropic output, human BTU's spent creating something out of nothing. Think of the trillions of words which have been created, the endless tomes of stories and tales and imaginations? Think of the level of brainwave activity. Imagine what the MRI's would look like of the artists hanging out with Picasso in that bar in Montparnasse (or was it Montmartre?). Just looking at the numbers in my own music collection stuns me. All these creations from all these people with all these other people providing the music and voice!
Remember back when I was complaining that I was going to miss the thunderstorms of the East (and in this case East is east of the Rockies)? Well, fear not, for I have discovered that Seattle has thunderstorms with lightning and thunder and hail and all the rest of the environmental elements including the green skies. They're rare and usually come and go quickly but still it's great to realize I'm not missing one of my most favorite outrages of nature. In fact, even more cool is the discovery that a huge number of the lightning strikes which happen around here happen on a particular mountain in the westernmost front range of the Cascades - and I happen to have a front-row view of it from the house tower. Don't ask what I'd do with a good Canon EOS and a 500mm lens, ask instead where I'd get the money.
Ever thought of actually "canning" your ideas? You've got an idea but presently you don't have the means/time/whatever to execute that idea. Instead of just putting it in the back of your mind, get a small can - say a used tomato paste can - and cover it with a stick-on label on which you've written the essence of your idea - inside the can you could even store pieces of paper with details or drawings. I may consider strongly implementing this in some form for the simple reason that an idea in your head is still just an idea. An idea you've canned has some tangibility to it - you can pick it up and toy with it, move it around on a shelf with other canned ideas. One day decide to "open" one of the cans.
Okey dokey. You've got a current dose of what's been on my mind of late. It's hard to fathom the notion that I've got infinite time on my hands and in reality don't have enough time to do all the things I've got underway. It helps that for some genetic or psychological reason I've got what seems like an unlimited energy source. At times it seems like I'm some white hole for the anti-entropy force. And on that note - ciao.
Chas
I decided to leave quite a bit early as I needed to pick up some postcards and have been thwarted in trying to find them in drugstores, dime stores and the rest of the local shops. I knew, though, that one of the news vendors at Pike Place Market had an extensive and representative collection of post cards and ostensibly that was my first stop.
I'd walked down from our house to Morgan Junction as much to get into the habit (that's where the local monorail station will be) as to get some exercise and enjoy a lull in the much-needed rain we've been having. I stopped at Tully's for a drip coffee (which means it was just ordinary coffee, nothing fancy or requiring steam or espresso). Got it, added half-and-half, and headed across the street to the bus stop. There were already three other people waiting, as it turns out, for the same bus as I was going to take. We struck up a conversation - first about the much needed rain, and then about how much more convenient it would be if the monorail were already built and running. The woman said she didn't like the monorail and had voted against it. One of the other men said he did like it and had voted repeatedly for it. The other guy was listening to headphones connected to a CD player (though he did nod his head when I arrived to acknowledge my "hello"). I said I, too, wanted the monorail and that the three of us seemed to represent the city-wide perspective of 66 percent in favor and 33 percent opposed. The woman smiled at that remark and we moved on.
The monorail-approving man then started to talk about senior citizens, the infirm, Native Americans and other minorities and we all agreed that we needed to do much more work for all the above, but particularly for the elderly and infirm, especially with respect to public transportation. The gent then started to tell me that he was on the Mayor's senior citizen advisory council and they had just broken ground for a new, six-story, senior center right behind the Pike Place Market to serve both the downtown elderly and the many homeless who congregate in that high-tourist spot of town. Next thing is the bus arrives. I let the lady get on first and the other two guys let me get on next. I head for the back, where I almost always head, and sat down in the back bench seat on the right side. The gent I'd been talking to comes toward the back and sits in the opposite corner of the back bench seat. I remark that I really like sitting in the back, he acknowledges same and says it gives one a much better view out the windows and of all the other folks in the bus. I concur.
Northern Exposure
He then introduces himself as Robert "Sonny" Nicholson and says he was one of the actors in the TV series "Northern Exposure" <http://www.tvtome.com/NorthernExposure/guide.html>. When he says that, I look him carefully in the face and say "yes." He played the roll of the cook in several episodes, and was cast in a variety of roles for the five-year run of the series. He is a Native American from Montana and has been in a few other movies, television shows and commercials. He says he's still getting residuals from the TV show, which is now in re-runs here in the U.S. (Hallmark network) and is making the rounds of nearly every country with a television system overseas. He also says he's got 1,000 acres back at his homestead in Montana, just east of Great Falls, and that all this has made him very comfortable. He tells me he's got a nice house on Fauntleroy Way, basically around the corner from where we caught the bus.
For the rest of the ride downtown we exchange stories and comments about "Northern Exposure." Sonny gives me some insight into the real-life actors who played some of the main characters and where they are now. He tells me that a number of cast members have died but that Hollywood is working with screenwriters and producers getting ready for a movie version of the series. The show was filmed in Roslyn, Washington, just north of I-90 and about half-way between Seattle and Yakima. It's high in the Cascades. The town is real, the town as seen on the TV show looks exactly the same as the real town because they used the real town for location shooting, covering up one sign with another and making a few changes to local street names. There was also a nearly complete set inside a film studio in Redmond (yes, THAT Redmond, the hometown of the Microsoft campus and the global domination headquarters of the Evil Empire). The outdoor scenes along the creek and in other places were shot nearby in woods and along creeks which naturally flow through the Cascades around Roslyn.
I was fascinated by Sonny's insight and participation. I was a huge fan of Northern Exposure, though I never had the time and didn't even know it existed during its prime-time run from 1990 through 1995. Basically I caught it on the rebound on Bravo at the time beginning in the late '90's. What I like about it was the simple and uncomplicated setting and the relatively deep and philosophical story lines. It was all about the people, basically, and since it was set in the wilderness in Alaska there were relatively simple lives being led, but, even simple lives can get complicated and that's what I think drew me to the series.
Sonny continued to go over some of the plot lines and I kept asking him about this or that character and if they were acting or were really like in person. At one point I told him "you're famous." He denied that and said instead it was the best job he'd ever had. That he would wake up in the morning rearing to get to the set because it was such fun and the crew and cast were having such a grand time. That part of the production showed through in the series - it did, in fact, seem that the entire cast and behind the scenes crew and production staff were having a blast.
I also asked him lots of questions about the mayor and various council members because in addition to being a senior citizen advisory member of the mayor's staff, Sonny also sits on one of the oversight boards for the Pike Place Market - which is run and managed as a non-profit organization overseeing the use of a huge number of historic properties. He and I exchanged and shared opinions about the various present and past council members and the various issues associated with the Market. When it came time to get off the bus, Sonny says to me, "come with me, I'll show you some things." At that point I had no reason not to tag along. I was way early to meet my friend at the CoCA and had intended on schlepping around the market anyway. We get off, wander north on First Avenue to Stewart Street and then turn left and head down a steep set of stairs just around the corner.
Inside is the existing senior center and Pike Place food bank. It was Easter Sunday so the kitchen was really busy getting ready for the festive lunch which looked like it would be baked chicken breasts with about a half-dozen side dishes. As we wander around the crowded and nook-and-cranny filled mezzanine level of the senior center about every other person yells out "hey, Sonny, how ya been" or "whatcha up to." I certainly was impressed. Sonny introduces me to another senior, a very distinguished African-American gentleman, who Sonny says is involved in the Folklife Festival. Since that's one of my favorite Spring treats I ask a few questions beginning with "are you a musician?" "No, I'm a former promoter." I say, "well, that's certainly appropriate isn't it." Sonny is heading for yet another group of people and pulling at me to follow so I bid the former promoter adieu but we both agree that I'll probably see him on the Seattle Center grounds come Folklife Fest week. Now, I really am looking forward because I suspect he'll give me more inside skinny and get me into places during the festival that I might not even know about.
After about thirty minutes of "I'd like to introduce you to..." and short conversations with probably a dozen folks, I tell Sonny it's now getting time for me to get some of my errands done before my museum date. He asks where I am first heading and I said the Market to get some postcards and he insists on walking through the Market with me. The same thing happens at the Market. We start at the outside stall end and head towards the main entrance and along the way just about every other vendor yells out his name and they exchange a few pleasantries and he asks "how's business" and "is there anything I should know." We stop at one food stand to borrow a pen and he and I exchange notepad paper with phone numbers and addresses. Sonny then heads for one of the Market offices and I head for the news stand.
It was incredibly enlightening and inspirational to be shepherded around by Sonny in the Senior Center and the Market. He's about as outgoing and gregarious as me but is ten full years older. Nearly everyone at the Senior Center was at least ten years older than me and I must tell you that I felt really odd and out of place. It's been a long time since I've been somewhere where it was clear and obvious that I was the "junior" kid on the block. It's not the "youth" thing which grabbed me so much as the enthusiasm and verve these folks had and the really positive and almost reverent feeling they had for Sonny. I had concluded at the bus stop that this gentleman was a true kindred spirit of mine. We both had this tenacious and unrelenting attitude that people were good and worthy and that we ought to help in some manner. He and I even discussed the whole notion of Marxism and helping out one's neighbor and giving time back to the community. What a boost to my spirits.
Plus, like me, he had a great run with his career and did it the whole time having fun and looking forward to going to work. I did that. For nearly thirty years I'd ask myself occasionally if there was anywhere else or any other organization I'd want to move to - for money, or more responsibility, or fame, or the imposing challenge - whatever the "want" of the moment was. And, for thirty years I kept answering myself by saying "you've got everything you want right here - even when you're being admonished, you get to do great nifty things." That's a hell of a feeling to wake up and have to go off and make a living and do what you want and be happy doing it. It's almost like Sonny and me somehow managed to cheat the system. But, damn it, folks. That's the way it's SUPPOSED to be. It shouldn't be or feel odd that there are people for whom it really does happen. Anyway, like I said, Sonny was a treat to hang with. I got my postcards and headed for CoCA, giving me a chance to cross town through Belltown and the old Denny Regrade area.
I won't go into the art at CoCA just here, rather I'll comment using photographs I took and post those relatively soon. There's two really involving exhibits there - true collaborative works of interactive art and sociology. Both are much more involving with more than just oneself. I had a great time with Manuel <http://buffoonery.org/blog/> (same guy who was at the Frye with Samantha <http://gingerlee.blogspot.com/> and me). He's off to visit a friend in Seoul for a few weeks. Since I was there last, Seoul has sprouted a go-everywhere subway system that I'd love to try out. It's one complicated, complex, humongous, urban density with some stunningly beautiful neighborhoods, vistas, bridges, temples and markets - that's not even including the new, sexy, high rises. I sure had a great time in Seoul when I was in the Army. About every other weekend or time off I was crawling all over that city. It's more like Paris, or Madrid than Tokyo in layout and feel. I'd enjoy another excursion in Korea.
<brief Korea excursion>
Despite being drafted and working as battalion clerk, which had its own set of fun properties, living in Bupyong, a nearby village (small city) to Seoul was the best part of that leg of my Army stint. But then no one would ever imagine me sitting at home in a strange new place anyway. From Bupyong, it was a thirty minute train ride (yes, they had lots of trains which ran everywhere - still do - it's not just Europe, it's Asia too - we're the only ones who fail to grasp how useful, convenient and fun a train transportation system is) to Inchon where I could gaze out over the Yellow Sea and imagine Beijing one time zone away, but basically straight west of me. Back then (1971-72) it was known as Peking, and between it and the evil-nuclear-do-badders north of me (N. Korea), I felt that I was sandwiched between the two "baddest" countries on Earth, but it still didn't graze me. I thought it was unimaginably cool that I could almost "see" Beijing. Plus, I knew from having lived there a while that no one wanted to destroy either Korea - the country, the peninsula hanging off the Chinese mainland - was simply too mythical, too old, too much tied up with the multi-thousand-year history of the Chinese and Japanese dynasties and its own meritocracy. I think Korea has been a thorn in the sides of China and Japan for ever - literally. I think that part of Asia (or the Far East) is one of the most impressive outposts of evolution this planet has come up with yet. Korea impressed me no end. It's cultured and quaint at the same time. It's trés moderne and ancien au meme temps. It doesn't have China's mountains or Japan's volcanoes, but it does have this hilly peninsula feeling about it with some hellacious summer torrential downpours (making Houston seem veritably dry in comparison) and sunrises and sunsets over seas. Put me down as one who always was drawn toward the Orient and who, when finally seeing it in person, was only more drawn. Ever since I was a kid in LA (younger than eight) I have had this hankering to see the Yangtze River and the Steppes of Mongolia. Powerful places. So, anytime I know someone who is actually going to be in this place I'm drawn towards, I am even more interested since I've now got someone I can ply with questions. For me, if I know someone and they've been someplace I haven't been but want to get to, I can ask them questions, which because I know them and they know me, can be honed in meaning and enriched in detail so that I can actually get a real image and physical feel for the place. Doesn't beat being there, but way better than any other method of learning about something. That's why I'm always talking to strangers, I never know where they've been and more often than not I learn something I wanted to learn.
</end brief Korea excursion>
Between Past and Future: New China Photography & Video
The art I do want to delve into is the modern/contemporary/revolutionary photography and video from China. The Seattle Art Museum's current show - "Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China," <http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/exhibitDetail.asp?WHEN=&eventID=7771>. Most of the artists seemed to hail either form Beijing or Shanghai with a few from Shenzhen or Chongqing and lots and lots of others from small villages in the west and north. Do not be misled by believing that the Chinese are merely running robot machines and are basically the new human widget maker. These are and have been for a hand's worth of millennia some of the smartest, most erudite and complex people on the planet. The 21st Century Chinese are no less than that and they are so much more than we can imagine. It's true, their government gives some of us the willies and the policies of the government of China - probably going back as far as one would like - have almost always been opposed to the individual. Notwithstanding, there have been and are now a huge number of imaginative, brave, dramatic, and challenging individuals in China. Good grief, with nearly one-and-a-third billion individuals, how could thousands to millions of them NOT be imaginative, brave, dramatic and challenging. By the way, that's four times as many citizens as America has. For every New York or LA or Chicago of ours they've got four.
There is a very strong current of anti-authoritarianism running through the show. Beijing and Shanghai are changing rapidly and much of the photography and video tries to either capture, interpret, or rail against this rapid change. There are a lot of currents of the many incarnations of China - the various dynasties, the Cultural Revolution, the whole new Tiananmen Square incident, and the recent unfurling of a level of independence and the impact of emerging soon as the world's largest economy. Much of the art which is presented is reflective, providing only a mirror - sometimes a really fine front-surface mirror - but really only a recounting done with a fidelity which creates believability. A few of the works take a very opposite approach and present serious and sometimes shocking or even offensive partisan points of view. Many of the artists whose works are being shown have spent quality time of their lives behind bars as prisoners of the state or have been ostracized or otherwise tainted as citizens by their country's government. That there are these many who are alive and thriving or trying to emerge as artists proves to me that the human spirit itself will outlast tyranny even if one believes the tyranny is absolute. It's about time we - the citizens of planet Earth - had a new set of heroes. For the longest, longest time it was the Americans. And, to a great extent in a huge number of areas we still are the heroes. But, I'm really happy to welcome my new heroes - the imaginative and daring new Chinese individuals whose time is dawning. The dragon is awake and I like it. For my two cents, being an American is about being a free individual. Even if the reality is that we're "not" that free, the "ideal" of America is that the individual can do anything while being a conscientious and responsible citizen and I'll allow also being a "god" fearing person. That means one has ethic and moral fiber and abides in conscience. But beyond that one is free to explore an amazing array of possibilities. To think that there may soon be twelve-hundred-and-fifty thousand million new individuals who have the ideals of Americans is an exciting prospect. No, I'm not dismissing all the human rights, or environmental awareness issues of China, but with regard to these matters we Americans can not cast the first stone. We're simply and equally guilty on all counts. No, it's the awakening of the individual that's the illuminating element here. The curators at Seattle Art Museum are to be lauded and congratulated for bringing together such a diverse, compelling and involving set of works as these from New China. Really! Anyone in the Northwest who doesn't stop in at SAM is missing out on an important look into the evolving Chinese soul and a vision of their cultural future.
It's all visual and much of it requires a concentration and level of examination which can be almost conscious. That's probably to be expected. The history of Oriental art - drawings, paintings, poetry, sculpture, furniture, buildings, gardens, clothing - shows an almost beyond-belief attention to the most minute of details with elaborate embellishment taking place in the oddest of places. The same is true of the contemporary Chinese visual and motion-image art. I'll try and describe a few of the works which managed to burn some deep images even on a first-look basis.
I'll describe the works without knowing the name (in most instances) of the artist or the work. That's why I'm going see "Between Past and Future" several more times - there's a lot to grok at the show.
The Tibetan
The first piece I'll describe I'll call "The Tibetan." The Tibetan is the face of a Tibetan monk photo transfered to a sheet of either linen or muslin which hangs from the ceiling and is about ten feet wide and maybe fifteen feet from top to bottom. The cloth appears to have been prepared with a photo emulsion so the image of the monk's face is as finely detailed and subtle in its gradations as if it were a fine silver-halide print. It's black-and-white. As one approaches the hanging image one sees these little dots randomly placed directly in the area of the monk's central face. Moving closer shows that there are probably a handful-and-a-half hundred of these dots. Looking at the dots closely shows that they are knots in a single thread. Looking on the other side of the cloth shows that these individual strands of thread come out and get woven, all of them, into the characteristic single braided strand of hair which emerges from the back of a monk's head. This braided thread is long enough that it becomes completely braided, braid after braid themselves braided together into finally a single "rope." The braided thread is probably thirty feet long. When you look at this from any half-angle perspective such as off to one side of the cloth's edge, it very much looks like an ethereal representation of a Tibetan monk. And, depending on which angle one chooses, it can appear as mystical as the apparition of the Wizard of Oz or the holographic image of Princess Leia in the first Star Wars. It's an incredible work of art and shows a level of detail which I thought might have taken months to achieve. It's stunning. This one I know the artist - it's Lin Tianmiao and the SAM literature says she's one of China's most progressive women artists. This piece is characterized as a sculpture using thread, photographic imagery, and multimedia.
Sim Shanghai
The next piece I'll call "Sim Shanghai." This is actually two works of art which are also sculptures. The artist photographed city life - people on bikes, cycles, in cars, people walking, people shopping, buildings, bridges, buses with people getting on or off, sports activities, the whole gamut of urban life. He took these photographs and reduced them and printed them on cardboard, which he then cut out in the same shape as the element of city life the image represented. These little "models" of people doing things he then placed in a clear acrylic case about a foot wide and three feet long and a little over a foot high. Inside this case one could look at any angle and see an entire urban civilization carrying on with whatever they were doing. There are no streets or any grid alignment. These little urban slice-of-life cardboard cutouts are randomly arranged to appear almost as if they really are happening now. One can look down, from any side or from below and see a convincing representation of Shanghai life. The cutouts have images on both sides so the city is truly three dimensional. On the other side of a central display explanation of the artist and his work is an identical tableau comprised of identical slice-of-life cutouts and arranged in an identical manner with respect to the individual figures. The only difference is that in this tableau the faces of the people, or the representation of the act they're portraying have a "feeling." In the other tableau everyone is neutral, all the acts are neutral, all the buildings and structures are neutral. In this one all the same elements have personality. The personalities of the individual characters are not all the same - some are clearly not happy, some appear perplexed, some appear dazed and confused, others appear defiant, some of the structures or infrastructure is broken or burning. Again, the level of detail in this work of art alone would take long minutes to appreciate. The overall effect is of "getting" the impact of this change on a lot of people, from each person individually, with the aggregate effect right there in front of the viewer to see at once (in one sitting). Sort of like a sociological snapshot of "before" and "after" the realization of the change. The Chinese are undergoing a fantastic but probably agonizing metamorphosis and this artwork seems to try and capture that. Since I'm not living through it I can't attest to its validity from that perspective, but as an outsider it shows me there's a lot of angst and soul-searching going on.
Snow Sheep
The next work is a pair of photographs which I'll call "The Snow Sheep." In these photographs, the artist first takes a large format picture of the frozen and completely snow-covered landscape near a rock-fall which has some ancient markings. It's a serene landscape and one which evokes the solitude and solace one might need to study the stars or paint that silk landscape. Contemplative and serene. The other photograph is different. These are large format originals enlarged to twenty-four by fourty-eight inches and looking like Cibachrome prints in crispness, detail, purity, and saturation. The landscape is identical, the image shows the same set of fallen rocks with the same boundaries as the other image. They were taken by the same camera from the same location on a day which produced identical lighting conditions. In the second image are the still blood-red, dripping with sinew and muscle, raw and naked backbones of some magical number of sheep - REAL sheep. I can't recall the number, it was either 12, 18 or 20. The number meant something too. These curved, bloddy and butchered backbones are aligned in the snow almost as if they were going headlong directly into the rocks with their ancient markings on them. The snow has been mottled by the blood and fallen muscle. There is nothing showing but the bare backbones but one is aware that a lot of meat and guts were hauled off. Clearly the reality (explained in the accompanying text) is that the sheep were slaughtered elsewhere and brought here. But, the snow speaks of a slaughter and the bare and grisly backbones of these sheep occupy the central plain where in the other photograph that central plain is serene, pure white, and reflective. In this image the central plain is one of carnage, of slaughter, of rape in the sense that the snow has been bloodied by the evidence of what happened. This is the most powerful set of images on display at the SAM exhibit and it is so powerful that I went back to that set of images throughout the three hours I have spent so far at the show. I'll go again. What's compelling about this set of images is not the grisly nature or the obvious disregard for life and landscape, but rather the brutal honesty of the set of circumstances and personal impact this represents. Not everyone is pleased with the way things are evolving in their country. An awful lot of the genetic glue which is China has been built up over multiple millennia and this work of art seems to suggest that some of what's happening now is having a deep and perhaps very negative effect on the Chinese zeitgeist.
One such example which comes to mind is the damning of the Yangtze at the Three Gorges. Thousands of years of Chinese visual art will be now be historic as well as evocative. I, who have never been there, have mixed emotions on the Three Gorges dam. On the one hand I'd dearly love to see the landscape of the art - which I now can't. But, the other hand holds this incredible promise. The Three Gorges hydro plant produces as much electricity as something like eight to ten or our Grand Coulees and Hoovers. Man, that's a lot of electricity! And, I'm a big fan of electricity. More power to the Chinese - literally. And besides which, the Egyptians already did this with their Aswan High Dam, and that was an equal wreck on equally multi-millennia-old cultural artifacts.
Man with the Gun
The final work I'll describe is a video I'll call "Man-with-the-Gun". The SAM exhibition has four video stations, each a set-aside small theater with bench seating for probably six max. Each of the video stations has a DVD player and projected LCD display which creates an eight-by-ten foot theater image. The audio looks like it's piped to be able to support Dolby 5.1 (a few did have some pretty interesting soundtracks). Each of the four theaters has a DVD loop containing anywhere from five to seven individual works, making the whole of the video element some 25 or so separate videos . Each of the video works has a running time of from seven to nineteen minutes, giving a total show running time two to four hours. This one was twelve minutes with a silent soundtrack - that is to say silence. The entire video is shot from the shoulder perspective of a person carrying an automatic hand gun held out in front by the right hand. The perspective only shows the arm, hand and gun and whatever is coming toward or around the front of the person holding the gun. The video starts on a shopping street in what's probably "any city" China. It shows people moving out of the way or stepping aside as the man moves forward but doesn't show any fear or response. The shopping street is probably twelve blocks long, at the end of the block the street opens to a large, modern, multi-story indoor mall. The man-with-the-gun continues up an escalator and into several stores, where, again, people move out of the way but no one looks surprised. The man-with-the-gun leaves the mall and goes down a long ramp towards a subway. The same things happen, people move out of the, a crowd in the distance sees the man and they all move to one side to let him through. The man gets on the subway and moves through the car pointing the gun down and at each of a number of individual passengers. No one does anything but look up and then look back. Finally the man-with-the-gun stopped moving and simply stood in one place while the subway was moving and pointed his gun at a particular passenger. After a minute the passenger starts getting agitated and "shoo's" the gun away with his hand. The man-with-the-gun turns and then turns back pointing at the same irritated passenger. This continues until finally the irritated passenger gets up and finds another seat. The man-with-the-gun gets off the subway and heads up another rampway to the street encountering the same type of crowds moving out of the way as before. This is one of those kinds of either documentaries or experimental films/videos where it's not clear what element - or maybe all - the director/videographer is going for. The disturbing element is not that a man can move through a crowded city pointing a gun in front of him but that no one takes that action as anything other than normal and make accommodation for it. That's disturbing, but then that's probably one of the themes. China has seen too much government intervention into individual lives and whole cities to be surprised by the motion of a man with a gun moving through a city. Especially if it was "official" as I'm sure this would have been perceived, what with the gun and camera both. And maybe that's the point, to illustrate the degree of ennui which has set in with regard to authority. This is a rebellious video because it throws light on something which should be reprehensible but isn't. The silent soundtrack? Deliberate I believe, as proof of the lack of concern or care over this issue. This is one of those works of art which is both brash and subtle simultaneously. That also seems to be a consistent element of many of these works and that would be consistent with the whole Oriental concept of yin-yang.
The really scary thought to me is the notion that these billion-and-a-third Chinese will become as avaricious as us three-hundred-million Americans have and the impact that would have on this planet. We're six percent of the planet's population and yet we consume up to a third of a lot of its resources. The Chinese are a fifth of the population of the planet. There aren't enough resources to support an avariciousness like that.
Other than that, did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln? I'm expecting a couple of items which will allow me to test another notion using electroluminescent wire. I'll have spent a fair amount of moolah to enable this "proof of concept," but if it works I'll have struck something which I think has potential for exhibition. I'm pretty much always willing to waste a few dollars on an idea. The number of hours an artist or craftsman or tinkerer or diddler spends working on a project or the endless dollars and extra hours others spend on executing an idea never ceases to inspire me. What exactly is it about humans that causes us to want to "create?" On the one hand it's a great solution to entropy - keep creating complicated new things thereby adding order to chaos. It's pure anti-entropic output, human BTU's spent creating something out of nothing. Think of the trillions of words which have been created, the endless tomes of stories and tales and imaginations? Think of the level of brainwave activity. Imagine what the MRI's would look like of the artists hanging out with Picasso in that bar in Montparnasse (or was it Montmartre?). Just looking at the numbers in my own music collection stuns me. All these creations from all these people with all these other people providing the music and voice!
Remember back when I was complaining that I was going to miss the thunderstorms of the East (and in this case East is east of the Rockies)? Well, fear not, for I have discovered that Seattle has thunderstorms with lightning and thunder and hail and all the rest of the environmental elements including the green skies. They're rare and usually come and go quickly but still it's great to realize I'm not missing one of my most favorite outrages of nature. In fact, even more cool is the discovery that a huge number of the lightning strikes which happen around here happen on a particular mountain in the westernmost front range of the Cascades - and I happen to have a front-row view of it from the house tower. Don't ask what I'd do with a good Canon EOS and a 500mm lens, ask instead where I'd get the money.
Ever thought of actually "canning" your ideas? You've got an idea but presently you don't have the means/time/whatever to execute that idea. Instead of just putting it in the back of your mind, get a small can - say a used tomato paste can - and cover it with a stick-on label on which you've written the essence of your idea - inside the can you could even store pieces of paper with details or drawings. I may consider strongly implementing this in some form for the simple reason that an idea in your head is still just an idea. An idea you've canned has some tangibility to it - you can pick it up and toy with it, move it around on a shelf with other canned ideas. One day decide to "open" one of the cans.
Okey dokey. You've got a current dose of what's been on my mind of late. It's hard to fathom the notion that I've got infinite time on my hands and in reality don't have enough time to do all the things I've got underway. It helps that for some genetic or psychological reason I've got what seems like an unlimited energy source. At times it seems like I'm some white hole for the anti-entropy force. And on that note - ciao.
Chas
Posted: Tue - March 29, 2005 at 08:55 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM