I know I've kind of neglected my blog, but I just had to share my joy with everyone! I just got news from Paris that Pleasure Factory (a.k.a. Kuai Le Gong Chang) has been selected under the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival!

Can you believe it? After editing this movie for the past few months in my little room in Punggol, it's now going to premiere in France!

Just to update you guys on the work front, I've joined Zhao Wei Films, Eric Khoo's company, as a freelance director... yes, I've been selling my soul to do commercials which I won't say which because it's too embarrassing, and I'm also going to direct my first feature in September, tentatively titled "Invisible Children" Yes, the title is pretty lame, I took it from my previous installation, but I had to submit it quickly to meet the funding deadline. Right now I'm currently working on Cake's new production which opens next week at the Esplanade Theatre Studio on Thursday, 26 April...so do come and support if you are free. Then I'll be jetting off to Seoul, Pakistan, Mumbai and Cairo for a commercial shoot, and then off to Cannes! And then rush back for the Arts Fest with my collaboration with Mark and Angela.


In the pics: Yang Kuei-mei, Loo Zihan (a very talented director himself), Ekachai (director and partner in crime), Ananda Everingham (the Brad Pitt of Thai cinema), Izzy Chen ( a very talented animator!) and Joe Rabbit.

It's 4.40am in the morning. I have to leave for school at 7.30am and I am still up doing work. I've been feeling rather depressed of late.

The quality of my life is pretty low now... Yes, it is rewarding when I finish editing Pleasure Factory and see it come to life, or doing projects that let me travel to New York. But so what?

I miss my friends who've I've neglected for the pursuit of fame and fortune. I question my desires... Just last week I was having lunch with Eric Khoo, Royston Tan, the head of MDA, Raintree, Frameworks and so on at Goodwood , and I was thinking I made it! I'm finally getting to where I want to be! But somehow, I also felt like I was lying to myself. I wanted it so badly and I got it...so what's next? More desires, more illusions to reassure myself that I mean something, more sufferings, more pain.

Many choices and many mistakes. I've been talking  a lot with Mark Chan and Ekachai, both successful people in their own fields, and both quite different from each other. I'm learning so much.

Hope and abandonment...

I'm glad I have Joe and Miaovin and David and Alf and my family to keep me rooted to reality...if not, I would have blown my brains off by now.

Thank you all for coming to the opening and making it a success! And for those who couldn't make it, here's a short clip on YouTube. You can also catch the making of this installation on 19 Feb 2007 at 9.30pm on SPUR, ArtsCentral. It's a half an hour programme that details the exhibition from conception to opening night. I'm now going to take a well-deserved 1-day break before I start editing Pleasure Factory and preparing to shoot my new one next week. Yay! I have no life!

Dear friends, please come for my opening at 72-13 tomorrow at 7.30pm! No need to RSVP, just come! It'll be a good time to catch up too... I haven't seen some of you in ages!!!

And to David, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Missing you!

Finally, I'm stealing a few minutes to post something. It was a busy 2006 for me, and I've been doing projects non-stop. Right now, I'm editing Pleasure Factory, my first feature with Ekachai, and at the same time creating my last installation for the year "Signs, Omens and Relics of Faith" which will open next Wed at 72-13 in Mohd Sultan (yes, I'm moving on until I'm rich enough to create something that I need not compromise on). I'm collaborating with Miss Izzy (Isabella aka Sarong Party Girl blogger, who I met on the Pleasure Factory film shoot) on that...she's an amazing girl who is not only a talented animator, but also intelligent and reminds me very much of Nahsie Pooh when I first met her in NYP Yishun Campus a thousand years ago.

I also just came back from Hong Kong with Joe and my family. We went there to celebrate Xmas and New Year with my sis and Karnan, my bro-in-law, who now live and work there. HK is beautiful, and I'm very tempted to re-locate there if I can. I was so bloody inspired the whole time, the city pulses with so much life and energy. Now I know how Nicholas, my missing hamster, felt every time he raved about the Pearl of the Orient. HK...I MISS YOU!

I am also working on another feature film called the Lucky 7 project initiated by Sun Koh, and I haven't started planning for that. I've been studying Fassbinder and Ozon through the DVDs I bought in HK... I'm so tempted to copy them cuz they are such geniuses. All I need now are actors who can give emotional truth to any ridiculous situation I throw at them.

Anyway, I need to go off again to create my publicity flyers for my exhibition at 72-13. Here are some videos I just uploaded to youtube. Enjoy! I will write a more detailed entry the next time!

Waking the Fluorescent Lion (Latest work at the National Museum of S'pore. WARNING: 7 min Long and Silent and meant to be seen in the gallery space)

The Ephemeral Body

A Psychoanalytical Neo-Feminist Film

Sublime Monsters and Virtual Children

Imelda Goes to Singapore

Virgo (collaboration with Ng Yi-Sheng)

kami/kaze: a correspondence (collaboration with Ng Yi-Sheng)

I've managed to steal some time today to update my journal. I have been so busy this year that I haven't had much time to breathe and reflect on my life...so I guess sorting out my pictures that I've taken the past year is actually quite a meaningful exercise; it puts perspective to things. I have almost a billion gigabytes worth of images and video in my archive ever since I bought that small Creative mp4 camcorder...I'm still figuring out how to upload those videos cuz there are some very interesting footages like Alfian's birthday party and other weird stuff that I shot whenever I feel like committing it to my (virtual) memory. My hard disk is almost like a part of my brain, if it ever crashes it will almost be like suffering a severe form of amnesia...a prospect I'm not looking forward to, so I have been backing up quite religiously.

Teaching has been quite good this semester, my NAFA students are producing some very interesting and beautiful works. My Lasalle students this semester are a very interesting too, there's a Swedish student, Louise, and some Indonesian students. Classes in Lasalle just started, but somehow, I'm looking forward to what they will come up with in my class.

Here are the production pics from Queen Ping. This was probably the most fun collaboration thus far. Natalie and Sharon are probably the best people to work with...they have become family to me. What you can't see from these pics are the thousands of ping pong balls hanging above the audience. I bullied the Esplanade crew to put it up for me...hehe! but they did such a marvelous job!

Some images from the multimedia clips in Queen Ping starring Rizman Putra, Michael Corbidge, Norlinah Mohd and Nora Samosir.

I was involved in Mobile too, and I've managed to make some very good friends from all over Asia: Rody Vera, Mailes, Tua, Jaa, Reina and Tetsuo.

Another collaboration with Cake Theatre. This was Yolanda's Fever. Also very fun and crazy: Got lion dance, bagpipe players, bald malay guy playing Yolanda, Wushu boys, black mushrooms, Japanese dolphins and German seal.

Fared, Rizman and if I'm not wrong, the up-and-coming Siti Khalijah Zainal at the Atrium in Dhoby Ghaut for Yolanda's Fever.

I managed to celebrate my 26th birthday. JH and Joe cleaned my pig sty of a home so that we could have a nice small gathering. Thanks guys!

As my close friends all know, I'm a closet gizmo/techno geek. Here are my equipment. Yes, second to the right is a 22mp Hasselblad camera which was kindly loaned to me by Shriro.

Celebrating Mother's Day and my mother's 50th birthday. Miaovin and I brought our beautiful long-suffering mamas to Crystal Jade.

Finally! My first art magazine cover....well, it's not Art Forum, but who cares, I was ecstatic when I found out from the Australian curators. 

This year I had a few press coverage: (from left) Changi Express, Career Central, Straits Times and IS magazine. I usually don't keep track of them, but my mother cuts them all out and saves them in a nice folder in her secret cupboard which I found out recently. Boo hoo! She does notice my work after all!

Joe and I went to Bangkok for a night because I had to see some film transfer that Ekachai and I did at the lab for our new movie, Pleasure Factory. We were treated like royalty there, we had our own personal chauffeur to drive us around, courtesy of the GMM conglomerate. It was so bloody exciting to see clips of the test we did on the big screen! Yes, I will invite all of you guys for the premiere, if the film doesn't get banned first. Keke!

After Bangkok, I then flew to the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. I stayed at the same hotel as Djinn (director for Perth), Gary Goh (producer and Asst. Director for Royston's 4:30), Saw Teong Hin (Malaysian director for Princess of Mount Ledang) as well as a few others from Thailand and Indonesia. Quite fun, and very educational. I realise making movies is a tough business, and I may not have what it takes. Ekachai on the other hand, is truly a professional. He can pitch our film non-stop for thousands of European producers for the whole day with equal attention and enthusiasm.

Managed to catch at least 3hrs of sightseeing in Switzerland. The rest of the time we spent editing and talking to European investors.

I'm currently editing a short film starring Chuan Yang which will hopefully be finished in October. So all you Chuan Yang fans out there, keep a lookout - there's the obligatory shower scene. Sorry, but I snipped off the part where you can see everything, cuz I want people to concentrate on the story. heh heh....

"Imelda Goes to Singapore" is a short film which will be a part of my Singapore Biennale piece. Nora Samosir plays Imelda Marcos who comes to Singapore to work as a maid. Do look out for it in September.

And here's the publicity for Pleasure Factory which is currently in production. The footages are much more raw and less WKW in real life, but for the sake of our European investors, we had to glam it up a bit. The trailer we did was pretty R-rated, but I'm quite excited at how this monster will finally turn out to be. Ekachai and I are trying to avoid the typical art-directed look of Asian films in PF. You know, I think I do enjoy making films a lot.

Okie, I better get back to work. I have another film project with the National Museum which will feature some really cool local athletes. Will keep you guys updated!

I haven't been updating cuz I've been so busy with Queen Ping. Do come and support the show! It opens this Thursday and only runs for 3 shows...tickets are running out fast. I really love Natalie Hennedige's work, and I think she's one of the most exciting young director to emerge from the arts scene here. I do perform in a small segment of this show (urgh! I couldn't turn down Natalie...esp. when I love her to death...and Sharon too) Here are some lovely designs done by David:

What I have been doing lately: I woke up, and rolled out of bed onto the north-east line. I looked north, I looked south, I decided to walk south. When I was walking south, the train brought me to Orchard, and Yisheng was in the poetry section of Kinokuniya. I said "Hi! How are you?" and he showed me a couple of penguin classics before disappearing into the bookshelves. I walked further down and saw Natalie and Sharon, along with the weird people from NAC who said we couldn't build the installation taller than a dog with short legs. Natalie said "You mean like a corgi?" and Sharon and I screamed in laughter. The NAC people also laughed. They laughed so hard that they farted, which made Sharon scream even louder and I excused myself and walked over to school in Goodman Road.Then it started to rain. It rained so heavily, with lightning that struck the art students, and they became black, and the wind howled and blew off the block of HDB flats beside the school, and it landed in the pool at the deep end where the uncles were jerking off in front of mirrors in quiet desperation. I felt pity. And because I didn't like feeling like that, I took refuge in the gallery that had marble slabs made of milk, and it was so white and pure. And its purity reflected the white walls, that had white fans which were hanging from the white ceiling. And I blew on the surface of the reflection which made the walls quiver, and the white fans quiver and the white ceiling fall into the dark part of the white room. "Oh." I thought to myself. I noticed the yellow pollen too which the artist put on the floor particle by particle, but before I could touch it, my breath blew it all away. I tried to catch them one by one, but I realised it was 4pm and my students were waiting to show me their assignments that I gave them. One had a video of flowers opening and closing like a heart, the other had a crucifix in a cage that later flew out, and another had fluorescent lights gathering like a pack of wolves sleeping underneath the moonlight. It was so beautiful, that I cried. I cried because they were so beautiful, and beauty is so hard to achieve because it is natural, and there is nothing natural left on our island, except for the little patch of grass near Punggol Station, where the wild dogs sing. I had to leave when the rain stopped. And when the rain stopped, i had to walk to the space above the dental clinic which Natalie's father owned, and said lines like "Name?" and "What were you doing when it happened?" and "What do you mean 'not normal'?" while wearing a red hood, and looking at Rizman the magician who did magic tricks and grew wings with white bright lights when I saw him at the Esplanade 2 weeks ago. It was late and I had to start going home, when Joe called me.
He asked me what have I been doing lately, and I could have said "I have been trying to be a good son so that my mother and father will love me more."
I  could have said "I was talking to Melvin and he reminded me who I was when I was 16 years old."
I could have said "When hydrogen atoms collide on a cool summer day, they form a covalent bond so strong that it will last forever and ever and ever and ever."

Instead I said, "I woke up and I rolled out of bed onto the north-east line." I looked north and I looked south, I decided to walk north. And when I walked north, I saw Natalie and Sharon, and I cried. I cried because I felt sad. I felt sad because when I saw them, it brought up the memory of the old man in Marine Parade library before the books became cheap canned goods from China, who used to sit on the small tables, and cut out paper animals for all the children. I was sad because I didn't know where he went or whether he was still alive or whether my sister still loved me after she married and moved to live in a fjord in Norway. And I wished I was back in my home, safe and warm in my bed with my books, and terracotta soldiers and Thai DVDs which Jeff gave me about boyfriends running away and turning into tigers, before I woke up and rolled onto the north-east line.

Just a quick short update on my trip to Melbourne. In short, it was a very successful trip, the people over there really liked my works and they showcased my muslim mouse image all over the place, of which I am very grateful because NAC will love it and award me with more funding in my future projects. hehehe! Isaac Julien, a famous artist, also came up to me to say that he loved my works. And he told Joe that he went to see my installation a few times. God! And I was talking about how I was so influenced by him esp. when I was creating godeatgod for tns...little did I know that he was in the audience when I was presenting my works at the forum. Also, a few curators told me that I will become really big soon, because I have a unique background and my artworks are really fresh (referring to the geisha film of course).

The museum people also really like the robots that we made. They are all fighting to see who gets to keep it. Of course I have plans of bringing them back and selling them so that we can use the profits and go for a feast. :)

Sigh...I'm glad my hardwork is paying off. But coming back to S'pore is really stressful, cuz I got so many things to do in the next few months. Well, I hope everything goes smoothly, and hopefully, my dream of buying a bungalow in Queen Astrid Park will come true.

Here are just a few pictures from the exhibition, there are more actually, esp. in the multimedia segment, but I shall post them another time cuz got too many liao.

Intro to my exhibition with my fake Chinese name.



Joe in front of the family of mannequins with fencing masks. Underneath the fencing masks are chinese opera masks I bought from chinatown. very creepy but beautiful when you see the multimedia running on them.



My fake "museum pieces", which are actually fake goods I bought from Bugis Market. The Fortune God costume is also fake. The text on top was taken from a tourist brochure of the Penguin Parade Show in Melbourne, which Joe and I went, but I replaced "penguins" with "Asians".


The paper gundam robots, with acupuncture men, which represents a mapping of the body/identity. The 3 men on the wall with one creature had text underneath that read: Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others, with the corresponding percentage ratio of the racial population in S'pore.



Before opening night, the curators were already loving the Geisha film.



Some stills from the multimedia that was shown on the faces of my fake museum pieces.






I realised the reason why I had so many chinese text in Instant Asia! was probably due to the season brochure I designed for ttp which made me learn how to use Chinese software. That girl inside is Wendi, who used to lease my previous studio space in Serangoon Gardens. I'll be working with them end of the year for a new version of Mama looking for her Cat.



Along Little Collins Street where we stayed.



In an alley.


We decided to pose in front of these giant koala, cuz the real ones were just so far up in the trees.


In Federation Square.



At the entrance of the museum.


Just before you go underground to where the exhibition takes place.


At the National Gallery Victoria bookshop.


At the NGV, we went to see fellow Malaysian artist Yee I-Lann's photographic works.


At a beach which I forgot the name liao. But it was sooooo beautiful...we cried.



At an Asian foodcourt.



Aren't you glad you live in S'pore? Look at the prices here...and they are in aussie dollars!!!



On the tram.



I was looking for some good S'porean food, and guess what we found? The fake version of the Serangoon Gardens version. Hehehe!



We went for a nice dinner for Joe's b'day at a Japanese restaurant along Little Bourke St.



The mud pie cake I bought for Joe at Cole's.



At the media launch in Federation Square. I donch know what this creature is though.



At the ultra-glam opening with free flow wine, champagne and lots of beautiful people. I guess anyone who was anyone in Melbourne was here that night!


Joe taking a break outside the opening to get away from the crowds.


Isaac Julien!!!!


Our last day, just before going off to the airport. Sigh...I will miss the room, it was so bloody big, with a living room, a dining area and even a fully-equipped kitchen with a dishwasher.

I received this in the mail today, the invitation cards and entry pass for the Contemporary Commonwealth Games which will be held in the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne.

I'm so happy that they used my image! I know it's silly, they also used another image from an artist from New York, but I never knew that my first film assignment I did in CalArts will be featured in the publicity of a major international art exhibition. I'm so glad I invested my first pay buying those props from Walmart. heh heh!

I'm leaving this Tuesday and I'm pretty excited. And Joe is coming to join me on Friday so we can celebrate his birthday next week! But on a more sombre note, it'll be a good getaway for Joe because his grandma, who he was very close to, just passed away yesterday, and I'm sure Melbourne's calm beauty will be a good place for him to have a quiet convalescence, and have some kind of closure. Will always be here for you my yappy rabbit! Muacks!

Premiere of Asian Girls Vol. 2: Memoirs

Starring: TSC, AL, ABS, NLHM

Date: 11 Feb 2006
Time: 8 plus
Place: Ash House

I'm typing this while my family members outside are celebrating reunion dinner. It's been two years since I've celebrated it, and I'm reminded of how much I've always dreaded this occasion, because I'll be asked inane questions like: "So where's your girlfriend, Brian?" to which I will quip nonchalantly "Oh, I don't know, she's at work in Geylang as usual." And they'll pretend I didn't say anything and ask other intrusive questions like how much I'm earning, what do I do with my money and whether I still pray to God.

So I've decided to hide inside my room and surf the net. Bliss!

While surfing www.worth1000.com.... Hehe!





While testing a pre-alpha release of Adobe’s Photoshop, René Magritte discovers the powerful levels and curves function that have been just implemented by Thomas Knoll. Closely watched by fellows Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst (standing, from left to right), Magritte plays around with the layer modes giving a interesting new touch to his nearly finished “Les Promenades d l´Euclide” (also shown in the background as a DIN A2 color proof). Marc Eemans (sitting) studies the Photoshop Reference Manual, while Louis Scutenaire (far right) is still very sceptical towards that “digital imaging stuff”.


And here's a postcard from Choonie:

I have been lazy with updating... I have a backlog of really nice pictures from the Soul to Soul:Remixed and my Melbourne trip which I have yet to post online.

Now with my part-time teaching stint at Lasalle and NAFA, I really just treasure my time lying like a slug at home and reading stuff off the net. Here is a list of web blogs that I ALWAYS go to everyday without fail..hehe!:

http://boingboing.net/ (Weird and wonderful)

http://www.popsugar.com/ (For pop trashy fun)

http://www.engadget.com/ (for the geek in me)

http://www.mocoloco.com/ (To keep up with the stylish times)

Today is David's birthday. Happy Birthday David! The first time I saw you, I remember that you were a very tall 13 yr old boy in Victoria...OMG! 12 years!!! More happy years to come!!!

Some things that have occurred over the last few days:

On Saturday

1. Finally Human Lefts was performed and it went quite well!


2. Presented at Rojak! and the audience was very receptive despite my bad art, dunno why...

1. Celebrated my 1.5 years wth Joe.

1. My father found my Fridae interview online and told my mother, and they broke down and made me kneel and pray to God to love me.


2. Had a mental breakdown at Eunos MRT.


3. JH had emotional breakdown at Kopitiam in City Hall.


4. Went to the premiere of Perhaps Love and met Takeshi Kaneshiro.

1. Talked to Natalie Hennedige and Sharon Tang on a few collaborations next year.


2. Had an interview at NAFA for my first lecturing position. Will teach at La Salle too!

1. Gave an interview to SGBoy.


2. Indulged at Haagen Dazs with Joe.

1. Ran around S'pore like siao: TNS, NAC, industrial parks... met Alfie bunny briefly at SHM.

Human Lefts, perforamnce with Benny Lim at the Drama Centre Black Box.



The lovely artists I've gotten to know from NYC, the Philippines and Gil Alon, from Israel who is teaching me so much about life and art.



JH acting cute at PS McDonald's.



Joe and JH in the dressing room at the national Library.

After Rojak at the MRT:




Yes, I've finally seen Takeshi Kaneshiro in real life! He was just sitting a few seats away from Joe and me at the premiere of Perhaps Love!

I am speechless. MDA has just banned our performance, Human Lefts, the one that I have been working on with Benny, scheduled to play this Saturday. Their reason: "Bad timing."

To get the license, they said we have to change the script entirely and not mention anything about The Death Penalty, whether it is in the Singapore context or not.

Our play is not even defamatory or inflammatory in nature. It is a comedy and very experimental: it is about a father, a son and his lover from Hong Kong who is going to die.

We still need to put up a piece because the other performances are international works and NAC will pull out funding because they do not support international performances. We do not have the money to pay pack especially when we already have brought props, costumes, spent on publicity, etc...

We refuse to self-censor, so we are putting up a completely new piece within these 3 days that we won't even have the time to rehearse. How????

I am too disappointed to fight. It is almost useless. If we do, we will jeopardise future shows and future fundings. If we don't, we have lost our freedom of expressing ourselves through art.

Had a nice weekend.

On Friday night, JH, Joe and me had a nice dinner at Koufu.

Then we proceeded to Serangoon to meet Miaovin.

We drank tea and coffee at a kopitiam near Nic's place, but he couldn't meet him cuz he was revising for his exams.

We were wandering around YCK pool at midnight, and then all of us jumped into the pool naked.

Chris came and we went to Seletar reservoir.

We saw many cars with couples making love inside.

With steamed windows.

Very Titanic.

We sat on top of the tower looking at the stars.

Chris sang "Somewhere Out There" for David.

We walked into the mist, hand-in-hand.

Chris sent us all home at 3am.

Saturday I spent the whole day at home with Joe.

Went to my studio with him to collect my projector.

Sat in the cafe in PUB RC and drank nice coffee.

Went to Sushi Tei at Serangoon Gardens.

Had fantastic curry and sashimi.

Went home and met my cousins Daniela and Paola on the bus.

Fell asleep.

Sunday, I went to Benny's place to rehearse.

Tested out some new multimedia clips.

Tried new texts and added a few more lines.

Played with his beautiful cats: Porridge, Bon Bon and Ginger.

Met Lawrence Wong briefly before he disappeared into his room.

Attended Alvin CHua's birthday party at Bianco.

Caught up with Terry Tan and Thomas, his twin.

A 19 year-old swimmer from NYP approached JH.

Joe and Alvin came.

Went to Geylang to have soy bean.

Could see Chris wanting to go home so that he can chat with u-know-who...hehe!

JH sent us all back.

Now going to sleep!

I'm very inspired to do something after reading an interesting mail about Singapore's (un)real history in the arts forum. I've copied a part of it here:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi Zai,



I just wanted to write to say thanks for letting the list know about what
you were writing about. It is a really important subject, and one which
should receive more discussion that it normally does. As you know, the only
reason why Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia/Brunei are separate today was
because of the 'carving up of the spheres of influence' by the Europeans in
the 19th century - they did to the Malay archipelago a version of what they
did in Africa, and in China to a certain extent. So to talk about the
founding of Singapore as beginning in the colonial era is always really
suspect because the setting up of Singapore was actually really traumatic
because it necessitated the division of the Malay archipelago into different
'national' areas with the Anglo Dutch Treaty of 1824, and that put to a stop
all the free moving of people from Sumatra to the Malay peninsula, and all
around. I think it's really important to remember, as you point out, how
complicated and weird this whole idea of Singapore's 'foundation' is.



Thank you also for reminding us to question why Raffles is always accorded
the status of "founder" of "modern Singapore" (what is 'modern' supposed to
mean anyway?) It might also be pertinent to repeat here that Raffles was
simply an emissary of the EIC, and not England herself, which means that
like India, in the usual national history taught in schools we were founded
by a business and not a nation or an individual anyway. And Raffles' move
was also highly suspect, the Dutch were angered by his overstepping his
boundaries, but only when the Europeans decided to resolve it among
themselves with that treaty did Singapore become a "British" space. So this
whole thing about being "founded", again, is problematic, as you point out -
not to mention extremely forgetful that there were people around this place
before the British decided to take advantage of a succession dispute.



But if we were founded for business, what kind of business was this? Carl A.
Trocki writes: "The founding of Singapore was a peripheral result of the
India-China opium trade. For a full century, Singapore was 'Opium Central,
Southeast Asia.' Opium was so common in nineteenth-century Singapore that
most writers seem to take it for granted. If the kongsis were the pioneers
of Chinese labour in Southeast Asia, then the British agency houses in
Singapore were the pioneers of British colonial capitalism. The British came
as merchants of opium, and in a very real sense we can best understand the
British Empire east of Suez as of 1900 as essentially a drug cartel." (Carl
A Trocki, "Opium and Empire", p.50)



So in a way, a celebration of Raffles' founding of Singapore is
simultaneously a celebration of how we were founded for drugs for money for
a huge MNC. hahaha! Problematic indeed.



Hope to see more posts from you on the subject

Adeline



PS Also I caught your screening of your films on Riau at the substation the
other month; great job, keep it up. job, keep it up.

Oh, I just heard a malicious rumour that has been spreading that I get Alfian to write my proposals for my projects. Umm.... why must people say things that are absolutely not true? I'm not that dumb that I can't write my own stuff. Besides, it'll be such a waste of Alfian's talent if he were to spend it all day drafting letters begging for money from NAC and the other foundations.

Anyway, I'm more amused than upset. Alfie bunny, why are we targets for all these barbs? Are we too beautiful or something? Should we cut off our noses to spite our face? Why can't we all just live happily ever after in a single-party democracy?

On the workfront:

I have been meeting up with Benny to finalise the script for our performance in December for Initiation International. We're doing a piece on human rights, which should be quite interesting and controversial. Today we were in a kopitiam at Fortune Centre and we were laughing really loudly at some of our crazy ideas we came up with. Do come and support us, it's free! Just go to this website to register : http://www.thefunstage.org/ii.htm

On Monday, Mike Stubbs, a curator from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, flew in to have a meeting with me. I'll be representing S'pore for an exhibition over there in Feb. Apparently I'm the youngest artist in the exhibition, most of them are really established, with multi-million budgets and are part of the biennale circuit. Oh dear. So pressurised. They gave me a really huge space some more. Yikes! Luckily, NAC is going to give additional support because the exhibition will be on for 3 months or so. Australia, here I come! Mike also made me blush at the NAC meeting cuz he was gushing about my works to the NAC pple. Sigh...flattery gets me everytime.

I just read an essay defending Hypersurface that Donna Ong pointed out to me which was very well-written found here: Meta-critiquing by Brendan Goh . I remember reading Weng Choy's essay a few months back and was so worked up. Yes, I confess. I get worked up when people have negative comments on my works. I can't help it, I care too much for my work, and I will defend whatever I do cuz I'm responsible for the things I create mah. Well, any attention is better than no attention. And it seems the more emotional I get, more people show more attention. Keke!

I'm also working on a new piece called Soul II Soul Remix which will open on 15 December at the Singapore History Museum. It's a pretty huge project and I have started to hire a team, so that I can run the project effectively. Can't say anything much except that it will be weird and beautiful. Har har!

On the homefront:

I'm getting drained and I need to go for a long holiday soon. I can't wait for Joe to finish his exams so we can go to somewhere romantic.

My sister is freezing in Norway. Apart from writing her essays (she's doing her Masters in law there), she has been going to Wham! concerts, crossing fjords and glaciers, and digging up viking ships.

There was some minor disturbance on Blurty land recently, but I can't remember what it was about.

Alfian has been marrying books in the library, I wanted to give him a surprise visit yesterday, but he was stuck in camp. I ended up getting a free massage from an angel with a name tag that says "Dolphine" or something like that. It was pretty good though, although Donna was telling me that the angel was doing a weird dance while I was listening to an audio tape that told me how to differentiate breeds of cats.

I received an email from Yi-Sheng who is wandering around Europe now as I write. He was recounting his great adventure in Prague, and the Bel-Ami boys that he was hanging out with. The last email I got from him earlier this year, he was in Iceland eating shark sushi soaked in urine and making out with a blond-haired blue-eyed angel in some weird seedy gay party that had a weeping birthday boy and fat drag queens. I will not write about his trip to South America. We would all die of envy of his descriptions of the devastatingly beautiful cocaine-filled golden boys that he met over there.

Miaovin the lamb has been showing me clips of Mariah on his new Ipod video which I nearly stole when he went to the toilet. I must say, it's so good that I can actually see her arms wobbling when she does that waving-in-the-air thing when she hits the high notes.

Oh, I managed to sell two paintings from Mysterious Book, the Invisible Scream (my favourite painting from that series!), which is my asian take on Edvard Munch's Expressionist masterpiece. The other was the one with little bunnies and little men flying. I sold it off to a nice young army boy (Natdaniel's friend) for $150 and $100 each. So if you have money to burn, please buy from me, these paintings need good homes. Yes, the lights come with the painting, I've engineered them very well, so u can use them as weird table lamps as well.




SOLD!!