ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [5 April 2006]

1) Welcome! The Introduction.

Phew, you would not believe how tricky it is to begin a blog. (See note 1). The internet is hardly a Winnie The Pooh diary tucked under bed, not that I possess one. So, to all family, (hi Mum! Am on the web!), friends, tutors, future curators/collaborators, and anyone else who knows me; remember, degree show is an incredibly stressful time and nothing I blog or present should be held against me during degree assessment or otherwise, thanks.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to give a glimpse into the run up of my degree and a wee voice to a mostly unheard final year fine art student experience. This opportunity with A-N is undoubtedly a good beginning to my art journey as I prepare to feel the force of institution boot up a tender backside into the big unknown. (Guess I am Working that Net as so heavily emphasised in our supporting practice lectures.)

So if this is my final year, and my Uni’s show opens 19th May, that’s in 44 days, (almost 40 days and nights, almost correlated with thin cows and suffering. Must be a sign.) How is it then that I am not feeling particularly stressed? In fact, assessment begins in just over four weeks, (What, really?…) I even find myself, dare I say, happy? Worrying. Yesterday, I even caught myself whistling whilst drilling neon scoobs into my plaster blobs (more details later) and contentedly hammering away at my wooden construction. Obviously the calm before broken plaster, exploding technology and artritis.

Luckily, there’s therapy in the art.

Right:

WHY ART?

Five years ago, I was fresh out of a fantastic French degree experience from Sheffield University. Seduced by London’s glory I got with ID Magazine, followed by a fully-fledged career in PR. Not long after, it dawned on me that I cared not for how lastminute.com could be, in fact, I was secretly willing the implosion of one of my software clients as its global domination continues.

Moreover, a painful hunger was ferociously gnawing at my belly; a compulsive urge to create.

So, thanks to support from friends, I packed my bags, grew a beard, and contemplated my life direction. It was in China, on an un-sterotypical teach English/find self mission that I resolved to follow my (he)Art like some bad 80’s T’Pau ballad.

It was also in China that much of the concept behind my art practice stems. Unable to speak Mandarin, a student’s bemusing banana accusation “Yellow on the Outside white on the inside” propelled me to confront my own BBC (British Born Chinese) displacement. Indeed, my cross-disciplinary approach defies any attempt of categorisation. My sculptures, doodles, video pieces, performances and installations move action beyond the canvas; a bid to engage the viewer and engender different ways of looking. I am concerned by our obsession with spirituality and exposing our search for jouissance in this post everything era of top 100 lists.

Anyway, at that strapline, that’s where I’ll leave you today. Here’s 5 images I feel are key to the development of my early practice (from years one and two out of my three year degree course).

So for now, hope I have given you a taster of my artlife; meet you at the next entry.

Jay

Future blog entries; a rough plan that I don’t intend to stick to:

2-4 All About My Work- Practice Breakdown (hopefully in the synopsis sense), exhibtions

5 Now

6-7 Installation: Upper Foyer Gallery space

8 The Show!!!!

9 The Future…

10 Blogging Off

You can expect only 5 images per blog- binary digits have limits too.

(Note 1: Besides being relatively tech savvy, I only just uncovered the term “blogging” last summer, thanks to a wizardry motion graphic I watched; Baghdad Blog- from those geniuses at onedotzero.)

# 2 [11 April 2006]

Dear blog, what a difference six days can make. You know something’s awry when you’re connecting with the philosophical strapline of a bank advert (?) “because it’s good to be normal again”. (Or something to that effect) For the first time since practising my art, I experienced that which I’d only ever witnessed in current Morriseyness of fellow students: art crash and burn. Let us call it CRAP, (Creative Rupture of Arty Practice). I was hit by CRAP rapidly; in all honesty, I did not see it coming.

Having worked in a steadfast manner since day one of the course, I have always successfully juggled studio practice with external projects. For example, undertaking a uni exhibition (The Opium Room) in my second year, or being commissioned to film a documentary for Dundee City Council, 2005, or setting up a collaborative exhibition, Scrap, at Intermedia, Glasgow, 2005. I have always been resilient to CRAP. Until now, I thought that CRAP was essentially a scaremongering tactic like SARS or Pinnochio; I did not think the Big Bad Degree Show could get me. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I was forced to lie in bed doing nothing but eat chocolate and watch Urban Dance Idol at the weekend. It was dreadful. Luckily though, show only lasted half an hour. Also lucky, it only took me a day to beat the CRAP out.

When it hits you, art stress is uncanny, not like any other type of maladie. It is not even that I felt panicked about time or unfinished work; I feel in control of this. It’s more like serious exhaustion, perhaps akin to being the poltergeist when it comes out of the TV; all pale and stretched.

Since CRAP, I have mostly been taking it easy since it really would be a shame to die for art. I have also been suffering from a bad back from jumping up and down on a trampoline and lifting heavy goods. Twisted siatica aside, (like someone mercilessly jabbing at your nerves with a rusty palette knife), if I could give any advice it would be to speak to fellow students. Everyone is going through the same, just at different levels. (Also, don't jump on trampoline without first bending knees and pulling object close to chest).

So, I have mentally and physically defeated the CRAP and am back on form. Moreover, I am very glad it was not bird flu.

Ok, back to the art before a big bout of SH:ITE hits me. Stylistic Hindrance: Inverted Towards Enlightenment (period only)Here is my PRACTICE BREAKDOWN (oh, the irony)

Degree Show:

My space will be a multimedia installation incorporating animation, video alongside a hybrid interaction of wooden-plaster structures and drawings. I will also curate three sonic visual performances on the opening evening only, 19th May, including Derek Lodge (recent Word Processor show at DCA) and a Greek David Lynch fiddle player. I have recently completed all six of my video pieces, which is fantastic since I am extremely happy with how the each piece has transpired. They have also taught me more about my only process, which can’t be a bad thing. I think they stand strongly both as individual pieces, and I can envisage that the dialogue between them once together on site will hopefully create the intended sonic visual schismic. Hurrah.

Videos

One aspect of my practice involves using my body through video performance as an expression of the conceptual process. This may be through jumping up and down on a trampoline in a forest for six hours, (Trampoline, 2006) or digging into cement with a child’s shovel(Diggin U, 2006) or even masticating and spitting out cakes. (French Fancies, 2004.) This direct physicality is then transformed through my fascination with the editing process, which I feel is an extension of my painting and collaging techniques; a compulsion to arrange and animate objects within three-dimensional space. Besides the visual editing, I also place great emphasis on audio since my technique brings along with it the discourse of the DJ and VJ’s appropriation across genres, and ability to evoke fragmented sonic realities.

Video Perfomance- examples

Trampoline

Inspired by our obsession with spiritual practices and self-help literature, Trampoline confronts our perseverance of life’s grind in hope of being rewarded with jouissance.

The real time action suddenly freezes into perfect still or hyper-speed of the fall. This is representative of those treasured surprise occurrences that intercept life with elated joy and direct the viewer with meaning to live and watch on. It attempts to unlock our subconscious memory by engendering the strange surreal; it is here fixed meaning may be effaced and multiplitious identity reigns.

Rapunzel

A cross-cultural interpretation of the child Ladybird classic, my version is enshrouded in dark humour, eradicating romantic ideas of “happy ever after”. True to my distinct interdisciplinary style, sophisticated layering, editing and splicing of outmoded stop frame animation is combined with documentary interviewing techniques to blur the confines of the video-art genre. I challenge anyone who claims video editing isn’t as highly skilled or time consuming as oil painting.

Fruit Loops

Using found rotten fruit, four shorts; Apple Pile Grow, Accumulation, Midsommer Schism and Tray Play ; each focuses on the nature-tech interface and hints at cultural identity in the context of urgent ecological breakdown.

That’s all folks, the plaster blobs are calling me.

# 3 [17 April 2006]

Blob blog blobby blog. Bloggy bog.

Bogster, blogster, blooog, bloogy bloggy blobbin bloogoid

Hello

Watched a really good Ang Lee film Sat night, The Ice Storm. It was like constantly watching the plastic bag bit in American Beauty for the first time, and it never gets stuck in a tree. Beautiful and balanced through its disturbance, yes.

Yesterday though, I also felt like I was being haunted by my art. It was bizarre but true.

For thirty seconds, everywhere I looked, I kept seeing references to rubbish; bins, litter, street cleaners… like The Usual Suspects crux where the detective pieces all the evidence together. Instead for me, I was feeling the intense need to record information. These symptoms have also manifested themselves before; having to retrace steps my steps to a piece of rubbish in the street and picking it up when passers by have passed by. I recycle crap in both a Duchampian found objects aesthetic sense and also to social-politically empower detritus; oh, the waste of others and its potent alchemy. This has been exemplified in Speed Dated, using footage of street cleaning vans, or Scrap, the installation was made of found objects, and of course, my plaster blobs; embedding broken stuff.

If it wasn’t for the art, I’d be worried about how special I am becoming. Time for a lazy break?

Sunday was spent in the slumbersome lullaby serenity of Velvet Underground and Nico’s Sunday Morning, I didn’t particularly feel like doing anything art/course related, so I didn’t. I listened to the latest Bleep/Warp records a friend has sent me; luckily my Sheffield friends are doing stuff that makes my brain tingle. In fact, their audio life has impacted my art. I chose to write my dissertation, entitled Pop Has Eaten Itself, on the sonification of the gallery space. From the Warp/Lex empire to Stoke’s recent Northern Soul organ recitals, The Vegetable Orchestra’s rootified Kraftwerk renditions to Cage and Marclay I quite enjoyed writing the X trillion word flow expected of us.

I guess an important value is to let my subject, materials and process forge themselves around something I am instinctively passionate about. Otherwise it’s like dancing to garage/rnb in a soulless club; you’re all disjointed and being dictated to by the crap DJ, not losing yourself in it.

From Aphex to Chris Clark, I first began to incorporate audio into my practice for my French Fancies video performance. Straight away though, I felt that I wanted to edit, delete and rehash what was already richly reproduced audio. Then there was the question of copyright, putting my friends through the rigmarole of paperwork hell was not something I wanted to inflict, especially since I tend to appropriate across the label. Consequently, I have turned to creating my own- it’s satisfying. I guess despite my hardcore allegiance to scratch culture following You Know Who’s death and mouse replacing paintbrush etc, a few of my arty molecules still urge me to embrace Hegelian wholeness, invert into abstraction and transcend as art genius.

For instance, Tom sent me Prefuse 73’s latest Security Screenings. Where were the new sonic vibrations? It felt like just a regurgitation of Vocal Studies… and One Word…; I feel a bit cheated. (Battles and Jimmy Edgar on the other hand- bliss.) But then, today, as artists, can we expect to be original? As nth generation pirates, our swag bags are already full of pillaged goods. (I knew Johhny Depp had to come into it somewhere)

I can’t help it though, I really don’t like art that looks/feels /is an outright compendium of all our contemporary extended painting art stars. You shouldn’t want it too much the wrong way and become it rather than taking from it, right? Maybe if you come to the degree show you will discount my installation as a load of rubbish. Hmm, that would be good. Hopefully, and moreso, it will engage you. I don’t think of my art as a question of liking, more of experiencing and triggering a possible learning.

Either way, I hope I never stop getting influenced all from directions. I also hope I won’t end up cutting my ear off or turning to Buckfast. Luckily we have Cove Park and endless private views to disguise regular artist Outsiderness.

Show me your open mind and I’ll show you my blobs. Here they are, in early stages of progress. I’ll tell you all about them next time round.

# 4 [21 April 2006]

Welcome to special edition No. 4 point blog

THE JAY YUNG BLOG BLOB APPEAL

Hello. Can you help me please? I fear for the future of my blobs. It’s a very real, serious matter; innocent blobs sentenced to homelessness and death.

I have created a family of blob creatures. When you look at them, they are temporarily playing freeze frame with you. Turn away and they become animated lives again, with their own characteristics, they shuffle around and converse with each other. They want you to love them, that’s why they exude colours that make you want to eat them, but then they are ugly as hell since they won’t submit to magazine beauty. They can’t help how they look, it’s because they are made of and mimic everything around them- from plant cells to comic-strip rabbits.

They have been developing since June 2005, and are reaching the final stage of their evolution. However, they will only enjoy one single degree show week to live as fully formed identities. That’s why I am appealing for your help. Following the closing of the degree show here at DOJ, 27th May, they will not have a home. In such circumstances, they are threatened with instant execution. Through adopting a blob or providing an exhibiting space or storage facilities, you will be giving sculpture a chance.

Here is some information on the blobs history and what you will gain:

It really began with Banana. (See image from Blog Entry 1)

Banana. Plaster, clay, cavity filler, cotton, Filmo clay 153x42x35cm

Whilst teaching English in China, Banana was directly inspired by a pupil’s insult of my being “yellow on the outside and white on the inside”... inferring my Britishness... Plaster, clay and unconventional cavity filler define signs and signifiers that marginalise and incarcerate. The solid, dominating rectangular is too established to shift, within its boundaries stereotypes are drawn and culture is former. But binary division reveals incomplete identity through protruding stalagmite-like forms, pushed to the surface by the primordial filler. Order is disturbed, yet physical centre of Banana remains almost empty. Absence blocks completeness from uniting China-Hong Kong-England. This is the paradox of dystopian mind/body, self/society; impetus to uphold logic is as strong as will to abolish.

Plaster Blobs

These intriguing, awkward forms sit within their surroundings and attach themselves to each other like mute alien pets. Their virgin white plaster surface is etched away, embellished with delicious dripping, rainbow gloss and a schizoid flux of doodles, fabric and neon attachments. Embedded, the media constitutes their distinctive personalities; physical remnants of each blob’s history and memory.

They challenge the linear, morphing in and out like bodily waste. We cannot help but associate each with a function; perhaps of figures reclining, or plant cells interacting. Though cumbersome in their mass and weight hinders, they hint at a secret animated life that can be regrouped, modified or exchanged. In their grotesquely pleasurable biomorphic world, each flirts desire/absence and begs for dialogue with the viewer.

Please contact yung_jay@hotmail.com if you can help reach out and save blob lives. Your interest and generosity is greatly appreciated.

# 5 [24 April 2006]

Hi Blog,  

I’ve had a lovely day in the sun on Sun (no, Scotland is not constantly in a state of eclipse) and I am treating myself to a roast; in oven. I went for a stroll on Law Hill today (once volcano, lush views of the river Tay) Unfortunately, The Law caught fire due to dastardly kids. Luckily, there was an old war veteran to distract me from the fumes with tales of bayonets and small Chinese children on the end of them.  

So, art-wise I am in my degree show space now.  Before I go into details (next entry) I just wanted to introduce my wooden sculptures; known as Wooden Skaletrix.  I started to assemble and construct these last summer.  Initially, I intended them to be simple hardboard stretchers to be painted on in the style of Base One and 2.  (See image below, Blog 1.) However, having exhibited The Opium Room exhibition, 2004, two particular site-specific installations influenced their development. 

Odd Rite Out, entailed mimicking and extending the patterning on the gallery floor with my clay Buddha incense burners and wax coated wooden chopstick like figures; a comment on absurd spirituality.  Meanwhile, SinOpsis was a wooden structure revealing the advance of mighty China into the west and our perception of Eastern myths and identity.  The central wooden structure was hollow at its core, it splintered into a myriad of wall paintings and small post-it collage doodles that opened up endless viewing possibilities. 

So, in terms of Wooden Skaletrix, I see these as an extension of these ideas.  Immediately, once in the workshop, I did not want to stop at a flat canvas.  I call them Skaletrix because of the simple notion of freedom a child has when constructing in his fantasy land, without constraint and imbued with wonder- pieces of plastic could lead to a whole new inhabitable dimension.   Wooden Skaletrix have grown in this way, becoming 3-d objects that have odd, redundant attachments, some with plaster bodies, and collage tinted with day-glo glory.

The technique behind Wooden Skaletrix reflects this idea of assemblage, they are between the aesthetics and implementation of factory automation.  The streamlined, functional, engineered, efficiency of factory product, Skaletrix is blocked by my hob-nobbled creative individual touch, much in the spirit of West or Fischli and Weiss.   

Here is some background info on my wooden sculptures, still in transition of becoming.

Base 1 and Two, Gloss and acrylic on hardboard. Base 1:  110x110cm Base Two: 112x82cm, 12/2004

Base 1 and Two form a diptych most explicitly dealing with my rupture with flat canvas surface and its limits in a Murray/Dunham sculptural/cartoon horror revolt.  Both canvases, biomorphic in shape, have morphed one from other. Dimension and canvas limits are treated with opposing techniques; Base 1 oozes primordial chemistry, paint is visceral, glossy, so good you want to lick it.

Base Two’s language is a mobile dream, the luscious colour spectrum encircles order; linear progression of a-b-z-s logic.  Space is given utmost importance; logical formatting and sculptural doodles tightly process gender and multiplicity.  Social and political aggression is denigrated beneath the surface, but one can sense chaotic id vibrating beneath candy artifice.

Wooden Skaletrix

Part of an ongoing series; Wooden Skaletrix are the genderless complements of the plaster blobs; hybrid forms that have morphed from the molecules of scrap around us, attempting to complete their half-baked journey into almost something. 

Work in progress; these naked structures are raw, both in the choice of materials- mdf, hardboard, wood filler- cheap, accessible, and conducive to exposing their making process.  Some will have plaster growths protruding from their sides, or found neon cabling, or other such objects embedded into or extending from them.  Their biomorphic history will be mapped onto them through hints of collaged doodles, (pencil, pen, gloss). 

Falling short of useful, assertive identity they sit at differing heights, levels and dimensions, taunting the viewer to adjust their own physical position to fathom their puzzling characteristics.  They goad possible ingenious function, yet ultimately reside in useless states of being; a modern day reinterpretation of urinal aesthetic.

I hope this is slowly beginning to give you some understanding of what my art is about.  Let me know when you find out. Blog soon.

# 6 [26 April 2006]

Blog 5: Art to Art

Wow, it appears that I am actually keeping to the scheduled blog contents outlined in entry one. 

Seemingly, also I am on track for the multi-tasking extravaganza that awaits me as I move into my degree show space; Upper Foyer Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College.  I am revving up for installation next week by slowing down; this is a crucial stage in the A-Team plan and to prevent it from all going BA Baracas (when on plane, otherwise goldie looking chains are ok), I have to be head-space ready.

I am ensuring this by finally spending some quality time with my Blobs and Skaletrix- the final stages of their animation. Finally…for me this is like scuba diving whilst eating pistachio ice cream; really good, but a bit tricky. 

It’s tricky because I can’t quite take a big deep breath just yet; but I can see in sight the one big massive knot into which I’ll soon be able to tie the tiny remaining lose ends.  Lose ends being factors like; co-ordinating the woodwork, electric guys and exhibitions assistant all in the same place to put a shlef up safely.  This is to avoid Momart style fire massacres that could destroy the sponsored plasma and consume my blobs before I do. 

Actually, Last Train to Artscentral could be good. But then, would I feel guilt from the knowledge that I could always have given the blobs, worth a million, to charity instead?

Do you want to see the Tech Pagoda that I've almost finished constructing? Here it is, a few bits and pieces left to attach and putting the a-v in place.  I recycled the wood that formed an interactive structure at Scrap, Intermedia 2005. For me, such re-use and exposure opens up the possibility for exchange; those familiar with my work will have already experienced a part of the material’s history.

I call it Tech Pagoda because it’s inspired by my travels to China and Thailand, I was struck by these awesome organic/man-made temples that supposedly offer connectiona to a higher state of being. Tech Pagoda will house three of my six video art pieces. I can’t wait for the SoniC Visual to collide into BooM.

Function over form, but it’s best to have a bit of both; Jade Gooding.  I rest my case.

# 7 [1 May 2006]

Hi Blog,

It’s been a tumultuous week in art Labour politics for me and my Blobs, albeit without the jeering, two shags (not seen boyfriend for a while) and threat of deportation. Wednesday was the first day that I really began to spend time in the Upper Foyer Gallery- my allocated degree show space) to finish animating my Blobs and Wooden Skaletrix. This is the Photoshop/pull cake out of oven to decorate stage. However, the first day was also spent battling internally as I adapt to the practical limitations/health and safety stipulations of the site itself.

Artists have strange ways of working; some like to build fortresses and set up an electric fence to ward off social interaction, others begin a knitting committee and have the whole college round for tea. I try and nestle myself somewhere in between. This week I am happy with how I’ve been able to adapt and negotiate emotions of feeling slightly exposed, trusting my work will not be knocked over and damaged (happened in year two just before assessment), and also renegotiating my work in relation to the space.

To complete my blobs, I have converted the gallery temporarily into a studio, and have had to mentally knuckle down to block out distractions. My space holds a prime position, however, it is also the point of convergence for three surrounding degree show spaces, and has a glass front. It’s like being in an operating theatre and performing a face-lift on Orlan (again) but the theatre is situated so people must pass through for the pub, toilet, kitchen and nightclub. Ok, a slightly extreme analogy (and somewhat strange) but some might say, I have been experiencing such Green Wingness. I have worked round this and at this point; the beginning of the final week before assessment, I can say it’s almost been like performing a residency in such a shop window setting. In comparison to working in the open studio, I have noticed that the closeness between myself and my work has intensified, as I imagine to be the case when experiencing a residency environment.

Maybe a bit too close. On speaking to my friend, Friday, I looked down to see a piece of fabric stuck to my hand. I was also wearing a neon pink belt with my Ipod dangling round my neck. Today I have a spot on the end of my nose (more chocolate) which will no doubt become shiny and red. I am also pasty due to being in Scotland. Please take a look at the images, I guess you are what you art.

Back to it; today, Monday, I am adding final touches and removing all the tools and waterproof sheeting in preparation for the real test: installation begins tomorrow.

Hello, end of play Mon- am on track, have finished the last stage of animation and shifted all floor protection and tools. I look and feel like I have been mining, but have faith that I will see my natural skin tone soon without gloss polish. Onwards….

# 8 [4 May 2006]

Lucky Blog 7?  Hmmm… disputable…

Hello blog, I am glad you’re here.  Yesterday was not great; it was in fact the first day I almost disappeared into a big lumpy grump of unproductiveness- blurch.

Tuesday evening I came across a technical difficulty concerning the sponsored plasma screen sourced from a generous local small business.  I intended to display Fruit Loops; four animated shorts, positioned so that the plasma lay on the floor on its back, screen facing upwards. Having initially been given the go ahead, I especially built a wooden platform, but was informed early Tuesday that positioning the plasma in such a manner may lead to an uninvited firework display (gas fuelled apparently)… something I’d rather avoid cost wise.  Plus, I am not for melting people on the opening evening; takes synaesthesia a bit far. 

Ultimately the plasma’s tray display is now defunct and I don’t want to use it just because it’s there; though it is all so shiny and spangly, and I am sure it purred at me...  Nor do I want to stand it up in the corner just because it’s a bit woooo, a bit waaaa; it is important for me to retain the initial aesthetic- for the viewer to look down into the moving visuals.  The thematic context of the work and its relationship to the overall installation demands so.

So, having carefully considered the options; moving it’s location, employing a horizontal tv etc… I’ve decided to opt for a projection from the ceiling directly onto to the platform postioned below.  This of course has thrown up a multitude of new challenges involving sound and general logistical conundrums that could drive any final year student 5 days away from assessment into a knotted art ball. But, I would be more worried if everything went according to plan; hitches to be expected after working with video and technology for so long now.  Plus, installation is gymnastics; you have to be bendy.

So, what made me frown more than smile today then?  Well, having to deal with unhelpful people is not great, especially when you need it most.  This, plus a skiving third year assistant (actually said he forgot to bring his dentist note, bless), PLUS tiredness signals; flashing danger lights.  At this point, artist genius is easily irritated and slippage of tolerance levels means incoherent babbling and scribbles far from A Beautiful Mind.  It does not bode a well executed suspended projector shelf.  Forget artist’s block, by five o clock, I had a whole forest going on (ho ho). The urge to snort large measures of absinthe via the left eye had overwhelmed me. 

Luckily, my tutor and a superhero woodwork technician came to my rescue and made me see the wood from the trees.  (Sorry.)  Because of the physical nature of this crucial installation stage and aforementioned plasma spanner; seeking external help from the clear thinking is very necessary. 

Seeking help.  Yes. About time.  Remedy also arrived at nine pm, when I got together with others feeling the pressure and needing a good chin wag. Good old Droothy’s.

7 ain’t so bad.

I know I’ve done all I can today and I am still on track in the big scale of 5-day deadline.  Hello tomorrow, ya gonna be sunny coz I saw a glimpse of one of my videos projected alongside Wabbit! I thought, hey, I did that.

# 9 [11 May 2006]

Blog *888****

Apologies for the late posting, this was written on Sunday 7 May but have been slightly preoccupied with a certain show.

In Chinese, 888 is the ultimate lucky combination of figures because eight is pronounced “ba” which rhymes with “fa”; meaning prosperity in life- both health and fortune. Chinese logic reveals when you repeat fa, prosperity and luck must proportionately triple. And you know how we Chinese are in spreading love in that area; just look in any chinatown shop window. Next to that white cat with rigormortis of the left paw you will find countless golden statue sets of long bearded old Chinese blokes with shiny bald heads and money slots in their back. Typically, there are three of them, one carrying an exotic oriental fruit to symbolise health, one a scroll displaying Chinese characters of fortune, and I can’t remember what the other guy did- just hung out. Anyhow, you get the picture that alongside casino culture and dim sum, lucky tidings of such nature play an important part in our culture.

The importance of 888? As follows.

Dearest blog, please excuse me if I make you nonsensical today. It is afterall, Sunday at 4:18 am. What? Yes, almost half four in the morning and I have been rudely awakened by the heating going off. That’s how sensitive I am at the moment, the past week I’ve been waking up at 6am... The heating then prompted me to recall my dream; a conversation I was having with my tutor about what I was going to do after uni. Can you believe it? I mean, I’d much rather be flying or running away from a grizzly panda with no arms. Ok, before I go into the conversation, (Freud said, never tell others your dreams- they may be interesting to you, but bore others to death. Ahh well.) Let’s deal with the waking up at six first. On Thursday 4 May I had a conversation that ran as follows (tweaked names and swearing to protect the innocent)

Me: tap tap (on keyboard, uploading blog 7)

Mary: Fick fick, let me check that computer. Fick, there’s no disc. Fick, let me check your desktop a sec.

Me: er, sure. Have you lost something?

Mary: Fick, stressed. Thank fick, it’s still on there. Fick.

Me: Good stuff

Mary: Are you going to be long?

Me: Well if you let me get on with what I am doing I shouldn’t be. (forced laughter)

Mary: forced laughter

Enter Mary five minutes later.

Me: All yours

We embrace, curtains fall.

Saturday,:

Studio ‘General Course’ next to Upper Foyer:

Me: hey Noah, Eve. You two are awfully quiet, usually I can hear hysterical laughter.

Noah: We’re absolutely shattered.

Me: Where’s Herod?

Eve: He had to go home because he’s feeling a bit ill and can’t physically do anymore.

Me: Fair enough

(We go out for a fag break. I don’t usually smoke, but have taken up taxing occasional rollies because it’s a break from the upper foyer and into daylight, so have others e.g Abraham/Moses join us)

Moses: A few of us went to the pub last night but all sat in silence because we were too tired to think

Me: great

And so on.

Read following aloud in Lloyd Grossman voice if desired. Clearly, degree show is taking its toll and turning us into irrational zombies. I hope its temporary.

Back to Freud. Waking up at six, in Freudian terms must symbolise a few things. I am really almost there now. Tech Pagoda is in place, all audio-visual is at the ready, suspended projector is suspending without risk of decapitating viewer (best delete that bit to avoid anti-888) and all that remains is the chess/stratego positioning of my blob pets- most crucial bit. Plus three days to go until assessment.

So,back to the dream conversation with my tutor; an extension of a real coversation that occured earlier in the week. He has just chosen me for a residency at Cove Park this summer.

I could not help but get a tad emotional….

Tutor: [THINKS: oh dear, the young one appears distressed]

[SPOKEN]: “What’s wrong?”

Me: [THINKING ONLY- READ QUICKLY TO MIMIC REAL TIME] Well, I really don’t know how to express my thanks to you. It’s been a seriously amazing journey and the most important one I could embark upon, coming up here after Sheffield and London to do my art. You have told me when it’s crap and pushed me that bit further each time to make it ok again. I am going to miss your teachings terribly. I have decided to get over losing your superior mentoring skills with the following self-help strategy; I will imagine you as a Yoda type figure who appears whenever I am in times of art need. You will appear sat on a cloud in Chinese emperors clothes, and less green than Yoda. You will wave a Mac G5 at me and impart your greatest teaching: ‘Follow your instinct young Padowan’. Then you will fade away.

Me: [SPOKEN] Thanks for giving me the opportunity to live the dream. (or something even worse than this Whitney Houston blunder)

Hopefully nobody will read this. The relevance of 888? Choose your tutor wisely, they are a crucial part of your development and only internally mock you when you go all gooey. Oh, and lucky Cove park that’s why. I wonder how the blobs will grow here?

Speak soon

# 10 [19 May 2006]

Heelo.

I am Wabbit and I’d like to express my regrets that Jay can’t join you today.  She asked me to apologise for her neglect of you blogerees this past week.  Things have just been a little busy for her and she hasn’t had the chance to qwertyuiop catch up.

You see, since beginning of the assessments last Wednesday, she has been putting her belongings into little boxes in preparation to move out of her current abode. She has also been lying down with 15 needles stuck into her ankle and back. The physio says that Trampoline really catapulted this mechanical nerve failure, but she will not need to construct a small walking frame with go faster stripes just yet; the “alternative therapy” is working.  He can tell by the fact that the area surrounding the needles are going pink.  Hew hew, that will be the gushing blood sir, ready to erupt.    

Excuse my glitcheroids, I am afterall a splaty plaster blob.  Do you think my smooth sleek ball is too polished? Sometimes I wish I were less tall and more like Utter! Nob, he has such a nice doodle atop of his flathead. 

Anyway, Jay is smiling a lot today since she is making last minute preparations for this evening.  It’s degree show opening of course and she needs to make sure the guests all feel welcomed and cared for.  That is why there is much bottled and tinned liquid arriving in boxes and also why she is making sure the performers (beat box, dance and lyrical ruse) are all on form.  Moreover, she’s looking forward to greeting her close ones that are travelling from afar over the next week to discover me and my clan, and to absorb some of the noisy moving stuff going on in her space. 

Anyway, I must go now and shuffle into my position.  Can’t be caught out of place now… must also orchestrate Hoodie, his hood keeps sliding down, and as for Ftumptch! Stop fidgeting!!!

P.s Jay says that she will have more time to blog you next week for sure.  Oh, pssst, she found out yesterday she got a first class honours.  Me oh my, must have been me, yes, look at how delicious I be. 

The show mush go on. More family pics next time