BLOG #4 (Final performance documentation)

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Personally I think group 2’s performance was way better compare to our group maybe because the flow between one to another is really smooth, and less videos but more live performances. I like how Francisco’s ripping the flower performance and saying something like “Obama, Osama” (she loves me, she loves me not?) also referenced the politic view between supporting Obama or Osama…. The way he talked and stutter created a personal wall that shut himself into this personal space where his mind is only focusing on himself and no others.

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Francis came before Francisco, where he dressed as a lion/monkey hybrid and jump around the ground throwing banana skins everywhere, I like how his eyes were engaging with the audiences as he is one sacred beast not just some animal. It’s kind of funny because his face reminds me of Dr. Seuss character… his movements reminded me too, sorry that’s just my own opinion…

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What is great about performance art, as I learned in this class that also help me a lot as a performer, is that YOU ARE IN YOUR OWN SPACE, when you are up stage, is all about you and nobody else! This is that one important thing that also slip off my mind when I’m performing on stage in the past, I didn’t take it far enough, wild enough, knowing this helped me in this two performances I had outside of school 3-4 weeks ago… The girl that asked us to help out with carrying the mirror and acting really annoying and Victor’s rage were two best examples. Especially Vic’s performance on the last day, he really surprised me, somehow I can’t link his usual quiet personally with the power performance/rage he brought up… just… wow! “IS THIS FUCKING HUMANITY????”

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Lastly, whether in the future I’ll be pursuing my dream as a hip-hop performer or making more visual/audio arts. One thing that hit me for sure is that: do it, just do it, like you are NOT SCARED of anything... There were two girls that stripped naked in front of the classroom for their final project, especially the other girl that “invited” us to strip, basically the whole class strip naked and form into a circle except all the Asian people in the class. They were not scared or not comfortable to take their clothes off, because they weren’t scared. I find that I create something better every time my initial approach is to joke around, usually is better than I actually WANT to make something better. Just like how Landon Mackenzie’s approach with drawing maps like abstract painting, and eventually turning it into something else.

(I can't really post pictures because my computer prevent pop ups for some reason even though I turn it off... just copy the picture links)

Blog #3 : CRITIQUE OF THE PERFORMERS

Sorry I’m late posting blog again because I’m busy with my FINAL PROJECT/ advance sound studio / DING class… So this is the overview on what’s going on 2-3 weeks ago during critiques of project #2.
I don’t really get why I failed on that project when I was told that the project was about trace of/or a performance… maybe it’s the fact people look at me as an entertainer rather than “performing artist” but if you look @ CURATING NOW, ccac, What are the most pressing questions for contemporary curators today? Just like entertainers, curators actually step out the role of being an “artist” and in a way they define “curating” as a act of creating “art” as well… anyways…



SO FIRST CRITIQUE CLASS, my favorites were Francisco’s performance and Patrick’s performance. Both of them were really stunning and engaging, especially Patrick’s performance where he dress up as a priest wearing a head of a rabbit spraying sticky colours everywhere. I like how he merge the elements of tribal performance, religion, and modern holiday all together to create this piece. Francisco’s work was interesting too, where he lay on the floor bare for the whole class and painted golden foil all over his body. By the end of the class 50% of his body was covered in golden skin. Classmates brought up the idea of 007 where the girls were painted in gold in some of the James Bond movie intro, some people brought up the idea of Egyptian references. Personally I was thinking about a golden version of Borgs from Star Trek series…
Vic’s work was very interesting and funny in the same time. Where he gave the
instructor a note saying “there is a bomb in school” and headed home straight up... the funny thing was that he never came back after.
This other classmate (I forgot her name…) held a “practice place” for people to practice with objects on the ground such as yoyo ball, jumping rope, a skull blowing whistle. There is a sign up sheet next to the practice area for people to “use” the object. This work reminds me of AHIS DING course that I’m currently taking right now where the course talk about gathering people, assembly as a form of art practice.
THE SECOND CRITIQUE CLASS was the craziest class ever. People were really willing to show off and take risk to another level. There were people taking off their clothes and sink themselves in flower or liquid. My favorite work is by Yota (because I’m in his work most of the time haha…) He took bunch of clips of people urinating in the men’s washroom and compiled the videos into loop able clips and put them in a cardboard box right next to the men’s washroom. Those who walk by will not know what it is until they take a closer look… but for some reason I was watching it 4-5 times when the boxes were there I always see myself 0_o…
So this is an overview of what I saw in the critique 2 weeks ago. Last week was a busy week for me because I’m preparing myself for the final project, shooting video with a professional basketball player friend and producing the music for it as well for the sound effect, design etc…

More @ http://www.wretch.cc/album/turbulance87 , http://www.youtube.com/tbeezyflow

Peace

BLOG #2 (What I've experienced during Reading Break)

So this is what happened almost every week… I don’t know if it counts as a RELATIONAL performance practice but this is where all the performers gather… and I got to see other performers perform, or I should say, collaborate with other performers as well. I’ll go to Chris’ house every Saturday from morning all the way to evening with the rest of the Korean music people. We basically gather together to make good music, a lot of times none of us are serious, everyone just started out to have fun, play random notes, rhythm on the KORG keyboard etc… I found out that it’s better to make a good track when you don’t think about “I want to make a good track”. Its that “chill” feeling that allow us to let go and have fun, sometimes unexpected result will come just like that! Probably the studio space inspired us greatly, usually it took us 20-30 minutes to make one track, once we lay the melody down everyone start writing rap lyrics/ Chris song write his part, another 20-30 minutes pass by and we take turn record the track. The result is usually great. On average we can make up 2 songs in a day, sometimes better 3, or even 4. There are few times we just made up a beat but everyone was either wasted from drinking or too lazy. We just play the instrumental over and over again and do whatever? Maybe get more wasted or have couple round of friendly freestyle battle (make up rap quickly in mind on spot to verbally attack other rappers). The picture you see on the top is me battling my friend Na-T (Korean rapper) on the right. I forgot what I was saying but from the look of the crowd must be something funny or offensive against Na-T hahaha… Of Course he bite me back after. Yeah… It could be pretty useful might as well practice our skill up, who knows? Maybe I’ll need it one day when I attend a real freestyle rap battle or even use the verse I spit into one of my raps. We seek creativity with a lot of different methods.
I’m actually quite happy we make a lot of songs since we’re together, we got like 12-15 tracks, enough songs to make up one album! Just like how Na-T told me if during summer break we can record everyday we could potentially make an album every week! This is crazy!




This is a DURATIONAL art practice. I went to the EVE’s concert during reading break (They are new local Asian band formed in Canada, I personally know the vocalist and the guitar player) @ UBC for this event called Evolution. Every year this event ask bunch of local bands to perform, they play a lot of Japanese heavy metal / rock music there. Personally I think EVE is probably the most well organized band and their skills are definitely at professional level. The band play the music really well, it sound just like any pre recorded rock record you would play in your stereo – they are THAT good. The Vocalist SID is crazy too, he really know how to control his voice when he is screaming his lung out. As a rap performer myself I know this is really hard to do when I raise my voice a lot on stage rapping, but he pull it off 100%
Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUykZUDL8ME&feature=channel_page

As you see in the performance clip, the band are doing great, I love his sadistic eyes contact with the audiences while he was giving out his best on stage. The way he pause and keep going reminded me a lot of Joker in Nolan’s version of Dark Knight. You got to see it live to understand how great it is :D

Anyways… COMMUNITY BASED art work is coming really soon, I’m actually going to catch a street basketball performance this Friday! Stay tune!

More information about Tbeezy:
http://www.wretch.cc/album/turbulance87
http://www.youtube.com/tbeezyflow

Shadow Performance Writeup (sorry ya'll I post this kinda late..)

sorry I posted this late because I forgot my photobucket passwords = =... haven't use it for so long so I have to make a new one and upload photos, well here it is ~

#1

This shadow performance really gives you this Shakespearean feel with touch of the futuristic influenced objects such as the idea of outer space, planets etc… The scene started off with a well decorated, Victorian time like curtains opening up and you see a girl sitting in this garden gasping and talking with British type of accent, just by watching the shadow I can tell she is sitting in a garden, kind of melancholic setting, kind of things you see in Shakespearean’s plays. Right after few seconds somebody is dumping tea or water in the girl’s cup, she drinks the tea and somehow gets really excited as if there were ecstasy in there or something… she gets really “high” when strangle of strings and blue colours are taking over her. She fade away when 3 colourful sphere objects (blue, red, orange colours) starts to appear and float around the screen, from what I see the shape of the planets might represent Earth, Saturn and wait… a spaceship or UFO? Then the close up curtain blocks everything except for small holes that you can peak through which is really hard to see what’s going on behind the curtain. Once the curtain is gone you see the girl again, happy, delighted and start stripping her cloth in a scandalous manner, remove her bra and throw it outside the screen and fly towards the audiences. Then the face of the man appears and stalks her, she is shocked and her feet turn really big and kick the man’s face in anger out of the screen. After that shape of butterflies appear and the girl grow butterfly’s wings and soar with the butterflies, colourful sphere objects appear again and the show is finished. Again I find the context of this performance really mystical and fit well into the 16-17 century genre in British when rich people were everywhere. Monarchs, high educated people that were viewed as “holy object” by the poor, minor people that were living under poverty, since back in the days rich and the poor were just like Heaven and Hell apart. But then those “holy”, “big” figures are just like everyone else, they also party hard, do crazy things just like the girl was stripping and getting high in front of the screen and I guess the stalking man might represent those minor figures that sees a different side of those type of people. This piece could be a play, theatre format also. There are bad sides to something that’s good, vice versa good sides to whats bad, isn’t that what most successful plays out there are about? That twisted storyline or ending is what get audiences hook to it. I mean, the whole movie or play will ultimately sucks if we can expect the ending, but wow, this one really controls me as I’m watching this, it’s unexpected in a good way. I really like this performance because of the transitions from scene to scene were really fluent and natural + the usage of colours were great, blue, red used together really create this “deep”, “in the space” feelings. However I think this performance can improve much more if there are more sound or even music incorporated. The whole thing will look more realistic and hook you in the situation as if you are in the scene.

#2

This shadow performance is really abstract and really short, with Asian, fetish influenced subject matter. It starts with hands holding something to the left of the screen, with tribal drumming fading in slowly in the background. The drumming gets louder as the hands slowly unfold, you see shape of a creature’s head getting bigger and bigger and less distorted as the hand slowly unfolds. Eventually you see a head of the pig attach to the hands on the left. And on the right you see a man wearing a hat that represent an officer, policeman figure according to my point of view? The pig on the left fades away and the man on the left is stroking hard as if something is going to pop off his chest, being possessed by demons or having a bad heart attack or something. The man somehow falls dead on the ground. Later on the drum pattern changes and you see the pig head appears again and this time on the right you see a two headed officer’s head (man with hat on) approaching really close with the pig in the middle of the screen as if they are going to start a romantic affair. The pig’s head grow bigger and bigger until it’s mouth is big enough as if the pig is going to bite the two headed officer’s head off. The perspective change from this “romantic” feeling to this morbid feeling that the officer is “worshipping” the giant pig and slowly back away in fear. The performance really fits well into the pop art context of using everyday object to make an artwork, or story out of it. Especially the ideology of animals, superiors, fetishism etc… Kind of like how Andy Warhol using “masturbation”, that everyday subject and make a big deal out of it. The sound effect + the imagery also create this psychological feeling that either excite or strike fear into audiences’ mind. Somehow this performance reminds me a lot of the “Cremaster series” of the animals faced people, interaction with characters etc… It’s really weird in the same time unique in a very dark way. This shadow performance will be successful IF the artists’ purpose is to show no purpose. At least to me because I don’t get it, like… there are just bunch of things going on and a lot of them don’t really make sense at all, for example the pig and the officers?... unlike the previous two performances I kind of sense what is going on, even though the expressions are really abstract, but for this piece none of the things match up, more like a mash up. I think it’s different in a way that it focus more on the mood and feeling rather than focusing on certain plot or storyline progression.

#3


First off, there are TWO versions for this shadow performance, despite the fact the first with sound and second with sound, the performance progression is completely different too, both using a “light box” which a big rectangular mirror is place in front of the light source to amplify the gamma of this shadow performance. The “lightbox” was completely blinded by the brown paper in the first version, and slowly tear apart, you see light breaking through in the middle of the darkness and slowly grow bigger and bigger, until the whole scene was full of white lights and shadow of a female started to appear. A figure of a man appear on the right and merge with the female and background fades out. The music is one steady note play throughout the whole scene, kind of futuristic feel; this is the best example of what the music is like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUH7hlFYnxQ (First 9 seconds is really similar, by KanYe West – Paranoid) The second version is much different, where the “lightbox” effect is throughout the performance, this version is more hilarious, jokish compare to the first one, where two guys are flirting with the girl in the middle, look as if they are going to lick/eat her. I forgot what happen afterwards just remember that two guys are fighting over the girl in a slow motion, but it’s “fake” slowing motion in real time aspect so I find it really hilarious… This shadow performance switch the audiences’ mind set back and forth between the reality and dreamy sequence, where you see that in A LOT in Hollywood movies, but it’s showed very well in the live performance by bursting the light in and start the shadow performance from there. Movies like “Matrix Reloaded” does that where in the end scene protagonist Neo was walking in the room with sunglasses on to see the Architect, where the room is really bright in contrast of the dark atmosphere around it. In the first scene of “Total Recall” the protagonist was awaken by the bad dream etc… It’s the “snapping back to reality” thing that the “lightbox” is creating throughout this shadow performance, you know how when a lot of light comes in through the dark? Eventually eating the darkness, there was like these 10 seconds of unconscious until people start seeing shadow actors in front of the screen? That’s the feeling I’m talking about. It works great not just in art context, but also works in magic performance, music performance as well.

Again I like the whole idea of the "lightbox", it's really different and clever, but the transition could be more fluet and faster and try to match the music beat, that way the performance will look more fuller.

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new song "Orgasm" on http://www.wretch.cc/album/turbulance87 ! check it out!

Performing Artist research

So here are the lists of performance artists I did during last week (I basically picked out the one that stand out on internet… I watch A LOT of youtube videos so yeah…)

Yoko Ono
Perhaps she is best known to be John Lennon (The Beatles)’s wife. But what a lot of people don’t know is that she is also a performance artist as well! In 1940 she moved to New York City and during 1945-50 was the period when Americans were having a rough time with Japanese, that’s when she developed her aggressive attitude and wanted to become an artist. She is a video performance artist which she made 16 videos during 1964-1972, famous video work is called “no.4” which featured close up of human buttocks. She was the explorer of conceptual art and performance art where her famous performance called “cut piece” where she invited the audiences to cut off all the fabric on what she’s wearing, until she’s bare naked.

Chris Crocker
Online openly gay man who is born in 1987 (same age as I am), act out in many ways from imitating people’s voice/accent and movements from somebody else. Personally I think video blogging is a form of performing art because people that are producing the videos are consider artist as well. I do video blogging myself too so I consider myself as the artist… you are the subject to the viewers. Anyways, Chris Crocker was known for being the biggest Britney Spears’ fan and made videos dedicated to her and defended her against people that hate her. His works commented on social and personal issues such as education, gays, love etc…
His official youtube website: http://www.youtube.com/user/itschriscrocker

Khris Khaos
He is got to be my favorite on youtube right now. I don’t know if he is an artist but he is definitely a talented performer. He is mainly known as a dancer who teaches people how to do krump, hip-hop and popping dance but in the same time he talks about racial, sex issues as well. He also act, record and edit all his video.
http://www.youtube.com/user/khriskhaos2

new song "ADDictive" up on http://www.wretch.cc/album/turbulance87 !

peace~

My works (weblink included)

I'm a mandarin based hip-hop artist along with asian tongues MC / musicians all around BC, I collaborated with Japanese, Korean, Chinese rappers/ singers, I got around 60-70 tracks and couple video blog, music video up online @

http://www.wretch.cc/album/turbulance87
http://www.youtube.com/tbeezyflow

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