Monday, January 09, 2006
1/9/06 ~ evening
It is eve of the Hari Raya celebration (where, traditionally, a cow is sacrificed), one of our upstairs neighbors is blasting what sounds like Javanese rub-a-dub, and I just saw a wildly ornate moth with an 8 inch wingspan (a few moments after discovering that there are fireflies here); no time like the present to post to the b/log…
We had a positive adventure to Pulau Pangkor, where many images were captured (see the flickr blog), I made some recordings of a monsoon thunderstorm, daybreak birds, and shot some contemplative video of fisherman in Coral Bay as well as natural and man-made ruins along the shoreline (not to mention some rough footage of monkeys). Discovering how difficult it is to capture moving objects. Although the scenery was colorful and culture vibrant and unusual, unequipped at this point to catch it with poetic language – though hope to get to the point where such happens...
Returned to workspace this morning, spent tracking down email addresses and trying to locate artists who I need to contact for book/image permissions. Discovered that another of them (Marc Adrian) is no longer with us, and that some important figures (to me, at least) are quite elusive. Nonetheless proceeding with optimism. Tomorrow I’ll draft a template letter to send to some three dozen contemporaries who I am able to get in touch with.
Office visits from MMU colleagues Wong (who picked my brain about my research in digital poetry and what led me to it) and (Yap) Sau Bin, an installation artist who I’d met during my previous visit. He turned me on to his extracurricular activities as a co-organizer of the R.A.P. gallery in KL (http://www.rap.home-page.org/), and a project he has going which involves the use of “Google Earth” to make a virtual guide to galleries in KL. I’d never seen the Google program (download via http://www.google.com.my/downloads/)before, and it is a mind-blower – well worth checking out. The disparity in topo-scape between where we live in NJ and where we are now is outrageous to say the least…
(the image at the top shows the view of our apartment in Cyberjaya from Google Earth)
Since last posting, emails to/with/from: Richie West, Richard Loranger, Eric Curkendall (of Wrestling Worms fame, etc. – now living in Bankok), Kenny G., J.L. Antonio (who invited me into a dialog with Melo e Castro, Fatima Lasay, Trevor Batten, Lucia Leão and himself regarding form and content in computer/digital/electronic arts, which I hope to make time to partake in), John Cayley, R.W. Bailey, the Getty Museum, etc.
Khong has set us a meeting on Friday with a Prentice-Hall representative regarding the possible publication of an alternate edition of Technopoetry Rising in Malaysia, and surprisingly, a visit with my collaborator (and former NJIT student) George Taylor (who is visiting the country with his Malaysian wife) is also in the works for the weekend. George did the database programming for my kinetic and interactive acrostic piece “MOBY-DICK” in 2002, which is now offline but we are attempting to resuscitate.
In general I am a bit anxious to get to some new creative territory, but have to take care of some necessary, ongoing, research matters too. All in the process, as Bob Creeley was wont to say, of Onward!
CF
It is eve of the Hari Raya celebration (where, traditionally, a cow is sacrificed), one of our upstairs neighbors is blasting what sounds like Javanese rub-a-dub, and I just saw a wildly ornate moth with an 8 inch wingspan (a few moments after discovering that there are fireflies here); no time like the present to post to the b/log…
We had a positive adventure to Pulau Pangkor, where many images were captured (see the flickr blog), I made some recordings of a monsoon thunderstorm, daybreak birds, and shot some contemplative video of fisherman in Coral Bay as well as natural and man-made ruins along the shoreline (not to mention some rough footage of monkeys). Discovering how difficult it is to capture moving objects. Although the scenery was colorful and culture vibrant and unusual, unequipped at this point to catch it with poetic language – though hope to get to the point where such happens...
Returned to workspace this morning, spent tracking down email addresses and trying to locate artists who I need to contact for book/image permissions. Discovered that another of them (Marc Adrian) is no longer with us, and that some important figures (to me, at least) are quite elusive. Nonetheless proceeding with optimism. Tomorrow I’ll draft a template letter to send to some three dozen contemporaries who I am able to get in touch with.
Office visits from MMU colleagues Wong (who picked my brain about my research in digital poetry and what led me to it) and (Yap) Sau Bin, an installation artist who I’d met during my previous visit. He turned me on to his extracurricular activities as a co-organizer of the R.A.P. gallery in KL (http://www.rap.home-page.org/), and a project he has going which involves the use of “Google Earth” to make a virtual guide to galleries in KL. I’d never seen the Google program (download via http://www.google.com.my/downloads/)before, and it is a mind-blower – well worth checking out. The disparity in topo-scape between where we live in NJ and where we are now is outrageous to say the least…
(the image at the top shows the view of our apartment in Cyberjaya from Google Earth)
Since last posting, emails to/with/from: Richie West, Richard Loranger, Eric Curkendall (of Wrestling Worms fame, etc. – now living in Bankok), Kenny G., J.L. Antonio (who invited me into a dialog with Melo e Castro, Fatima Lasay, Trevor Batten, Lucia Leão and himself regarding form and content in computer/digital/electronic arts, which I hope to make time to partake in), John Cayley, R.W. Bailey, the Getty Museum, etc.
Khong has set us a meeting on Friday with a Prentice-Hall representative regarding the possible publication of an alternate edition of Technopoetry Rising in Malaysia, and surprisingly, a visit with my collaborator (and former NJIT student) George Taylor (who is visiting the country with his Malaysian wife) is also in the works for the weekend. George did the database programming for my kinetic and interactive acrostic piece “MOBY-DICK” in 2002, which is now offline but we are attempting to resuscitate.
In general I am a bit anxious to get to some new creative territory, but have to take care of some necessary, ongoing, research matters too. All in the process, as Bob Creeley was wont to say, of Onward!
CF
# posted by chris funkhouser @ 6:17 AM 
