Thursday, May 11, 2006
Another day in Cyberjaya, and another terrific day. First thing that happened was a message came in from Charles Bernstein letting me know that the Bangkok recordings have been posted at PennSound (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Funkhouser.html). I am impressed by how quickly that happened (thanks Charles, et al.!). I spent the morning getting things organized on the desk and calendar (plotting and planning our last 11 or so weeks here, which will—in addition to MMU work—include lectures at USM in Penang and NUS in Singapore, plus a few other excursions), outlining the scheme of the database (images, sounds, texts), reviewing and making a list of images to compile for the database (also some pictures from Thailand to replace repeating pictures in the animation I made yesterday, prompted by a comment Stella made—nice when your kids help make your art better). After lunch with Amy, Sau Bin and I put our heads together, tossing possibilities around for my (our) upcoming performance/installation at MMU. Because he has a few gigs in June and July we decided it would be best to do it just after the next term begins, on June 21—which gives us about 5 weeks to put it together. He asked me if there would be any theme for the presentation, and all I could think of in response was, “scientific randomness and aesthetic beauty.” At the moment it looks like it will involve, on the tech front, 3 projectors and a PA system, although could easily change. We want to do it in the large atrium in between the School of Management and the FCM, where the acoustics are good, there is plenty of foot traffic, and also a built in audience at the café where I eat pretty much everyday. We came up with a few ideas for sensory stimuli, and I have a list of chores to do with regards to making soundtracks and capturing images (like a photo-essay on various places at the university); I’m hoping to get at least a couple of other faculty members involved as well. The plan is to have 30 minutes of sound and image projection, 30 minutes live performance, 30 minutes sound and image, 30 minutes performance. It will be interesting to see how this initial plan evolves, and what we can concoct in general…
Through Sau Bin, Amy and I have also been asked to participate in an exhibit at a gallery called MIA in Kuala Lumpur from July 15-29. I don’t know if we’ll do this collaboratively or not, but it seems like a good way to end our stint here (we’re flying back to Newark on July 31).
After that, John Hii came by to show me what he put together for the (very cool) layout design of the eBook, which was exciting. The chore tomorrow will be to get all of the files organized, review them carefully, and begin to make any fixes that need to be made. After that, test, test, test, for at least a week.
I spent the rest of the day making a dozen texts with the Google Poetry engine, which I’ll alter by adding to and subtracting from; some of the material may eventually end up in the database in an altered form. Now that I’ve begun to identify the (entirely Malaysian) images and sounds that are going to go into the prototype, I need to make some texts. I’m not really comfortable with using the Google poems in their entirety, but—strange as it may sound—find the device useful as a heuristic tool (which has already proven itself in helping to jump start my own poetic perspective and compositions). I have written some “poems” here but haven’t been able to do so every step of the way, so trying this process out and hopeful that it will lead to fertile places. I still have a few gaps to fill (for instance, I’d like to make another trip to Melaka because it needs to be represented in the database project), but should be able to (and will) focus quite a bit on this aspect of the project—which will most likely also feed into the performance—during the next 2-3 weeks.
In many ways I’ve enjoyed spending the past four years writing prose, and doing research on my discipline for more than a decade—these activities have been beneficial in so many ways—but I have to admit making art is a lot more exciting and presents a whole ‘nother set of welcome, rewarding challenges. Digging it!
Through Sau Bin, Amy and I have also been asked to participate in an exhibit at a gallery called MIA in Kuala Lumpur from July 15-29. I don’t know if we’ll do this collaboratively or not, but it seems like a good way to end our stint here (we’re flying back to Newark on July 31).
After that, John Hii came by to show me what he put together for the (very cool) layout design of the eBook, which was exciting. The chore tomorrow will be to get all of the files organized, review them carefully, and begin to make any fixes that need to be made. After that, test, test, test, for at least a week.
I spent the rest of the day making a dozen texts with the Google Poetry engine, which I’ll alter by adding to and subtracting from; some of the material may eventually end up in the database in an altered form. Now that I’ve begun to identify the (entirely Malaysian) images and sounds that are going to go into the prototype, I need to make some texts. I’m not really comfortable with using the Google poems in their entirety, but—strange as it may sound—find the device useful as a heuristic tool (which has already proven itself in helping to jump start my own poetic perspective and compositions). I have written some “poems” here but haven’t been able to do so every step of the way, so trying this process out and hopeful that it will lead to fertile places. I still have a few gaps to fill (for instance, I’d like to make another trip to Melaka because it needs to be represented in the database project), but should be able to (and will) focus quite a bit on this aspect of the project—which will most likely also feed into the performance—during the next 2-3 weeks.
In many ways I’ve enjoyed spending the past four years writing prose, and doing research on my discipline for more than a decade—these activities have been beneficial in so many ways—but I have to admit making art is a lot more exciting and presents a whole ‘nother set of welcome, rewarding challenges. Digging it!
# posted by chris funkhouser @ 6:40 AM 
