June 2013 Archives

Notebooks

Old school hardcover notebooks unearthed during a weekend springclean. One of them has patterns for ‘Aida’s Baju Kurung’ and ‘Aida’s Bell Bottoms’. The rest are empty and waiting for ink.

New brog! Shape of The Shadow

News! News! Portable Sensors, my interactive work about banned books is part of Art in Search of Words at Interpr8 gallery, Publika.

This is kind of late – the show opened last weekend as part of #WORD The Cooler Lumpur Festival. The festival’s over, but the exhibition goes on till July 14, so couple of weeks left to check it out.

I began tracking books banned by the Malaysian government in 2007.

There was a list on the Home Ministry’s website that was available on and off – now you saw it, the next day it was gone. I decided I needed to build my own database and entered every book on the list into a spreadsheet. Based on the titles, I put them in categories: Sexuality, Religion, Counter Culture, Politics and Race.

I sent the list to my best friend, a civil engineer who helps me do all my math. (One day I’ll show you trigonometry calculations she did when I had to scale tiny model sails into room-size ones that I suspended from the pillars of a building.) She analyzed the data, making tables and line graphs.

Collecting and organizing all this information about censorship gave me a feeling of power and control. Instead of getting outraged each time another banned book was announced, I calmly entered it into my spreadsheet.

Later I took the shapes of the graphs and turned them into buzz wires that people could play with. A simple game – if the metal hoop touches the wire at any point, a screeching buzzer goes off. Can you get to the end of the graph without setting off the sensor?

Here’s the list as a downloadable Google doc spreadsheet, it’s updated to 2013 and includes charts: MALAYSIA BANNED BOOKS 1971 – Current

Making things has always been my way of thinking through what’s happening and overcoming my passivity. The buzz wires aren’t anti-censorship statements. They don’t take a stand on freedom of expression. They’re perverse toys that attempt to give the invisible beast of censorship a shape. Just a small part of the beast – maybe a hoof, or a single tooth. In the big scheme of things (like unlawful detentions, deaths in custody, limits on freedom of assembly), book banning can seem pretty minor. But it’s one of the few tools of oppression that can be tracked clearly, over time.

Shapes are things we can grasp, hold, see, play with and learn from.

Things without a shape seep in and take on the shape of others. This is how censorship infects our societies, eventually becoming part of our culture, emerging as dark forces like intolerance, conservatism, and moral policing of fellow citizens.

To understand and overcome the shadow, give it a shape!

P.S. – Art is good for that.

Lalang pattern

Grow lalang, grow! Finding patterns in the stubborn grass. New stuff coming soon.

Fertilizer Friday: Daniel Salehuddin

Fertilizer Fridays are interviews with artist friends. Honest, casual conversations that share ideas and bust myths about being an artist/making art.

I needed to get a box made to house my WEEDS rubberstamps set. That’s when I met Daniel Salehuddin, self-taught woodworker. The craft and care he puts into everything he makes blew me away. Read on for great insights on Malaysian woods, wood sourcing and making things with love.

Just like everyone else, craftsmen have good days and bad days. Could you describe what your working day is like, a good one and a bad one?

a) GOOD

A good day is when you get the chance to make or do something new. It’s always a good feeling when you finish your first dovetail joint or your first full-sized stool.

b) BAD

A bad day would be making a wrong cut even after you’ve measured ten times!

Offcut Cushion Bench. Various hard and soft woods including Resak, Meranti, Nyatoh and pine. The frame is made from Meranti.

When we met you were just finishing your internship at LAIN Furniture. Now you work there full time. So give us the story! How did you get into woodworking?

Growing up I was always a maker, and wood was always in abundance. So, I became quite handy with a saw and hammer at a very young age.

When I was 17, one of the assessments for my Engineering Technology subject was to build a full-sized cabinet. I tricked my dad by telling him that, if he bought me a jigsaw, I would build a gate for our garden. Instead I used the jigsaw to build an actual shoe cabinet with drop-down compartments (like those IKEA ones), a drawer and even a place to put your umbrellas.

I was really proud of it. Because of that project and the feeling I got from it, I fell in love with woodworking! I ended up building a gate and a door for our garden later that year.

Pallet Low lounge/table. Made from reclaimed wooden pallets, with tiger claw sofa legs.

Could you run us through some basics about types of wood available in Malaysia? Do you have any favorites?

Meranti, Balau, Nyatoh, Merbau, Jati, Resak, Getah, Chengal, and Belian are some of our local woods that I’m familiar with. The cheapest out of that group would be Meranti, since it’s the wood used in construction. You can get it easily from the normal hardware store. If you’re just starting wood working, get some Meranti to practice.

The furniture industry is familiar with Getah, Nyatoh, Jati, and even Merbau.

Chengal, Belian, and Balau are really hard woods and often used as decking or for structures like pergola and sheds.

My favourite wood right now would be Nyatoh since it’s easy to work with and the wood has some pink and purple colour in it!

Wall-mounted ukulele holder

How about sourcing? What are some good places to get wood? Usually I only see poor quality plywood at hardware stores and I’ve always been curious how to get my hands on the good stuff.

Don’t go to a normal hardware store to find good wood! If you want some good quality hardwood, try your local lumber yard or sawmill. Some shops even offer wood plane-ing service so you can get your wood all flat and squared up. Another thing to keep in mind is to try and get dried lumber!

About plywood, the ones at normal hardware stores are usually construction grade. Try to find a furniture hardware shop in your area to get furniture grade plywood, but be ready to spend about triple the price! If you are in the Klang Valley, try going to Kampung Baru Sungai Buloh, there you can find lots of wood related stuff!

Handcut and sanded from a Meranti offcut block. Ngiauuuu~

For someone thinking about trying their hand at woodworking, what are some basic tools you’d recommend? Does it take much to get started?

The most basic would be a handsaw, a hammer and some wood glue, but since we live in the modern age where power tools are cheap and abundant, I would recommend a jigsaw and a drill. When I started, I only had those two power tools.

Custom Nyatoh box with mitre joints and sliding lid for my WEEDS Rubberstamps set. More photos here and here.

When I came to you I remember whining that ‘it’s easy to get someone to make a box, but a REALLY good box is another matter’. It seems harder and harder to find good craftspeople in Malaysia, from general contractors to welders or glass workers. There’s a lack of care or pride in the work. What are your thoughts on this?

I can’t really comment about other people, but for me, it’s always about doing something you love. That’s the backbone of doing anything, whether it’s welding, drawing, driving or dancing. You know you will do a good job when you are doing it with love!

End-grain Nyatoh wood cutting board – in progress and finished. A cut out on the underneath edge makes it easier to lift.

We spend so much time on computers or mobile devices. I still find that I think best with my hands. There is also a sort of joy; I even experience time differently. Why do you think making things with our hands gives us so much satisfaction?

It all boils down to the feeling of success and pride! Different people have different ways to achieve that feeling. Some get it after making a good sale, others after doing a performance. For us, we get it after we have a finished product in front of us with paint and dirt all over our hands!

What’s next for you?

I’m currently setting up my home workshop. Nothing fancy, just a small shed at the back of my house. I can take my time setting up the little shed since I’m currently working at LAIN Furniture, which is a proper woodworking studio. When the shed is done, it will be my space to do all the ‘not work’ projects!

Working at night with the help of a construction site night lamp.

Thanks, Daniel!

Everyone, please say hi to Daniel on Facebook. Also check out LAIN Furniture, the workshop where he’s currently based. They run woodworking classes for beginners.

Hacking the Art Exhibition

I seldom have a good time at an art show. Maybe it’s my fault. I am an introvert. I usually go on opening night. I psych myself up an hour before and still end up intimidated, anxious and bored when I get there. Thing is, I love art, and I love people. So, why the hell?

The thought of people feeling the same way at MY shows… just makes me sad. WEEDS/RUMPAI was the first solo show I did after moving to Port Dickson. It was time to rethink it all. I had to make a show I would 1) enjoying doing, 2) want to go to and 3) have fun at.

This is how I hacked everything I thought an exhibition had to be:

1. Treat it as an experiment

Artists take all kinds of risks making their work – chasing ideas, finding ways to say what we want to say. Ironically, the risk-taking stops when it comes to showing art. We rely on existing structures: the established gallery, press release, VIP previews for collectors, cocktail reception. Why do we give up the driver’s seat so suddenly and so completely at this stage of the process?

Thinking about exhibitions as process, not outcome, forced me to extend the spirit of enquiry all the way to the end. For example, why are we seeing so few new faces at art shows, year after year? Sigh and accept ‘that’s how it is’, OR try something freaky to shake it up? For the first time in years, I found myself thinking ‘IT MAY NOT WORK’ again and again. It scared me. I also knew that this feeling is what makes art risky, vital and necessary.

2. It doesn’t have to be 3 weeks long

Long exhibitions give more people the chance to see it. But it also means: more time (can’t move on to the next project), more resources (space rental, gallery minder), and importantly, a longer wait until you get paid for art you’ve sold (debt, opportunity costs). I weighed this against my observation that most small-medium scale exhibitions in KL see 90% of their audience on opening night.

For WEEDS, we discussed a two-day exhibition. Then we narrowed it down to one. The limited timeframe forced an urgent, flexible way of thinking and doing. We worked our asses off on pre-show promotion – displaying the works online, blogging everyday and just giving people a window into the making process. Within a month, I had wrapped up almost all affairs related to the show, and moved on to making new art.

3. Set the terms of sale

Nothing yanks my chain more than waiting months on payment for art I’ve sold and delivered. I have horror stories of friends getting cheques years after their show closed. Some gave up and were never compensated.

I set a clear condition: payment within 2 weeks, or no sale, and an incentive: 10% discount for immediate payment. Within 20 days, I was paid in full – something I have never experienced in more than 7 years of exhibiting with galleries.

4. Sell the work before the show

For WEEDS, we experimented by selling the works online a week before. They sold out within two days, which surprised and delighted me, but it also led to an unexpected outcome: a complete change in atmosphere on the day of the show.

When art is for sale, the gallery turns into a marketplace. In the marketplace, when we can’t buy something, we shut off from its message. Whatever its value, we can’t attain it, so why bother. Hey, which way to the open bar?

Also, the need to entertain and service potential wealthy patrons creates two ‘tiers’ of audiences at a show. My theory is that this is what makes exhibitions so intimidating, especially to newcomers, but even to sorta old hats like myself.

When nothing is for sale, people relax. They talk more naturally. The art fades into the background, which strangely, makes it more powerful and alive. Released from being commodities on the wall, art activates the room and whoever’s in it. It becomes an excuse for people getting together.

5. Ban art-speak

Read press releases from a few galleries. Peek at their invitation graphics. They sound and look the same. They’re often incomprehensible and never warm or inviting. People assume that describing something with clarity means dumbing it down. This is as misguided as it is arrogant.

From the press statements to the invitation, we pored over every word we wrote for WEEDS, purging the unnecessary, vague or jargonistic. ‘Major body of works’, ‘conceptual artist’, ‘site-specific’ didn’t make it. Not even ‘repurposed’. Instead, we used ‘up-cycled’.

6. Host it like you’d host a party at your house

My philosophy for throwing parties is that people should feel comfortable enough to do or be whatever they want. My best friend once came to a New Years’ party at my house and spent the entire night playing scrabble on her iphone, while people danced next to her in the living room. She later told me it was the best party she’d ever been to.

Extroverts can get all the attention they desire (we organized an open mic), introverts can sit in a corner or have intense one-on-one conversations, (we assembled a craft table in the middle of the room with rubber stamps, crayons and paper), emos can mope or cry (I did – too much wine, too happy, too tired, too everything), the hungry can score a free meal (my brother, a talented chef, cooked up a spread of weeds inspired food), and so on. Jerome DJ-ed. And there was dancing.

There must always be the option of dancing.

7. Ask for help

I hate to tell you this, but you can’t do it alone.

I hired Commas & Industry to help with the event management and PR.

I hired OUR Art Projects to handle the sales transactions.

I hired Maryann and Roberto to build me a website in 2 weeks.

I hired Jerome to organize the open mic and play his magic music.

My brother, bless his heart, cooked for free.

Merdekarya, bless its generous, DIY, bad-ass heart, let me use the space for free. They ended up making record sales from drinks at the bar.

This is the math:

All in all, it cost me exactly 50% of what I made from artwork sales to produce the WEEDS/RUMPAI exhibition.

Today galleries require a 50% commission on all sales. None of them offer guarantees that they will bust their ass selling your art, expanding your audience or furthering your career. Honestly ask yourself if your relationship to the gallery is one of mutual respect and collaboration. If you’re in business with a gallery like that, congratulations and good luck. Demand contracts. Demand payment on time. Demand transparency. They need you more than you need them.

The point of this post is not to be a definitive guide on how art should be shown. It’s to prove that you can do it exactly the way you want. Work with people you trust and respect, people who will be REAL partners on an equal footing and help make your crazy ideas happen.

Don’t give up the driver’s seat.

PS. Perhaps you are wondering: what’s with the mudskipper? Because it’s the weirdest, craziest, coolest animal? EVERRR? I dunno. Ask my subconscious. It seems to think a mudskipper is the perfect mascot for hacking into anything you need to change.

All photos by OUR Art Projects.

Painting the Weeds rubberstamps box: Step-by-step

The WEEDS rubberstamp set is happening oh so slowly. Here’s a look at the process of painting the custom box that will house the stamps.

Step 1: Design layout. I made the weeds overlap every surface so they look like they’re taking over the box.

STEP 2: Because I’m producing a few copies of this artwork (in artspeak it’s called a ‘limited edition multiple’), I trace the design so each set will be the same.

Step 3: I mixed my own black because I am a NERD. Not all blacks are equal. The stuff in tubes is usually flat and one-dimensional. You can’t see in the photos, but this is actually a very dark navy-grey that comes out as rich, warm black against the nyatoh wood’s reddish tone. I mix in equal parts sealer (the white stuff, dries clear) for durability.

Step 4: Here we go!

Step 5: Paint paint paint. I start from the top left and work my way across.

Step 6: OMG done! The top of the box is a lid that slides out, but when closed it just looks like one continuous surface.

Step 7: Identification underneath the box. ‘AP’ means artist proof, which is like a trial run piece – you work out all the glitches so that the proper editions will be perfect, or as close as you can get.

Step 8: Now this baby is ready for waxing, which protects the wood, gives it this crazy sexy satiny sheen…

…and brings out the beautiful grain.

This thing is taking up alot of hours, but I’m loving every second. More than anything, this is the part of my job I dig the most. The making.

More pics of the stamps and box on my Facebook page. Stay with me, I’ll announce when it’s done and ready for the world.

Fertilizer Fridays: Kok Siew Wai

I know it’s been quiet on the blog. Been working furiously backstage to get my online world in order. Big change is afoot, but it’s taking awhile to come together. In the meantime… ONWARDS with Fertilizer Friday.

Fertilizer Fridays are interviews with artist friends. Honest, casual conversations that share ideas and bust myths about being an artist/making art.

Say hello to Kok Siew Wai, sound and video artist, plus organizer of all things experimental in KL and beyond. She’s one of those unsung art heroes who steadily makes things happen, one DIY event, festival, and performance at a time. Here she’s got some great insights on failure, improvisation and alternative culture.

Just like everyone else, artists have good days and bad days. Could you describe what your working day is like, a good one and a bad one?

a) GOOD

It feels good when my effort and passion in the arts is understood and appreciated. And, when I do something more risky, and it turns out great. Once we showed some challenging works in a screening, and we were a bit worried about the audience’s reactions. The audience turned out to be quite open minded. At the end, our sponsor came up to us and said, “You know, it’s important that you show these works to the Malaysian audience.” This comment made my day.

b) BAD

So, it’s the opposite, when we’re being misunderstood, which happens quite often. Haha! Also, I don’t like tedious bureaucracies, but I do have to do those things often because of my job.

You make art using video and sound, and also lecture in the Faculty of Creative Multimedia at Multimedia University. Is unfamiliarity a problem when it comes to experimental art forms? How can we create better understanding without taking on the position of ‘expert’ who’s trying to teach their audience all the time?

I don’t regard myself as an ‘expert’ with a superior sense. As an artist, I try to express myself honestly. As an educator, I’m a facilitator, a moderator. In teaching, I like to create an interactive environment where students will talk and involve in a discussion. I usually let the audience/students watch the work first, before presenting my own thoughts.

In my own artmaking, I’m sharing personal experience, feelings and thoughts. And if the audience feel related, that’s good. Then you and the audience are communicating on an artistic and somewhat spiritual level. If not, then so be it. Some people can understand you, some just don’t. It’s really not a problem at all.

The spirit of experimentation is in everything you’ve done, like the Experimental Musicians & Artists’ Cooperative (EMACM), Open Lab platform, and recently, KL Experimental Film and Video Fest (KLEX). Experimentation is linked to creativity, but so is that dirty word: failure. Can you tell us about experiencing failure, epic or otherwise?

‘Experimental’, and also DIY. Some of my works are experimental, while others are just alternative. By ‘alternative’ I mean it’s not mainstream or the ‘usual’, but nonetheless exists, and this is a fact. The minority is as important as the majority, as they both make up the whole picture.

A Chinese proverb says, “Failure is the mother of success”. And it’s very true. Failure makes you stronger, better, and you learn and improve. But it’s not a fixed entity, you see. From one angle it’s a failure, but from another angle it might not be so. It depends on how you see and work with this so-called ‘failure’. In improvised music, there’s hardly a “wrong note” as improvisation is an on-going process – it’s always changing, forming, transforming. You can bring a ‘wrong note’ to a whole different new dimension with new possibilities.

I’ve talked to you before about improvisation as something that’s important in both art and life. Could you give us instructions for a simple improv we can do right here, right now?

Play a ‘wrong note’, and see where it leads you!

I consume most of my media (news, entertainment, ideas, culture, art) on the Internet. The web is an explosion of sound, images and words. Lately I’ve been experiencing symptoms – inability to concentrate, lack of focus, constant hunger for information. Yet as an artist, I love that we have all these ways to connect and spread our ideas. What are you thoughts on this?

My thoughts on social media and the online culture, you mean? I think it’s a great way to connect and get informed. But one’s life shouldn’t exist only in the virtual world and be satisfied by looking at the computer screen and inside one’s mind, I think. As a human being living in a human society, I appreciate the physical connection with other human beings. I still think that you can only truly know a person with physical connections, by meeting face-to-face. That’s why I enjoy organizing events, and live performance.

Are you a feminist?

I’m a woman biologically; my womanly qualities are natural and part of me. I accept and I act with my natural self. I’d like to be regarded and respected as a “human”. That’s all. Labeling is not so important.

How have you found organizing events (Open Lab, Sama-Sama Guesthouse Mini Festival, KLEX) in relation to making your own art?

Definitely connected. An artist makes art about life in a human society. Artists and society are closely related. They affect each other. Personally, my artwork from my time in the States (1998-2005) are so different from my recent works after I moved back to Malaysia in 2005.

As an artist with an alternative, avant-garde interest in the arts, I find such work hardly gains understanding, exposure and support in Malaysia. It’s a smaller voice, but it does exist. It’s out of this internal sense of ‘mission’ to change the situation, to provide an alternative outlet for like-minded artists and audiences to see something different, that me and my peers started the initiatives. It’s very encouraging that through these initiatives, we got connected with many artists and musicians in the field internationally, and realize that we’re not alone. Everybody is struggling in his/her region, some already for many years, to remain the alternative, to not conform to the dominating majority. So we keep it up, too!

Something has been bugging me for a long time about the art profession in Malaysia: the fact that galleries and collectors often take months (sometimes years!) to pay artists for works that have been sold and delivered. Has this happened to you, or if you had to pick a specific problem you’ve encountered professionally, what would it be? What can be done to improve the situation?

To be honest, 80% of what I do is for free and I don’t get paid. If a project can break even, I’m very happy! I do art out of passion. To survive, I have a full time job. This actually makes the experience more ‘down-to-earth’.

Art funding is not easy because the importance of art is still not widely recognized. People here in general still regard art as something ‘extra’, like a hobby, an interest, but not a necessity. There are societies that realize art is an important entity to enrich culture and the quality of humanity. The state plays an important role in this case. I think in Georgetown, the situation is improving. It tries to inject art into peoples’ everyday life. This will create a general awareness of art as part of life, a necessity. Then, respect and support towards art will grow.

What’s next for you?

Well, basically continue doing what I’m doing now, juggling between teaching, making art and organizing art events. It’s already a way of my life! My current project is KLEX, in which this year will mark the 4th year. This project needs a year to prepare and it involves various pre-festival events throughout the year.

Thanks Siew Wai!

Everyone, please check out KLEX’s Facebook and website.