It's not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam

Guest Blogger:

Sze Lin Pang

Sze Lin Pang is an artist who lives and works.

Notice floor needs sweeping
Read online news, check personal email, delete junk

Watch Daily show, feel nervous 5 minutes in

Launch software
Put one image chronologically behind another
Do it again again again again again again…

Playback, put on headphones, then playback
Playback again, playback again curse
Familiarity ruins it.

Reduce sequence to medium headshots
Put one image chronologically behind another
Do it again again again again again again…
Playback again, playback again curse
It bores visually.

Start another sequence
Interject medium headshots with images of one event
Put one image chronologically behind another
Do it again again again again again again…

Playback again, playback again curse
Collect more images from Internet to use as placeholders
Expand number of events
Expand number of personalities
Listen to sound track without image
Fantastic
Listen to soundtrack with image
Lethargic
Consider exhibiting only soundtrack, no image
Cannot go there yet, attached to original conception still.
Must shake attachment, attachment is prelude to living death of piece

Consider alternating moving image and still image at regular rhythm
Feel the shape of intent massing in the shadows of the work,
It’s at the tip of my fingers
Walk around garden
Fret about deadlines
Fret about upcoming studio visit
hyperventilate
Go back inside
Lost feeling for shape
Check email personal and school, send replies
Think about bills to be paid

Put one image chronologically behind another

Do it again again again again again again…
Playback again, playback again curse
Where is the pivot?


Remind self to see Hurtlocker movie. Supposedly it punches the viewer in the gut, like the idea of that, Nauman talks about that too, the baseball bat. Want to see how Bigelow does it with her cinema. Want to see any piece of visceral moving image. Want something to blow mind.
Consider moving back to New York
Think about the first 30 minutes of Apocalypse Now. Think about the production conditions of Apocalypse Now. Imagine Conrad’s real life up river.

Consider smoking pot and watching Apocalypse Now
Decide against it
Read 20 pages of Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K
Fall in love
Think of how to resolve Heidegger’s self; the ultimate human enigma.
Consider going to an opening
Decide against it
Check bank account, humbled, sobered.
Pay student loans. Curse. Worry about affording necessary home repairs.
Check email.
Walk around garden deadhead flowers, weed obsessively.

Must gain power over images, must be able to dictate to them, must not be at their mercy.
Put one image chronologically behind another
Do it again again again again again again…
Playback again, playback again
Massage the shape.


Images:  above: Martin Heidegger; below: Still from the film Apocolypse Now