WHERE ARE WE, AND WHERE ARE WE GOING?? Running about in Nondon today, we ran into a sea of people who are LIVID about the Coalition cuts to education.
The demonstration is happening as we speak (However, we are hearing of violent clashes, which certainly does not sound good for anybody). Students, lecturers and education workers from all over the UK are stopping traffic in Central Nondon, in response to the Coalition Government’s announcement of drastic cuts all across education, including up to a 100% cut in funding for the Arts and Humanities, as we heard. We took pictures of the furious crowd as we ran into them in the middle of our running about in Nondon. We even ran into UK artists Susan Collins, Andrew Stahl and Jon Thomson!
We ask the same questions that we first raised in May: What now, brown cow??
ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF KAIDIE IN A MINUTE: 7 September 2010 Nondon.
What did Kaidie do on 7 September 2010, Tuesday in Nondon? Or rather, what did we see when we were going about our business on 7 September 2010 Tuesday in Nondon, our favourite city on earth and beyond? Wearing a small camera on our chest (which has been lent to us by Urbantick of the Centre of Advanced Spatial Analysis of University College Nondon), this is a 1-minute time-lapse record of what happened that day, including: walking amongst large crowds in the streets as tube workers went on a strike in Nondon (as usual); attending a panel discussion – with Stelarc in-world in Second Life; presenting our 50-minute performance AUTHOR slash ACTOR slash AUDIENCE at the DRHA conference at the Brunel University; travelling to and from Uxbridge.
And, with all due respect to the dwellers and denizens of Uxbridge, no, we would not/never/ever want to live in Uxbridge in a house with a spouse/family/kids/pets/cars. No thanks very much.
FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS OF WALID RAAD / THE ATLAS GROUP at the Whitechapel Gallery!
Place: Nondon. Date: 2 November 2010. Time: from 13:00hr GMT. Starting point/point of departure: Central Nondon. Loop point: Whitechapel Art Gallery. What for: To see Walid Raad's show. Route: via the City. How was it, then: Crowded. Nice Gherkin you've got. Pet peeves: 1) Shoveling past people dangling cigarettes in their fingers. 2) Women/very large people who walk slowly but occupying entire pavements 3) Women/'girls' (sic) who are in a large group but walking very slowly or giggling and chatting away in the middle of the pavement believing that they look cute and are drawing attention - indeed, from an angry runner 4) Children/babies/prams with young parents with same level of entitlement as the chatty women and fat bastards who block entire pavements and roads, as if they are the first people on earth who have given birth and hence demand special treatment and that the rest of the world have been created from playdoh. We don't blame the kids but we blame their smugly parents. GET OUT OF OUR £k*fING FACE!!!! Attire: Short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts. Temperature: 14 degrees celsius (sweaty run). Smell: Not So Terribly Good for an art gallery (or elsewhere). Quality of outward-bound run: Painful now with not one, but BOTH legs with shin splints. Could not get a comfortable gait. At least our limp is balanced now. Run back was easier and even sweatier.
On 2 November, we awoke from a 12-hour sleep (after none the previous night) to run through the City to the Whitechapel Gallery. There are many, many artists we admire (Chris Marker, Marc Chagall, AES+F, Tarkovsky, Fernando Pessoa et al). Walid Raad/Atlas Group is one of these people whose footsteps we (attempt to) follow. In a previous life we had the privilege of experiencing his performance-lecture in a workshop we attended. Already conflating fact with fiction, objectivity with subjectivity, history with memory, ‘official’ grand narratives with micronarrative in our own work, and already familiar with the genres of the essay film, performance as practitioner, lecturer and sometime writer, Raad’s performance-lecture made an impact.
At this Whitechapel show, Raad’s appropriation of museum aesthetics in a trademark clinical austerity in his approach is chillingly disturbing as it is dead funny. We particularly love the small model of a gallery which contains tiny precise replica of his work.
We realised that there was another source of chilliness, and that came from our exposed legs. Another observation: except for primary school kids, not many other gallery-goers wear shorts. Was that why we received some interesting looks from the gallery-sitters, as we did when we visited the Wolfgang Tillmans show after a 30km run in Hyde Park? Will spandex and leg warmers have saved us from the faux pas (if it was indeed one), and also help us look ‘tuned in’ onto the retro ’80s look (or at the very least, an artistically clever and ironic wink/nod, that the artistically clever and ironic art world would approve of)? As usual, suggestions and advice welcome.
The above is the GPS track of our run to the gallery and back, totaling about 8.9km. For a detailed version of this and other GPS tracks of ours in Life 1.0, look here.
Anyhow. Go run with Walid Raad. He’s not bad at all.
HAPLESS STEVEDORE IS A WINNER OF OUR LONDONER QUIZ 2! YOU can be a winner too!
The following is a set of response we received from Hapless Stevedore to our LONDON QUIZ 2. THANK YOU Hapless for the terrific feedback! Thanks for your advice too! We will check out London Barrier, for instance, and thank you for naming us your favourite Fictional Character/Personality of London. All your answers are brilliant no doubt, but it is because of this single outstanding response, that makes you a winner of the quiz. Here, we have attached a photograph that we took at one of our favourite roads on London, Farringdon Road. We hope that you like it!
As for the rest of YOU, DO participate in the rolling/running quiz, and you can be a winner too, and receive another SECRET PRIZE from us! Our secret prize is so secretive that we cannot reveal it just yet…
SO , HERE ARE HAPLESS’ RESPONSES:
1. WHAT DO YOU DO DURING WEEKENDS IN LONDON?
Walk around dreamily looking at things, get asked the way by strangers, get lost. Get home again somehow.
2. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MEANINGFUL PURSUITS FOR KAIDIE IN LONDON? WHAT RECOMMENDATIONS HAVE YOU GOT FOR KAIDIE TO DO IN LONDON?
Arise early with coffee and bacon sandwiches, go see the Thames Barrier rise from the waves.
3.HOW AND WHERE IN LONDON DO YOU WANT TO DIE (WHEN YOU DIE)? Tip: Mugged, at UCH(‘s waiting list) with swine flu, run over by the tube, hit by a taser gun, etc.
I imagine I will be mugged by a Euston Zombie, taken to UCH where I am infected by swine flu, stagger out of the ward to try have a cigarette at the very moment that a disgruntled tube train emerges from mouth of Euston Square station running me over as it careers south, staggering back into the hospital to get even more medical treatment (I love it!) I am hit by a taser gun wielded by red-eyed Peelers mistaking me for another of the Euston Zombies out to lunch on human flesh.
By this point I die happily, knowing that if life is unfair, death is just as bad.
So, Euston Road, outside UCH tasered in a case of mistaken identity after a series of calamities.
4. WOULD YOU WISH TO BE BACK IN LONDON THE NEXT TIME ROUND? (IN YOUR NEXT LIFE, THAT IS)
Yes
5. IF YOU WERE THE MAYOR OF LONDON, WHAT IS THE FIRST THING THAT YOU WOULD CHANGE?
I would give free transport (Oyster, Congestion Charge, the Works!) to all flamboyantly dressed people.
6. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FILM/BOOK/SONG/ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION OF LONDON, AND WHY?
Oooooooh, so many delicious tings.
Frenzy by Hitchcock. Sailing ships moored by Tower Bridge and Covent Garden as a flower market.
Plus, lots and lots of ‘orrible murder!
7. WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE LONDON PERSONALITY/FICTITIOUS CHARACTER, AND WHY?
Kaidie Nondon. Because she is both a personality and fictitious and she was and is unexpected.
8. DO YOU DRINK LONDON’S TAP WATER? WHY / WHY NOT?
Yes. Unfiltered and straight from the tap.
Why? Why not? There are no health benefits, or even, most of the time, flavour benefits to drinking bottled water. It costs a lot and you have to carry it home from the supermarche. Why would I drink anything but good old London Tap?
9. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FESTIVAL/HOLIDAY IN LONDON? WHERE DO CELEBRATIONS TAKE PLACE?
Every night we celebrate the end of the working day.
Every Friday we celebrate the end of the working week.
This takes place in a pubilc house, eg the Dog and Duck or a bar, eg Bar Italia. Often it takes place at home. The end of the working week is my favourite celebration.
10. WHERE WOULD YOU BE/ WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING DURING THE 2012 OLYMPICS?
I will travelling in foreign lands. I will be travelling through Nepal, China, Vietnam and aim to be in Singapore on the closing day so that I will be on the opposite side of the world from Kaidie. That day I will bake a cake.
ARE YOU A LONDONER? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LONDON QUIZ 2
Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are more than 5 different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. I will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!
UPDATABLE GLOSSARY: YOU & I & US
The same side of the same coin / peas in the same ipod.
GLOSSARY/ WIKI ABOUT THE UNIVERSE OF KAIDIE / LIFE 3.0,? AND THE THEATRE OF CHARACTERS (ongoing). SEEKING DEFINITIONS AND MULTIPLE + ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS! CONTRIBUTE NOW!
THEATRE OF PLAYERS IN THIS UNIVERSE- INCLUDING YOU!
* Audience:
* Author:
* Artist:
* Reader:
* User:
* Player:
* Producer:
* You:
* Me:
* We
* Antagonist:
* Protagonist:
* Your avatar(s):
* My avatar(s):
* Your online proxy:
* My online proxy:
* Your online proxies:
* Our online proxies:
* Your offline proxy:
* My offline proxy:
* Our offline proxies:
* Collaborator:
* Co-author:
* Conspirator of Pleasure:
* Co-runner:
*Running buddy:
* We are in this together:
As we fly 18,948km Nondon-Sao Paulo (return), WE WILL RUN 189.48km IN LIFE 1.0 BY 7 NOVEMBER TO MAKE UP FOR OUR CARBON FOOTPRINTS (yes we are wussy by moving a couple of decimal points, but better a pathetic gesture than none??)
As you know (do you? did you?), we are flying to Sao Paulo this weekend to participate in Soft Borders: 4th Upgrade! International Conference. In this gathering of artists, curators and academics from 30 countries, we will be making a 20-minute presentation of our fabulouslyfeetstompinglyheartstoppingmindblowing theory, Trans-Dimensional Running For Our Lives! A Rough Guide To A Critical Strategy For Our Technologically-Layered Multiverse Today. Seasoned (ahem) and weather-beaten (ahem) world- and out-of-the-world- travellers that we are, this will be the very first time that we visit ‘that part of the world’. So, our Dear Conspirators of Pleasure, should you have any tips (Where would be interesting places to run? What to eat? What to drink? Whom to meet? What to do? What to say? How to say? etc. But unfortunately, no, we are not able to drop by at Rio for the famous beaches and silicone…) about the trip, do let us know! And, as usual, if indeed your advice is so amazing as to afford us an amazing experience or two, we will create and publish a post here to share with everyone!
As trans-dimensional runners, we would have liked to fully practice and live what we preach, of course. Nonetheless, for us to run all the way from our favourite city on earth and beyond (thus far), Nondon, to Brazil, would take a while. At 9474km one way and a grand frolicking 18,948km return (!!!), it would take – to put it mildly- ages. Recall now that we live only for 1000 days, and we have only 695 (!!!!!!!!!!!ALREADY!!!!!!! Time flies whether or not we are having fun, however we define ‘fun’, or not) days left. so for us to run to Brazil and back, we would bust our given duration many times over, and be fropped left right centre.*
*It would be appropriate at this point in time for us to have a reality check and undertake some scientific calculations: Someone at our recent ARTSingapore gig asked us how much we have run in the past 305 days of our existence. Good question, we thought. We know that we run an average of approximately 60km a week – sometimes more, sometimes less. On some days, we have 5km quickies, of speed training (we say ‘speed’, but we are pulling [y]our leg[s], as we all know by now that when it comes to running we don’t/can’t do hit-and-run quickies, unless you release an repugnantlyyelpingly ridiculousness of a ‘dog’ of a chihuahua behind us, or, ahead of us, a glass of crisp bubbly, but otherwise, we will not/can not sprint, and our running is no where near the word ‘speed’ and its variations – we do endurance and go the whole length for hours and kilometres [for instance, 1 kilometre per hour], but we simply just don’t Bolt, sorry) on the treadmill or elsewhere, and on others, we run outdoors for approximately 10-20 km. To deduce that we have run approximately a total of 2500km in the past 300 days should not be all that far from the truth, which works out to be an average of 8.3333km per day). All that said, we must confess that some days we do not run, but run off instead to conduct our illicit and addictive affair with an old and very brilliant flame, chlorine. (By definition, any affair would taste sweet because they are affairs [whether or not the affairs themselves are of any good]; illicit affairs are even sweeter, and intrinsically and necessarily so, simply because of their illicitness… Hence, in spite of our vocation/mission of trans-dimensional running in this life, our ongoing stubborn dalliance with swimming in madmade pools…)
Several of your would recall a previous trip that we undertook, to visit our Facebook Friend, the legendary Heidi, in Heidiland (YES HEIDILAND EXISTS), Switzerland, during our 3rd-lifer-In-Residency in Winterthur. The return journey between Nondon-Zurich was 1550km, and after several days of wrecking our brains, we worked out a sophisticated and sustainable system of a means to compensate for our dirty carbon footprints. We understand that not all of you are as mathematically able as we are, so, to explain it in very simple means for you, it suffices to say that our system involves the movement of the decimal point to a position that would render the distance run-able for us, within a decent period of time.
Now, our Dear Fellow Runners, do understand that decency is the governing concept here- for our ‘system’ of repayment of our carbon footprints has to be sustainable and do-able. Running 18,948km would have taken us AT LEAST 1894 days if we run an average of 10km a day, which is 894 days over and above our lifespan (and we have already spent 305 days). Running 1894.8km would still take us about 189 days or 6 months. Also, we are currently in discussion with Japanese art workers about a trip in December/January/February to Asia as part of a project, which would cost at least 10,000 km – ONE WAY. As already argued in January when we undertook our trip to Switzerland, we had already acknowledged that this is but a gesture, and there is no thing big enough we can ever, ever do to compensate for our continual slow smothering of the earth. Apart from having vowed from day one (actually day zero, many life cycles ago) not to create mini-mes to add even more wrongs to all the wrongs that are already happening and all the wrongs that we are already committing, we are also cutting short our lives, and making us put in physical effort every time fly. We have heard of some other gestures such as making donations to have trees planted whenever one flies, but we are uncertain of the impact of such a deed – it does not hurt those with deep pockets and merely buys them out of their guilt (as Zizek has eloquently and sweatily articulated elsewhere). Insofar as all gestures are vain, our tactic of running to repay for our carbon footprints amounts to not much (if anything) either, but as it requires one to put in slightly more physical effort (other than the physical effort of clicking a button to agree to donate money to plant a virtual tree and alleviate one’s guilty conscience), it certainly makes one (us for instance) think twice about flying. And we speak as guiltyfrockers who absolutely adore being in mid-air in large machines, suspended in time, space, cultures, nations.
As we can’t spend the rest of our lives to pay for our Nondon-Brazil return journey, we will move not one but TWO decimal points, to run a total of 189.48km by the end of this month. We begin this repayment from 3 October, when we properly resumed our running (after resting for 2 weeks on our laurels and gloating in the glory of our completion of our first Life 1.0 marathon). So far, over the first 7 days, we had covered 84.27km. Note that although we had had some lovely walks (and a funny dip in Thames!) with some of you during this time, they are not counted, as we will only consider running, and of distances above 5km at any one time. We have 15 days left to run the remaining 100km or so, so we’d better get our magnificent inertia and monumental butts moving.
Watch this space for our updates, and cheer us on. Or, go right ahead to mock and boo us for being such a wuss, but we are trying, alright?
As we turn 10-months old, we ask: ARE YOU ALIVE (too)? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LIFE QUIZ B.
Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are more than 5 different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. I will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!
RUNNING THE NEXT LAPS OF THE LONG-RUNNING BODY vs MIND vs TECHNOLOGY vs SOUL DISCOURSES. Trans-dimensional running as a critical strategy for our techonologically-layered multiverse.
Trans-dimensional running is as much a visceral counterstrike as it is a celebration of our technologically-expanded lives. As we run trans-dimensionally, we embody both the techno-utopianist Cyborg as well as the fragile, flesh-and-blood animal. We have one foot embedded in the physical world, and the other afloat in the non-physical and metaphysical worlds, detached from worldly matters. Technology permeates the activity of running, as it does in almost every aspect of our lives today. Yet, running could arguably be an act that utilises the least technology. In its most unembellished form, practitioners can run shoeless[1] – and indeed naked, as Pheidippides did 2500 years ago. Trans-dimensional running is a simple means of navigation in the digitally-saturated reality today. Running across the varied topographies, no one is in a better position than the trans-dimensional runner to tease out the long-existing as well as current debates of the battles between body, mind and technology. The undertaking of any endurance sport is a training of not only physical but mental resilience. In exercising our body and mind to revel and wrangle with our technologically-enhanced realities, the trans-dimensional runner has one foot in a techno-utopianist delirium (Clay Shirky et al), the other in a scepticism (Michael Zimmer et al). Running is a visceral counterpoint to the relentless development of technology. Web 2.0’s (somewhat ironically-named) social media was constructed by and for the geek –socially dysfunctional in Life 1.0– to virtually do virtually everything online without ever leaving one’s chair (or flat). While we celebrate our newfound ability to leave our bodies behind and run off into metaverses online,[2] pounding the pavements in meatspace immediately pulls us back to earth (and nature), reminding us the presence and limitations of our flesh-and-blood machines, and, indeed, our mortality.
And to the snobs (invariably bound to the armchair) who say that running is unthinking, one’s mind must work as actively as one’s body when one is running, as runners and sport psychologists attest.[3] When the body hits the metaphoric wall, only willpower and imagination can propel the runner to complete the last 6 miles of a 26.2-mile race.[4] When the body undergoes extreme states of duress, the chemicals in the brains pushes the runner into an altered state of consciousness.[5] At an optimal level, this can be the proverbial ‘flow’, a notion of focused motivation put forward by psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihály. As Daniel Shiffman, creator of open-source software Processing says, ‘I do all my best programming while jogging.’ [6] We also do not forget that Alan Turing, who was a highly-accomplished marathon-runner,[7] was said to have invented the beginnings of the computer in the middle of a run.[8]
Who better than the mythical ‘Marathon Monks’ of Mount Hiei, Japan, to refer to in the discussion of the importance of the lucidity of the mind (and spirit) when the body runs? While we are not unfamiliar with ascetic feats that humans are capable of in the bid to attain enlightenment (as seen in the fervent twirling of the Dervishes, and the practice of fire-walking of Hindus, just to name a few), the achievement of these monks still seem out of the world. The tofu-eating monks of the Tendai sect chant – while carrying scriptures, and running and walking for a total of 1000 days across a period of 7 years, in a practice called the kaihogyo. Running the equivalent of 2 marathons daily for a large part of the task,[9] the monk must cover a total distance of around 40,000 kilometres, equivalent to 1000 marathons.[10] In an exercise that already sounds like no walk in the park, the monk must go without food, sleep and drinks for a stretch of nine days as well.
Talk about effort. Perhaps those self-proclaimed Cyborgs and Cyborg-lovers (Donna Haraway, as well as the Orlans and Stelarcs) – could come out of their ivory towers and learn from the practice that has begun since the 18th century, which has feet firmly on the ground, while reaching for (self-) transcendence. Our ‘1000-day run’ is a mockery to the phrase when compared to this extraordinary synthesis of the mind, body and spirit…
[1] Vijai Singh, Barefoot Running – Video Library – The New York Times [accessed 12 July 2010]. In this video, we see that the writer of Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, Professor Christopher McDougall also runs barefeet.
[2] Tim Guest, Second Lives (Arrow Books Ltd, 2008) p. 355.
[3] Such as Costas Karageorghis, ‘Sport Psychology: How Mental Imagery and Self-Hypnosis Can Improve Performance’, Peak Peroformance: Sporting Excellence [accessed 25 September 2010].
[4] As Barry Magee, bronze winner of the marathon in Rome, 1960 says, ‘(a)nyone can run 20 miles. It’s the next six that count.’ Quoted in ‘Running Quotes | Training & Racing’, Run the Planet: World Wide Resource for Runners, 1996 [accessed 24 September 2010].
[5] As discussed in such literature as Henriette van Praag, Gerd Kempermann and Fred H. Gage, ‘Running Increases Cell Proliferation and Neurogenesis in the Adult Mouse Dentate Gyrus’, Nat Neurosci, 2 (1999), 266-270.
[6] Daniel Shiffman, Learning Processing: A Beginner’s Guide to Programming Images, Animation, and Interaction (Morgan Kaufmann, 2008), p. xii.
[7] Although Turing did not manage to be selected for the 1948 Olympics, having come in fifth, his best time of 2 hours, 46 minutes, 3 seconds, achieved in 1947, was only 11 minutes slower than the winner in that Olympic Games. John Graham-Cumming, ‘An Olympic Honour for Alan Turing | Comment Is Free | Guardian.co.uk’, 2010 [accessed 5 July 2010].
[8] According to 1968 Boston Marathon winner Amby Burfoot in the foreword (p. ix), in Michael W. Austin, Running and Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), p. 135.
[9] Jayne Storey, ‘Running Buddhas. Ultra-Endurance and the Spiritual Athlete’ [accessed 10 July 2010]. According to Storey, the full menu of the monk’s 10000-day feat, the Sennichi Kaihogyo, is as follows: ‘1st year: 100 consecutive days of 26.2-mile marathons, beginning at 1:30 a.m., each day after an hour of prayer. 2nd year: 100 consecutive days of 26.2 mile marathons. 3rd year: 100 consecutive days of 26.2 mile marathons. 4th year: 100 consecutive days of 26.2 mile marathons – performed twice. 5th year: 100 consecutive days of 26.2 mile marathons – performed twice. On the 700th day, the monks undergo a 9 day fast without food, water, rest or sleep – a mind-boggling feat which would result in certain death for most human beings, before having a short rest of a few weeks and increasing their gruelling schedule. 6th year: 100 consecutive days of 37.5 mile marathons. 7th year: 100 days of 52.2 mile marathons and 100 days of 26.2 mile marathons.’
[10] Anthony Kuhn, ‘Monk’s Enlightenment Begins With A Marathon Walk’ (NPR, 2010) [accessed 11 July 2010].
Images on this page are photographed by Michael Larsson.
CHAT WITH KAIDIE ‘LIVE’ SATURDAY 16:00hrs + SUNDAY 18:30hrs (Singapore time)! We’re at ‘kaidie3rdlife’ on Skype.
Above: From the ARTSingapore catalogue. Below: from I-S magazine, Singapore.
SETTLE YOUR SCORE WITH KAIDIE THIS THURSDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY! ‘LIVE’ at ART SINGAPORE 2010. Plus prints and 50-minute film.
For more information, visit the Art Singapore website, or contact Florence Fang at Flame Communications. For information of other sorts, or if you wish to run with us, contact any one of us (Kaidie, Kaidie Nondon, 3rdlifekaidie, kaidie3rdlife, Kaidie Absent, Kai Syng Tan, et al). Stop sitting around and come on board!
MOVING ON: GOODBYE KINGS KROSS, GOODBYE SUMMER
Now that it is October, now that we have to start replacing our running singlets and shorts with running tights and over our dri-fit singlet a long sleeved T-shirt that is removable mid-run when we are sufficiently warmed up, now that the humidity is fading, now that the sweating has ceased, now that hot soups provide more comfort than raw food, now that we are layering ourselves with jumpers and scarfs, now that we wear socks again, now that the sandals are put away because the toes are cold in those, now that we do not want to commit the fashion faux pas of teaming socks with sandals (even in matching or interesting colour combinations), now that when we go out we put our fingers in our pockets, now that we have moved, now that we have moved on, now that Kings Kross, and photographs of Kings Kross captured on our memory machines are but things of a/the past, now that these people captured one August afternoon on a Sunday have left, now that Sundays have no sun, now that there is no difference between Sundays, Saturdays, Fridays, ThursWedsTuesMondays, now that there is no difference between day/night, now that the windows are shut, now that the duvets are out, now that when we wash our hands we turn on the tap with the red mark too and then because water from it is always too hot as if 60 degrees celsius or so we have to do a to-&-fro-ing between this and the other tap with a blue mark, now that we want to run more so that we stop feeling cold, now that we are entering our 10th month of existence, even though being afloat at the the outdoor heated pool feels like being in an oasis even more than before perhaps in defiance of the changing weather, even though the clocks are still on British Summer Time, even though our Summer and Summery restlessness is still around perhaps more again in defiance or because it really is season-and-weather-resistant, even though Regents Fark remains our Favourite Fark, even though we may say this till the cows come home, even though our relationship with cows are limited to the supermarket and sometimes with human animals whom we may not favour and hence call them by that name, even though we are reluctant, we hereby officially declare (our) official Summer as officially over, and welcome Fall.
Unofficially, however, we are open for negotiations.
If you think you’ve got a good deal.
Talk ‘live’ with Kaidie on Skype on 7th, 9th and 10th October at ART Singapore 2010!
As you are aware, we are going to be virtualy a-live at ART Singapore 2010. Directed by Meena Mylvaganam, who is also one of our co-runners in our grandiouse quest, this is an annual event of contemporary art from Asia. We will be presenting a 50-minute film and prints for sale. In addition, we will also talk with YOU, our dear Conspirators of Pleasure, at the following times (Singapore time, followed by British Summer Time): Thursday 7 oct 20:00 Singapore at the Gala opening dinner of the show (13:00hrs BST); 9 October Saturday 16:00 Singapore (09:00hrs BST); 10 October Sunday 18:30hrs Singapore (11:30hrs BST). Come grab us and have a chat with us! The following is an article published in the Business Times Singapore, following an interview with us – via Skype of course – on 16 September.
This article has been cropped – and you CAN NO LONGER read the original here!! Unless you pay a subscription fee… How terribly interesting! Not. And, as usual, there are inaccuracies in the article at different levels, factual (for instance we are only 10 months old, not already 3 years old as reported) and otherwise (We are not Kaidie ‘because’ of the necessity of following our own footsteps of having generated a traveler persona; we run, and we are Kaidie, and we travel, and we have been travelling for twenty years, because we are against stagnancy, complacency, passivity and the status quo, including our own. We say this as we remove cobwebs from our hair, eyebrows, armpits, nostrils, legs and toes, having been sitting at the library combing our way slowly and painfully, over a Chapter that we are writing…). But as usual, let us not nitpick. See you soon. Not. Maybe.
NONDON ON THE RUN: SUMMER 2010 #3: HYDRATED LINES OF DESIRE.
Water running in the city form their own lines of life, of thriving economic and cultural pasts and presence. When we follow the water when we run, we superimpose yet other lines in the city. Prior to our roaring (sic) success (sic) at the Farnham Pilgrim’s Marathon in Surrey on Sunday, and prior to acquiring our ugly injuries in the final month of training, we were training hard. The map above documents our runs along the Regents Park canal (15km Kings Kross-Victoria Park and back; 20km Kings Kross to Harrow Road and back) and River Thames (30km on a Sunday morning). For the trans-dimensional runner, running is extended beyond Life 1.0, to other layers of lives, including the realms of imagination, as well as the Web 2.0 worlds. Here are a couple of maps showing our trans-dimensional desire lines. These desire lines are ours – unique and subjective. Changeable as they are, they register our marks, our presence, our existence and our being in our technologically-layered multiverse.
WE HAVE RUN AND COMPLETED OUR FIRST LIFE 1.0 MARATHON, FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE PILGRIMS. Thank you all for your support and donations! BIG THANK YOU to the organisers too!
PS We must also congratulate Team Carter, led by one of the organisers, HILLARY CARTER who was running with his son Henry and wife Trisha. This was Trisha’s first marathon, and Hillary’s ONE HUNDREDTH!! Hence qualifying him to the prestigious 100 marathon club. How very inspiring indeed. Watch out Hillary, HERE WE COME! 99 more for us to go (hopefully within this lifetime?)! We also put up a review in Runner’s World and note that we are definitely not alone in our appraisal of the amazing event!
UPDATABLE GLOSSARY: THEATRE OF KAIDIES
GLOSSARY/ WIKI ABOUT THE UNIVERSE OF KAIDIE / LIFE 3.0, ?AND THE THEATRE OF CHARACTERS (ongoing). SEEKING DEFINITIONS AND MULTIPLE+ ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS! CONTRIBUTE NOW!
VARIATIONS OF KAIDIE:
* Kaidie / Kaidie 3.0 / 3rdlifekaidie/Kaidie3rdlife/Kaidie Nondon:
* Kaidie 1.0: One of a kind (kind of)
* Kaidie 2.0: The doubledecker bus.
* Kaidie 4.0:
* Kaidie -1.0:
* Kaidie 13.2:
* Other Kaidie-s:
* Kailives: Kaidie’s stand in at Nondon College of Communication and Off The Shelf when Kaidie went missing.
* Kaiis:
*Kaiisnt:
* Heidi: Whose name rhymes with Kaidie’s, and whom Kaidie visited in January in Heidiland in Switzerland, but who was not at home at that time, which was for the better, for it only allowed Kaidie to continue to inhabit Heidi – or a notion of ‘Heidi’ – in Kaidie’s Life 2.0, in the realm of imagination.
* Kai Syng Tan: Father and mother and midwife of Kaidie. Fernando Pessoa: “As Alvaro De Campos, another one of Pessoa’s heteronyms, tells us: ‘Fernando Pessoa, strictly speaking, does not exist.’”
IS A CIRCLE ALSO A LINE? CAN A LINE ALSO BE(COME) A CIRCLE? The Bras Basah Station permanent public art work post #5.
In our final post about our permanent public video installation at the award-winning Bras Basah Mass Rapid Transit station in Singapore, we share an external coverage of the work at Today newspaper by Mayo Martin, who has told us that this is his favourite of the art works commissioned by the Land Transport Authority of the Circle Line. Do let us take us for a ride on The Amazing Never-ending Underwater Adventures! 
Our Bras Basah Station permanent public art work post #4: 2 RE-PRESENTATIONS
Above: A trailer of the 29-minute video cycle; below: a re-presentation of Desyphus in-action on the site in Singapore, by wacky Singapore filmmaker Chew Tze Chuan. As we have not seen the work ourselves, do upload it if you run into it, and tag it ‘bbs’!
