WHAT DOES TIME MEAN FOR SOMEONE WHO EXISTS ONLY FOR 1000 DAYS? Urbantick interviews Kaidie.
Urbantick: How does time pass in relation to your life of 1000 days?
3rdlifekaidie: Kaidie is alive from 12.12.2009 to the last day of the London Olympics, 09.09.2012. (Do note that the dates form a pseudo-pallindrome of sorts!) As we speak, Kaidie is already 150 days-old, and has only 850 days or 216,000 minutes left. Having a clear knowledge of one’s duration Kaidie’s existence all the more intense and augmented. It is in living a death sentence that one is compelled to question what one’s priorities in life is. It is an extremely positive and focused experience, as Kaidie lives every minute to the fullest. Being a runner only accentuates this. Running echoes the speed at which technology is changing today. This technological rush and running both make Kaidie run out of breath. That said, she is not a sprinter. Hardly…
Urbantick: Your life is constrained to 1000 days. How does 1000 days feel? The limitation probably is even more obvious compared to something that lasts longer. What do you measure the passage of your life against? You are talking about living life to the limit, experienceing it intense and running. Is there a slow and a fast time?
3rdlifekaidie: 1000 days is both tortuosly long and terribly short. What could be accomplished in 1000 days? For Kaidie, she has to find the Meaning of Life 3.0 (with)in/before time runs out. Is 1000 days long enough for that? Or is it too thinned out? Traveling around the world in 80 days seem like a ride of a lifetime; 800 or 8000 days is still not feel sufficient for one to heal the wound of a dead memory; 1 day is 1 too many to go cold turkey on an addiction/obsession/obscure object of desire; every minute of every single day is a new discovery, a new beginning for a baby. Running 42km for 5 hours seems a little preposterous; ‘hanging out’ with a loved one for the same duration seems too short, as one always yearns (futilely) to ‘spend the rest of one’s life’ with an other. Kaidie rejects any notion of eternity and permanence (if there is one thing that is remotely ‘forever’, it is the notion of changeableness). Instead, Kaidie plunges into the moment of the now/here, and lives like all tommorow’s parties (and funerals) are right now.
As Kaidie traverses between the real and virtual worlds, she measures her time against the calender in real life. Taking the cue from one of her favourite performance artists Teh-Ching Hsieh and his 1-year performances, Kaidie cannot cut her hair for 1000 days. Well, most of her hair. It would be rather unbecoming to appear excessively Neanderthal, would it not.
Urbantick: Is it important to be on time? Looking back, how have you come to this position and what is your background? What is you strongest time experience?
3rdlifekaidie: Of course it is important to be on time – especially given that Kaidie has such a short lifespan of all of 1000 days only. Not to add that it is incredibly rude to keep someone else waiting – unless one intends to offend the other party, in which case it works rather well. One of Kaidie’s stronger time experiences so far was when she took part in the 10km charity run for the Friends of Medecins Sans Frontieres. She split up the workload with her Facebook friend, Kailives, and managed to complete the race in half her usual time. Another instance was when she was advised by her reader to ‘look for love’ in her Life 3.0. Being so short of time, she went on a speeddating session. However, she found nothing. Maybe such things need more time? Perhaps she will learn in time to come.
Urbantick: The clock time is everywhere on planet earth different, how would you describe the current time of the planet globally? In a rather global sense, how would you define time?
3rdlifekaidie: Time is process, journey, running, goes on, does not stop, goes on in spite of, change, memory, experience, imagination, fantasy, learning, not learning, wounds, healing, not healing, life goes on, in spite of.
Urbantick: I always presumed the virtual world to be a replication of the real world. You are spending a lot of time in the virtual world. Can you explain what the terms ‘space and ‘time’ mean in life 2.0? Are you using a specific definition of time in each of the worlds, and if so how do you translate it?
3rdlifekaidie: Where Kaidie is, in Life 3.0. Life 3.0 is the tactic of the dérive in the ma (in between) of Life 1.0 and Life 2.0. It occurs in a dimension in which space and time are ‘mutually responsive’, in a ‘chaotic, mixed condition’.
Typical of cultures that view life as cyclical and temporal, ma appears to be imprecise according to Western paradigms, adhering to the exasperating ‘oriental’ logic of ‘contradiction’.[ii] Ma, which refers to ‘an “interval” between two (or more) spatial or temporal things and events,[iii] departs from the Cartesian expression of space-time as a ‘homogeneous and infinite continuum’. That ma encapsulates in its meaning the notions of both time and space can be seen in compound terms such as time (jikan), and space (kuukan). Instead of being ‘abstracted as a regulated, homogenous flow’, time was believed to exist ‘only in relation to movements or spaces’[iv] in Japan. Noh actor Komparu Kunio admits the ambiguity and power alike of the single term ma:
Because it includes three meanings, time, space, and space-time, the word ma at first seems vague, but it is the multiplicity of meanings and at the same time the conciseness of the single word that makes ma a unique conceptual term, one without parallel in other languages.[v]
Cyberspace, one of the components of Life 2.0 in the discussion, is itself an unstable and still-untamed site. The ‘nonspace of the mind’ [vi] is a site of ‘consensual hallucination’. [vii] It is also ‘the ether that lies inside and occupies the in-betweens of all the computers’[viii]. Superimposing the notion of dérive to that of ma as ‘space between’ [ix], ‘time between’[x] and space-time-between[xi] Life 1.0 and Life 2.0, Life 3.0 is the restless travelling in between space, travelling in between time, as well as travelling in between the space and time between space and time.
Urbantick: At work you run, well you are running all the time, how do you relate to time while you run? Is there a backup system if the timing fails?
3rdlifekaidie: Rather than a static condition, Life 3.0 is a verb of action, of restless running in between Life 1.0 (physical reality) and Life 2.0 (realm of imagination, and Web 2.0). Kaidie runs, albeit slowly, as her race is a marathon of her life journey. Any marathon is a test of one’s physical as well as mental stamina. In any long-distance run, there are ups and downs. Kaidie gets her fair share of ‘runner’s highs’. When this happens, time (and space) are not of any consequence. However, when Kaidie hits the walls, or runs with blisters and aches, time slows down, or even comes to a standstill. In times like these, there is nothing Kaidie can do except to plough through, run through the problem and face it head on, conquer it, learn from it, and then move on. And on.
This interview was conducted by UrbanTick/Fabian Neuhaus on email with Kaidie. It was first published on UrbanTick’s blog on 19 May 2010. In UrbanTick’s words: “In this interview series UrbanTick is looking closely at meaning and implications of time in everyday life situations. In the form of dialogs different aspects are explored, with the idea to highlight characteristics. The main interest is circling around the construction and implementation of different concepts of time between independent but related areas of activity, such as leisure and work, privat and public, reality and virtual.”
Fabian Neuhaus is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. His main research interests are temporal aspects of the urban environment and cyclical, repetitive temporal patterns specifically. He has been teaching at the University of Plymouth as well as the Bartlett School of Architecture. For his MSc in urban design at the Bartlett School of Architecture he was awarded a distinction. Fabian also received a MArch from FHNW Basel, Switzerland. He has worked with architecture and urban design practices, and universities, in Switzerland, Germany and the UK.
[i] Isozaki, Arata, and Ken Tadashi Oshima, Arata Isozaki (Phaidon Press, 2009), p. 157.
[ii]Daniel Charles, ‘Bringing The Ryoan-Ji To The Screen’, Taka Iimura homepage <http://www.takaiimura.com/review/DC.html>, accessed 21 November 2009.
[iii] Pilgrim, Richard B., ‘Intervals (“Ma”) in Space and Time: Foundations for a Religio-Aesthetic Paradigm in Japan.’ History of Religions 25, no. 3, February 1986, p. 255.
[iv] Isozaki and Oshima, 157.
[v] Isozaki and Oshima, p. 158
[vi] William Gibson, Neuromancer, new edition, Voyager, 1995.
[vii] Gibson.
[viii] Sardar Z. & Ravetz J.R., 1995. From Martin Dodge, ‘Cybergeography’, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 28(1) 1-2, 2001 <http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=b2801ed>, accessed 4 January 2010.
[ix] Pilgrim, p. 255.
[x] Pilgrim, p. 255.
[xi] Isozaki and Oshima, p. 158
KAIDIE’S SLIGHT DETOUR/DIVERSION/REALITY CHECK: ON HERZOG’S ENIGMA OF KASPER HAUSER (Catch on BBC iplayer now!)
Werner Herzog at the San Francisco International Film Festival, 1999. Frame grab from final chapter of Chlorine Addiction by Kai Syng Tan (2000)
If it wasn’t for this (this tedious 1000-day hell of an ‘epic’ endeavour, of Kaidie’s quixotic running across dimensions in search of the so-called ‘Meaning of Life 3.0’), we could possibly have conducted our research on Werner Herzog, as we had contemplated at some moments of our previous lives. How nice now, in this life, to revisit his The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (1974).
The classic Herzogian leitmotifs are there: beasts (fainting chicken, kneeling camel), outcasts/freaks (myth of tiny king with tiny kingdom, each king tinier than before; Kasper Hauser himself); freak shows (including the film we are watching); dreamscapes (ditto, and Kasper’s flickering Super-8 Sahara dreams); hero/anti-hero (Kasper/Bruno S.); character/actor, acting/not acting (Kasper/Bruno S.); ‘realism’ vs self-mythologisation (including Herzog’s own); the clash of cultures/civilisations (Kasper scrutinised again and again as an Other; “Mother, I have been so cut off from the world”, says Kasper, holding her baby); an assault on ourselves (the Other or the ‘idiot-savant’/savage being more enlightened and more civilised than us); power play and cruelty (boys at chicken and Kasper); moments of tenderness (Kasper playing with black crow, recalling the iconic image of Klaus Kinski playing with monkey in the final scene of Fitzcarraldo); man vs nature (“Let the apples sleep, they are tired.”); man and art (“The music feels strong in my heart. All of a sudden I feel old. Why can’t I play the piano like I breathe?”); godlessness and the absence of redemption (the subtitle, Every Man for Himself, and God Against All of Them, says it all.)
Controversial and problematic as his work and methodologies were/are, Herzog always haunts and provokes, in a manner that is austere, Brechtian and unsentimental as it is acutely Romantic.
In a previous life, I saw the filmmaker speak at the San Francisco International Film Festival. (I had rushed back to the cinema from my tour around San Francisco of Hitchcock’s film locations of Vertigo – the very same tour that Chris Marker took, I am told, to film the passage that pays homage to Vertigo/Madaleine’s ghost, in his Sans Soleil). As usual, Herzog spoke contemplatively, measuredly, in flawless English with his unmistakably charming accent (but he offered an obligatory ‘apology’ for his ‘bad English’ at the beginning of his speech), punctuated with calculated pauses (Is that Herzog narrating the final dream sequence in Kasper?)
Herzog reminds us of many things, and reminds Kaidie the need to keep running and not lose her vision, flickering and faint as they may be at times. (She is short-sighted after all. Time to clean her mouldy glasses.)
IT’S DAY 152, AND KAIDIE CERTAINLY HAS MUCH CATCHING UP TO DO. In the midst of trying to make sense of Nondon now/here.
Hello world. Again. I’ve run back to run my own lives. For now.
For the benefit of those of you who have just joined me on my quest, here’s a summary of the events in March and April: On 2 March, while running along Fuston Road, I fell head-over-heals. I dislocated a part of my body. Thereafter, I could not be located. I had been kidnapped by The Good Pirate into the world-within-world-within-world of Phuket 2.0 in Second Life. In my absence, a reader, Kailives, hacked into my account and ran my lives on my behalf, by maintaining this blog, my Facebook Twitter and Youtube pages, as well as standing in for a few of my gigs. I did make brief appearances in some of these events, and that was how my whereabouts was uncovered. Finally, on my 5th-month birthday, I decided to break free from my kidnapper, and left the metaverse.For better or for worse, but for a restless runner, it is certainly not for good.
Kailives did try her best to do my job in my absence. However, in this collaborative quest of the meaning of Life 3.0 of Kaidie’s, there were several issues that her co-runners raised that made Kaidie slightly dumbfounded. Some of them are reproduced in the above image. In the coming weeks and months, I will have to try to think about them and respond to them. So, my dear readers and fellow-runners, thank you very much indeed for all your advice and support so far. Please do be patient and give me some time to carefully look at your advice. Kailives has left, but if need be, I may get her back, if I need her voice.
At this point, however, I can respond loud and clear, in absolutely no uncertain terms, that I will have to say no to the suggestion that Kaidie should make a baby in her quest for the meaning of Life 3.0. Kaidie’s response is NO, no, no thank you, never. No. Kaidie will make no baby. Especially not now, given the way things seem to be heading in Nondon.
KAIDIE’S HITS/MISSES: IF WE CAN’T/DON’T WANT TO MEET IN THIS LIFE, PERHAPS WE COULD IN OUR NEXT/OTHER LIVES. ASSUMING THAT YOU’D LIKE TO, THAT IS. Same place, same time?
Reprinted from Facebook posts by Meena Mylvaganam, Marta Sofia Pinho Alves and Urbantick/Fabian Neuhaus. Image by Urbantick/Fabian Neuhaus.
UPDATABLE GLOSSARY (ongoing): IMITATIONS OF LIFE
SEEKING DEFINITIONS AND MULTIPLE+ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS! CONTRIBUTE NOW!
VARIATIONS OF LIFE:
* Life:
* This Life:
* Any Life:
* Any difference:
* What life?:
* What, life?:
* Best life:
* ‘Best’ life:
* Best ‘life’:
* Least worst life:
* Meaningful life:
* Less meaningless life:
* Life 1.0 / First Life:
* Life 2.0 / Second Life:
* Life 3.0 / Third Life:
* Turd Life:
* After life:
* After lives:
* Life before this life:
* Non-Life:
* Life after death:
* Life before death:
* Life during death:
* Lives after death:
* Death during life:
* Deaths during life:
* Living death
* Living hell
* Living:
* What living:
* Living thing:
* Living person:
* Running:
* Running for (y)our life:
* Run of (y)our life time:
* Run of (y)our life times:
* Travel:
* Travelling:
* Journey of life:
* Journeys of life:
* Journey of lives:
* Semblance of life:
* Imitation of life:
* Variations of life:
* Pseudo-life:
* Semi-life:
* Quasi-life:
* Life style:
* Way of life:
* Ways of life:
* Existence:
* Non-existence:
* Being:
* Non-being:
* Ontology:
* Life-and-death:
* Lives-and-deaths:
* Hanging on to dear life:
* Dignified death:
* Dignified deaths:
* Life-span:
* Life-spans:
* Fate:
* Fates:
* Destiny:
* Destination:
* Anti-destiny:
* Anti-fate:
* There is no such bloody things as fate/destiny:
* Getting there:
* There there:
* Getting there there:
* Don’t be silly, for there is no there there (Gertrude Stein):
I run, because of you, of course not because of you, in spite of you, with you, with out you, regard less, I run, on and on, like the vapid Energizer bunny who goes on and on, but with blisters and aches, like the other vapid Energizer-bunny of Sisyphus with his endless rocks-and-rolls, in drips and drops, in laps and loops, sometimes limping, more often than not swearing, not in leaps and bounds, often falling, often bruising, often idiotic-looking, often idiotic, period, in turns, by turns, again and again, once more, repeat play, next level, same level, drop level, don't stop, can't stop, won't stop, don't ask me to stop, can't go on, must go on, won't go on, don't go on, go on, go on then, come on, don't talk to me when I'm running, running, even if slowly, even as if walking, even as if crawling, as if dead, even when/especially when panting, panting hard, sometimes holding my breath, some times not breathing, for fun, some times choking, invariably grunting, like an gnat, if gnats grunt, or screeching, like an eel about to be slaughtered, so that I can swallow it with jelly, cold, or heated, because jellied eel is one of my favourite foods in Nondon (along with beetroot and parsnips), and eels as unagi some place else in an other time and space (whether it knows of its parallel existence or not), if eels screech, at all, as if eels screeched, at all, wiping off my sweat, unsure if I felt hot or cold, or hot and cold at the same time, sun shining while temperatures are near zero, violent juxtapositions, the way I like it, run, running, why does one run? Just because. Because running takes me where I can not other wise go, for better or worse, like it or not, take it or leave it. Because it makes me happy. Because it makes me less unhappy. Because why not. Running, because why not. Because why the hell not. For, what else is there to do. What else can I do. For how long should I do it. Assuming that one has to do some thing, that is. Is that? Bad answer. Bad question, that's why. Refine your question. Change your question. What was your question? Was it a question? Did you have a question? Restart (if you so wish to). All over. Again.
IN THE METAVERSE, NO ICARUS WILL CRASH. Even if/when I crash, I will be reborn and life goes on. And on. Infinitely. Ad nauseum.
A generation cushioned from the cold by central heating, from the heat by airconditioning, carted in aseptic transports from one identical house or hotel to the another, should feel the need for journeys of mind and body, for pep pills or tranquillisers, or for the cathartic journeys of sex, music and dance. We spend far too much time in shuttered rooms.
– Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969 – 1989 [1]
Travelling is the act of getting from one place to another[2]. There has been a long history of human movement. Motivations vary – people travel out of pleasure, or reasons political , economical and poetic, or out of necessity, for short or long term, due to push or pull factors, and in various modes of transportation as technologies improve and ambitions engorge. Think climate changes, agricultural practices, trade, migration, famines. Think nomads, gypsies, sailors, stateless people and their diasporas. Think political conquests, search for new, virgin territories, untapped resources, ‘discoveries’ of ‘new’ continents like your Americas and Temasek-s[3]. Think of the revolutionary heroes, as writer, romantic and compulsive traveller Chatwin urges, who are ‘not worth a thing until he has been on a good walk. Che Guevara spoke of the “nomadic phase” of the Cuban Revolution. Look what the Long March did for Mao TseTung, or Exodus for Moses.’[4] Think escape and the search for Paradise, by Thelma, Louise, and Gauguin, and the middle-aged European/Australian woman in Bali with the Kuta cowboys, and the modestly-sized Oriental man with the towering platinum-blonde escort. Think religious pilgrimages, rites of passage and existential quests for the meaning of life. Think Romantic, heroic and punishing quests by madmen Fitzcarraldo/Klaus Kinski in the Amazon, and the solo walks from Kiev to Madrid by Werner Herzog himself, as if the very act of a strenuous trek exorcises their demons. Think trade shows, World Expos, and the travelling circus in town. Think Grand Tours to see the world for those with the leisure time (for it did take a bit longer than it would today) and spending power. For those with even more spending power, think travels to outer space, as the guy appropriately named Laliberte did in 2009 – something technologically impossible only years ago, but haunted those rich in imagination for centuries, like George Melies and Arthur C. Clark. Think poetic search for inspirations and new ways of seeing, by Barthes in Japan, and Basho the poet who cured himself of his loneliness by islandhopping in Japan. As Chatwin observes,
travel does not merely broaden the mind. It makes the mind, The raw materials of Proust’s imagination were two walks round the town of Illiers where he spent his family holidays. These walks later became Méséglise and Guermantes Ways in À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. [5]
Chatwin notes also that ‘(m)an walked and swam long before he rode or flew. Our human possibilities are best fulfilled on land or sea. Poor Icarus crashed.’[6]. Think Maldives, Goa, Ibiza. Entire cities and towns perform. Today, globalisation and 1-pence early-bird gimmicks from budget airlines gives everyone the opportunity to fly, making travelling a part of contemporary life. We become tourists, take breaks, have getaways, go for vacations, perform public sex on the beach with strangers [7] in the city constructed for public show-and-tell. Think casino-city Macau, Documenta in Kassel once every 5 years, Olympics in London in 2012. Then, there are also those who travel simply because the act of travelling is pleasurable in itself, like ‘the indefatigable Arab wanderer who strolled from Tangier to China and back for the sake of it’ [8].
Some American brain specialists took encephalograh reading of travellers. They found that changes of scenery and awareness of the passage of seasons trough the year stimulated the rhythms of the brain, contributing to a sense of wellbeing and an active purpose in life. Monotonous surroundings and tedious regular activities wove patterns which produce fatigue, nervous disorders, apathy, self-disgust and violent reactions.
– Chatwin[9]
[1] Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Uncollected Writings, New edition (Picador, 1997). (pp 100-106)
[2] ‘Travel – Definition of travel noun’, in (Cambridge Dictionary Online: Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus, 2009) [accessed 30 December 2009].
[3] Temasek was the ancient name of Singapore before its ‘founding’ by the British.
[4] Chatwin.
[5] Chatwin.
[6] Chatwin.
[7] John Bingham and Laura Clout, ‘British couple arrested in Dubai over ‘sex on the beach’’, Telegraph.co.uk, 9 July 2008 [accessed 31 December 2009].
[8] Chatwin.
[9] Chatwin.
THANK YOU for attending Kaidie’s gig last Monday. She has resurfaced – right behind my back, as KAIDIE ABSENT in Second Life. Now that she is re-located, shouldn’t I leave?
Music by Philip Tan.
Thank you very much indeed for attending Kaidie’s gig at Off The Shelf at the Slade School of Dine Art last Monday. Blind and nearly-blind dates are always thrilling, so it was nice meeting some of you in Life 1.0 for the first time. Do note that I mean ‘nice’ in the most ambiguous, generic manner. I am sure you would agree that meetings/encounters in Life 1.0 (offline, face-to-face, material world), Life 2.0 (online, imagination, internal world) and in between – Life 3.0 – are all equally valuable and meaningful (if they are meaningful at all) – for Third-Lifers, who are restless travellers on the move, this is about the only way(s) to meet, ie, halfway, or half of the half, of half of the half of the half, and so on. The notions of eternity, forever-ness and everlasting-ness are but romantic mythologies; a Third-Lifer necessarily runs/travels/migrates/transmigrates alone, and seeks/creates fulfillment in every single moment, however transient. During each of these temporary encounters, the Third-Lifer finds/invents her own drama/climax/closures, and locks them up as happy memories (even if she forgets, they will remain safe and happy, happily ever after). And moves on. (If anything else is forever/eternal/everlasting at all, it is one’s Sisyphean cycle of births-deaths-rebirths-repeated-death-looped-fast-forward-press-play-rewind-press-play-re-press-play-again-in-different-speeds). Lest you think this is a cynical worldview, I suspect that the contrary is true – that Kaidie is yet the most idealistic and romantic of us all. Which was why the invention of a Life 3.0-mixed-reality-goggles (as if life itself is not complicated enough?), as self-delusional and naive as Don Quixote on his grand(iose) quest.
Regardless.
I was hoping that Kaidie, who had been missing for nearly 1 month, would stop running about/away, and return to Life 1.0 for her gigs. She did- briefly – on 14 March, during her 10km charity run for Medecins Sans Frontieres. Fearing that she would not turn up, I had begun the race (for, someone had to answer to her sponsors!). However, halfway through the run, Kaidie appeared. And was she hostile, as she kept trying to trip me and outrun me! Whatever she had eaten while she was away must have been really good, as she was much faster than me, and soon ran past me. The snapshot on the left at the bottom of this post captures that moment that the two of us, Kaidie and Kailives, are locked in a fierce battle, in the same spatio-temporal dimension. But like before, she ran off, and could not be relocated.
On 22 March, I was hoping that Kaidie would turn up for her own gig at the Slade. I went on stage to do what had to be done, hoping that she would join me at some point. And she did. Not in broad daylight, as it was nearly 22:00hrs, but right behind my back! This photograph on the right shows myself speaking in the foreground, in front if the audience, and Kaidie behind me, in the form of video pixels. It was a black-and-white video (see above) of her in the metaverse, the world-within-world of Second Life. There, she is called ‘Kaidie Absent’.
One would have thought that this is the grand moment of cathartic clarification, of disentanglement and denouement, where all loose ends of this long-running tedious (melo)drama are tied together. But this being (Kaidie’s) life, gosh/no/never/dream on/fat chance/what are you talking about/get out of here. And, this being Kaidie’s life, there are now even more questions than the number of hair in your nostrils (when did you last tabulate the results in your Excel sheets?). Some of the ones sticking out include:
Has Kaidie been in Second Life all this while? Isn’t that too easy! Was it The Good Pirate who kidnapped her there? Was it the Good Pirate who kept the promise of releasing Kaidie for the charity run? What does the Good Pirate want? What is the ransom? After the run, did Kaidie return to SL? Where in SL is she? What is she doing? Where is she visiting? Who is she meeting? Are they like her Life 1.0 brief encounters, or briefer still? Is Kaidie on the ‘Always Run’ motion mode in there? Does she have blisters in SL? She looks like she’s enjoying flying, but does she get (e)motion sickness from flying, like she did on the day that we first met? Has she found the obscure object of her 1000-day quest, the Meaning of Life 3.0? (Must she find The Meaning Of Life 2.0 [?] before that?) Did Kaidie upload the video on her Youtube channel herself? If so, does this mean that she is coming back, to communicate with us, to run her own Facebook account and other Web 2.0 accounts?
If she comes back, shouldn’t I go? Surely I was just Kaidie’s temporary stand-in in Life 1.0 and Life 2.0 outside of the world-within-world of SL while she was in there. Surely I should not figure in the logic of the world of Life 3.0, for the whole point is that Kaidie runs to-and-fro between Life 1.0 and Life 2.0, and that Life 3.0 is an in-between and even transcendent spatio-temporal dimension. Surely only Kaidie should be the real deal, our first guinea pig for the theory of Life 3.0. (Unless, of course, when Kaidie needs a helping hand – Kaidie did dis-locate a part of her body. I am also an avid reader of her blog, so I would have been disappointed if it was not updated. As Kaidie’s firm Facebook Friend, it is right that I help her keep up appearances.)
But enough already. When will Kaidie return to write this blog herself?
Dear Friends of Kaidie, wouldn’t you be so kind as to go locate ‘Kaidie Absent’ in Second Life? Talk to her. Ask her to come back. Coax her to leave her kidnapper. Remind her that Second Life is not the only life, that there is First Life as well as her Third.
She knows it.
3.0, 2.0. 1.0! READY, GET SET, GO! RUN FOR (Y)OUR LIVES! Kaidie’s 8-minute fullblast at Off the Shelf event, 22 March. Fasten your seatbelts. Or not, for the full impact.
*Curated by: Dr Sharon Morris and Mr Jon Thomson. *Presented by: the Slade Word/Image Forum *Time: 22 March 2010, 18:00-22.30pm. *Place: Wilkins North and South Cloisters plus the Old Refectory. Slade School of Dine Art, University College Nondon, Nondon, WC1E 6BT, UK.
KAIDIE COMES ON 21:00-ish, SOUTH CLOISTERS
Life 3.0 is an amorphous spatio-temporal dimension that Kaidie creates by running restlessly to and fro Life 1.0 (physical world/offline), and Life 2.0 (imagination/online). More than 2 weeks ago, Kaidie dislocated a part of her body after a run at her favourite Regents Fark, and thereafter, could not be located altogether! Where on googleearth has she run off to? We are hoping that Kaidie will turn up for this performance, in which she is scheduled to talk about her Life 3.0, which is theoretically the best of both worlds. In which case, why had she run away? So, will (her) theory triumph? Or is this precisely an instance of the failure of her theoretical proposition? If Kaidie does not turn up, would Kailives stand-in instead, as she did for her talk at the Nondon College of Communication? Or, will Kaidie run back in time, and tell us where she has been all this while? Will (Kaidie’s) theory (of Life 3.0) live happily ever after with (her) practice (of her life)? Your guess is as good as mine.
Where has Kaidie been all this while? After the run, where did Kaidie go? Latest conspiracy theory: LUCY SUSPECTS THAT KAIDIE HAS TRANS-MIGRATED (or hitchhiked) TO AN ONLINE NAPLES AND OTHER GREENER PASTURES.
Guest post by Lucy Natarajan
DAY 72: THE KAPUTT HAPPINESS PLUGIN 3.0.
The first image he told me about was of three children on a road in Iceland, in 1965. He said that for him it was the image of happiness and also that he had tried several times to link it to other images, but it never worked. He wrote me: one day I’ll have to put it all alone at the beginning of a film with a long piece of black leader; if they don’t see happiness in the picture, at least they’ll see the black.
– Chris Marker, Sans Soleil, 1982 Argos Film.
Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? Are you happy now? Will you stay happy? How do you know? Do you know if you are happy? Do you think you are happy? How are you certain? How certain are you? How do you measure it? What is the duration of your happiness? Is it intermittent? Does it flicker? How long does it stay? Was it invited? Was it nice? Was it difficult to upload it? Were there any errors? Did your laptop crash? Which version of the plugin have you got? What are the reviews? Has it been updated? When was it created? Is it still relevant? Is it obsolete? Is it of importance? Does it work? Is it working? Is one enough? How many do you have per day? Is it permanently switched on? Does it come on at will? Is there waiting time? Is there downtime? What is the cost? What is the price you pay? Is it open source? How long does it last? Does it last? What is a good duration for you? Do you prefer a short intense kick-in or a slow-burning diluted long-drawn one? Are you a sprinter or an endurance runner? Or do you like fartleks? Will the plugin survive? Will you survive? What is its size? Is it light? Is it easy to attach? Are you attached to it? Are you able to detach yourself from it? Are you sure? Are you in control? Is is large? Is it a comfortable fit? Is it measurable? What are the units? How many bytes? How many kilobytes? How many gigabytes? How many terabytes? Does it fit in your hardware? Do you need an external drive for this? Have you remembered to back it up in 3 different locations lest you lose it? Is it weightless? Is it a burden? Is is immeasurable? Is it small? Is it portable? Is it laughably tiny? Is it obscure? Do you even know if it’s there? Does it even know if it was you it was looking for? What if it wasn’t? So what? What if it was? How often do you put it on? Is it automatic? Is it an automatic upgrade? Are you sure it is safe to download it? What makes you happy? How does it smell? What is its colour? Is it mixed with black? Is it black? What shade of black? How does it taste? Does it have an aftertaste? How does it feel? Rough? Nice? Same? New? Different? Does the same-ness comfort you? Does the familiarity make you happy? Does the new-ness excite you? Does the difference enhance your happiness? After it is used does it still make you happy? Do you discard it? What is the source of happiness? Does it matter? Where is it located? Is it in Nondon? Where in Nondon? How do I get there? What time should I get there? How many km does it take? How long does it take for me to walk there? How long does it take for me to swim there? Can I reach there in the next 928 days? Can I get specific directions from google map? Can my Mini, my GPS foretrex trackking system, map it down nicely? Can Mini see it? Can Mini feel it? Are the satellite signals obscured? Are there satellite signals when it kicks in? Is the plugin in conflict with other plugins? Must I deactivate others to get this running? What is the name of your happiness plugin? Is it Mini? Is it Major? Is it Many? Is it Few? Is it One? Is it Only? Is it Some? Is it the one and only? Do you believe in permanence? Do you believe in non-permanence? How do you hold on to permanence? How do you hold on to impermanence? What is left after the filtration process? What do you leave behind in the throwaway culture? What do you throwaway? What do you re-use? Why is the rusty bit on your pencil case or purse acceptable? Why is that speck of doubt on your beard unacceptable? Why do you smile? Do you smile because you are happy? Do you smile because you are not happy? Do you smile only when you are happy? Do you smile only when you are not happy? Do you have different grades of smiles? Do you laugh? Do you bend over backwards with laughter in happiness? Do you snigger? Don’t you snigger? Do you want snickers at sainsburys which cost 5 for a pound? Do you scoff at other people’s happiness? Do you show teeth when you smile when you are happy? Do you cover your mouth when you laugh when you are happy? When you smile when you are not happy, is it the same smile? When you laugh when you are not happy, is it the same laughter? Do you laugh when you are happy and nervous? Do you laugh when your happiness plugin works? Do you laugh when you happiness plugin is kaputt? Do you smile when you happiness plugin kicks in? Do you smile when you happiness plugin fails? Do you grin? How do you grin? Do you smile to yourself? Why? What are you thinking of when you smile to yourself? What triggers off that smile? Do you rate it? Do you rate your level of happiness? How would you rate your level of happiness now? How would you rate your level of happiness in general? Are you happy with your score? Do you want to improve? How happy do you want to be? Would you know when you get there? Do you know the concept of enough? Do you have low expectations? Do you have low expectations because you adjust your expectations? Do you learn from your experiences? Do you list your happiness? Do you have a list of happiness? Do you, like Sei Shonagon, have a list of things that quicken the heart? Does you heart quicken when you are happy? Does you heart slow down when you are happy? Do you have a heart? Do you have a strong heart? Do you have a weak heart? Does your heart quicken when you are not happy? Is the pursuit of happiness important? Do you pursue happiness? How do you pursue happiness? Does happiness court you? How do you flirt? Does happiness take the lead? Do you step back? Do you lunge forward? How hard do you want it? Do you let go? Who is aggressive? Who plays passive? What is the courtship process like? Who wins? Who plays hard to get? Who is the obscure object of desire? How do you let go? How do you score? How do you get it? How do you know that you get it? Do you actively pursue it? Is there effort? Is the effort worth it? Is the result worth the effort? How do you measure your success? Do you do well? Do you do well easily? Do you do well by practice? Is it difficult to get there? How do I get there? How do I get there there? Why did it go kaputt? When did it go kaputt? When will it go kaputt? When does it die? When does it expire? Can I repair it? Can I resuscitate it? Can I get a new one? What do I do with the kaputt one? Where can I recycle it? What is its material? Does it burn? Is it combustable? Is it volatile? Is it infectious? Where can I dispose of it safely? Why do you want to be happy? Is it important to be happy? Why is it important to be happy? Why should one be happy? Do you make happiness plugins? How much does it cost? Do you take credit cards? Is there an extra charge? Do you take debit cards? But my debit card is kaputt because some one used it to buy his happiness in my name. Do you accept cash? What currency? Can I round up the figures? Can I have a discount please? I want to buy several as backups. Can I buy in bulk? Is there a special discount for bulk purchasing? Will it arrive overnight? What time? Must I stay at home to wait for delivery? When is it shipped? Is it insured? Is it bubble-wrapped? Can I poke the bubbles of the bubble wrap? Are they large or normal bubbles? I like the large bubbles as they make a nicer sound when I jump on them. Can you wrap them in 2 layers please? Just in case the first layer gets burst? How many plugins must I use for it to kick in? Do you fight happiness? Do you fight non-happiness? How do you fight non-happiness? Do you have enough storage space for happiness? Do you have any storage place for happiness? What is the wait for the next one? What is the average wait for it? Where is the button to press? How do I know if the wait is over? How long does it take for me to doggypaddle from here to the other side? How long does it take for me to run there? How long will I run before I get run over by a Nondon driver? How long will I run before I get run down? What is the signal opposite? What is an opposite signal? Opposite to what? What is opposite to happiness? Where is the signal opposite? When is the signal opposite? Are the signals in conflict? How can I help? Where do I stand? Are they talking to each other? Are they in cahoots against me? Who can come on my side to fight them? What do I need to fight them? How can I win this battle? How can I cross with care? Shall I cross? How much longer must I wait?
DAY 68: LOVE IN LIFE 3.0: ONE OF THE POSSIBLE MEANINGS OF LIFE 3.0? (HAPPY BELATED VALENTINE’S DAY.)
In my lifelong quest for The Meaning of A Life 3.0, Guillaume, one of my Dear Readers, writes in and advises me to seek love in Life 3.0. Specifically, he does not suggest that I ‘find love’ in general; instead, he says that I should ‘find many loves’. Perhaps that can help me to find the meaning of life / my Life 3.0?
As a 2+month old, ‘love’ is an abstract concept to me, be it in the single or plural form. What better place for an answer, or rather, many pseudo-answers, than the Internet. I wikipedia-ed the 4-letter word, learn a little about it. (For that matter, ‘life’ is another 4-letter word that is abstract, though perhaps slightly less so since I am a practitioner of it [and you too, I assume?]). Love sounds like an interesting notion. I (assume that I) know how to ‘be’, but ‘being in love’ is something else. In the past 67 days, I have fallen off the treadmill before, but I have not fallen in love. With the ups and downs, pain and pleasure, anticipation and disappointment, hoo and haa and brouhaha, performance and ritual, melodrama and horror+slapstick+action and all that, I wouldn’t mind toying with my emotions. In this short life, I have nothing to lose.
In my short lesson to learn about all that theorising about love, I come across another 4-letter word: date. Given however that I have much less time (932 days left only in my entire life) than most other people ‘out there’, I can not afford to date date. Instead, I must speed date. So I did.
All photographs, except that of the book, are taken by Mr Lorenzo Levrini. The faces of the participants become pixelated from the propsect of experiencing l-o-v-e.
With Valentine’s Day in the backdrop, I soak in the atmosphere, although this time I do it not by turning myself into a sponge, but by seeking matchmaker Afterdita Pacrami, who encourages me to participate in a speed-dating event, called London Loves Speeddating. I bring along a book called Virtual Dimension (John Beckmann 1998).
So there are 8 men and 8 women, and there is a band playing. The idea is that after every tune, ie about 3-4 minutes, the men rotate themselves. Given my very short attention span due to my very young age, this format suits me just fine. Many of the men are indeed very interesting people. Some can speak exotic languages, some have lived in faraway lands, one unpacks Gaudi’s influences eloquently, others are sexily into law and the hard sciences. Most seem to be nice, kind and lovely people. But it stops there – love-ly, but not love itself. Sadly there is none of that topsyturvyturmoil that is described on the internet about l-o-v-e itself.
So Kaidie’s first ever dating, and speed dating event, has failed. (Maybe I should try speedhating instead?) My attempt to find love has resulted to nought. Thank you Guillaume for your advice, but I have to report that I can find not even one single love, let alone ‘many loves’, but I will still keep an other 4-letter word, h-o-p-e.
For now, let me plunge deeper into the Virtual Dimension, until something n-i-c-e comes along. As usual, your k-i-n-d advice is welcome.
DOUBLETHINK: CONTRADICTORY IN TERMS
One of Kaidie’s guidebooks in Life 3.0 is George Orwell’s 1984, for several reasons. Like Life 3.0, the city of London is the novel’s mise-en-scene. In Orwell’s universe, reality is seen through an inverted lens, where the Ministry of Defence fights permanent wars, and the Ministry of Love (I love this- ‘miniluv’) operates through the mechanism of fear. That deep parallels can be drawn with our reality today can not be emphasised enough. And, like the notion of doublethink, Life 3.0 embodies contradictions without contradiction, with no apology. Like Smith, Kaidie is an experiment; while Smith’s choices may seem limited compared to Kaidie’s in Life 3.0, like Kaidie, Smith contrives to seek spaces within which he could exist/live/be. Orwell’s depiction of Smith’s process of torture through to reeducation and final love of Big Brother, is so slowburning that the final inevitable explosion – or, more accurately, implosion – resembles fingernails scratching a chalkboard, largo, breaking in the process and the small sharp bits scratching and incising the pink raw skin where the nail once was itself, a procedure so calculated and clinical as to be chilling, heartbreaking, repulsive and devastating as it is sublimely beautiful, a la Pasolini’s 120 Days of Sodom, Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange or a Gould’s rendition of the slow movement of the Emperor concerto. Yet another reason why 1984 resonates with Kaidie is of course, how it has been said that the circumstances of one of her previous lives was ‘Orwellian’.
ON TRIAL: PARTICIPANT 12(F) WITH ELECTRODES, SNAKES, 1k TONE, KY JELLY, 2 X (PLACEBO) PILLS.
Kadie undertook her first experiment as a lab rat last week. Now, Kadie is no longer Kaidie, but 12(F).
It would have been impossible to not be affected in any degree, with 4 hours of pills, existential ennui, electric shocks of varying degrees on the left hand, liberal applications of a nice lubrication, and staring at stills of snakes alternating with frames of blacks and crimson, oscillating between silence, very loud dead tones and its feedback, just like a copycat Paul Sharits or Peter Kubelka flicker film (I implore you my Dear Readers to kindly hook up your laptop to speakers, turn volume to the max, and WATCH FULLSCREEN, or, better still, projected large in a darkened space. Yes, we do know that a Web 2.0 representation does no justice whatsoever to these mindblowing films, but since the alternative is not watching them at all, sometimes a poor simulation is a lesser evil).
Hello World. My name is not Kaidie. My name is 12F. Like Smith in the final act after his elaborate reeducation process, my transformation is complete. I feel real, for once. I smile incessantly now. Life is no longer dark and hypocritical , and I am living a lie no more. I am converted. Everything is all right. The struggle was finished. 2 gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of my nose. I feel jolly wonderful. I have a perpetual smile on my face and black bars across my eyes (and so does the researcher, who must have undergone the experiment himself as well). The experiment succeeded.
I will now see Nondon with a new set of eyes. A few shades darker, if at all, if I could peek through that black bar.
PHYSIOLOGY ART, OR AN ATTEMPT TO LINK ART & EXERCISE
Healthy living at Lupus Street: dry and clean from dis-ease
As I mentioned, I will have to run/walk/swim/fly/crawl 155.0km as a pathetic gesture to pay back for my flight Nondon-Zurich-Nondon.
It would be appropriate at this point in time to ask some questions.
WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART AND EXERCISE? IS THERE A WAY TO ACHIEVE A PERFECT WORK-LEISURE BALANCE? (WHAT IS THE BEST PROPORTION?) CAN I MIX WORK WITH LEISURE? FOR INSTANCE, CAN I FIND THE MEANING OF LIFE IN RUNNING + ART?
How – if one so wishes to, though to be sure, they can remain ‘separate’, as many of our activities are, although in the larger scheme of things, activities that one engages in are most certainly related in more ways than one and earns one interesting insights should one reflect upon the relationship between them – can one attempt to translate/utilise the mental stamina and pleasure one cultivates / achieves from endurance sports, to art? Or perhaps there is no need to relate one to the other, and take them as parallel, distinct activities that may/happen to have overlapping traits/ goals?
EXAMPLES OF ARTISTS WHO RUN/WALK
Artists in this possible synthesis (artists with art practice that feature/reflect/hint traits of their physical regimes): * Richard Long (serious walker in his land art), * Werner Herzog (another mad walker, and he has directly talked about this in his artwork; at least one documentary has been made about his walking as well; Herzog’s obsessive/punishing/extreme qualities as reflected in his psychotically long walks are also, of course, classic trademarks of his characters and actors in his films, as well as his own personality) * Haruki Murakami (who runs miles daily, and has taken part in marathon and ironmen events, and who discusses the mental discipline he derives from this part of his life that helps him in his clarity in his writing, though endurance sports do not otherwise feature in his work) *Jun Nguyen Hatsushiba (ongoing marathons in every city to match Earth’s diameter). DO YOU KNOW OF ANY OTHER ARTISTS WHO ENGAGE IN PHYSICAL EXERCISE?
SOME OF THE TRAITS SEEN IN VARIOUS ARTFORMS
Then there is the long tradition of repetition, obsession, pattern, kinetics in the history of art, though not discussed in relationship to artist’s own exercise regimes, if any. My favourite examples include Bruce Naumen, Tehching Hsieh, the tradition of obsessive calculation in Structuralist films, and Beckett, of course.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART, PHYSICAL EXERCISE
I discuss this with a friend, a devoted long-distance runner, who says that he read that ‘Felix Mendelssohn was a good athlete but I really don’t know how that can be heard in his music’. He suspects that physical activity was not really something that musicians, writers or artists engaged in, given that it was associated with manual labour and hence unbecoming. ‘The exercise & health madness that we see today didn’t start until late 20th-century.’ He goes on on suggest that it would be interesting to examine how ‘the body’s physiological and biochemical responses, together with the repeated muscular motion, can be presented audio-visually. It’s yet another way of depicting human movement, but focussing on the involuntary aspects of it, which also suggests the “carnal”. (I am thinking of Bataille’s “formless”, which has a feature called “pulse”).’
Well, it certainly suits public (+ artists’ own narcissitic) imagination better to think of artists who chose to alter their consciousness with substances drugs/alcohol. Self-destructive artists ‘make better stories’ – and many did write better stories too? (Huxley, Baudelaire, Jim Morrison, Warhol – the list is endless) The Romantic picture of the artist is one that is filthy, unkempt and tormented with wild hair, not one with bandana in sweat pants and working out, which is an image reserved for sissies. Beethoven doing yoga? Ginsberg on the treadmill? Pollock performing stomach crunches? Emin cycling in thermodynamic swimsuit after a 2km ocean swim? Say no more. This is nauseating.
LABEL FOR THIS ‘ART MOVEMENT’? (very witty pun, intended)
What could this exercise or movement (pun intended! Since there are not enough artists to warrant this a ‘movement’ in the first place!!) be possibly called? Exercise art? Sports art? Fitness art? Endurance Sports art?? Exercise Physiology art?
ARE YOU AN ARTIST WHO ENGAGES IN PHYSICAL EXERCISE? IF YOU DO, HOW DOES IT RELATE TO YOUR WORK, IF AT ALL? IF YOU DO NOT ENGAGE IN PHYSICAL EXERCISE, WHY NOT?
SUPERMAN/SAMSARA, LIGHTNESS/WEIGHT
NIETZSCHE:
* THE GAY SCIENCE (1882): What if a demon were to creep after you one day or night, in your loneliest loneness, and say: “This life which you live and have lived, must be lived again by you, and innumerable times more. And mere will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh— everything unspeakably small and great in your life—must come again to you, and in the same sequence and series—” Would you not throw your self down and curse the demon who spoke to you thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment, in which you would answer him: “Thou art a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!”
* THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY (1872): The metaphysical comfort—with which, I am suggesting even now, every true tragedy leaves us—that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of appearances, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable—this comfort appears in incarnate clarity in the chorus of the satyrs, a chorus of natural beings who live ineradicably, as it were, behind all civilization and remain eternally the same, despite the changes of generations and of the history of nations.
* THE WILL TO POWER: Everything becomes and recurs eternally – escape is impossible! – Supposing we could judge value, what follows? The idea of recurrence as a selective principle, in the service of strength (and barbarism!!)… To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain ( pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure…); the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the “will”; abolition of “knowledge-in-itself.” Greatest elevation of the consciousness of strength in man, as he creates the overman.
KUNDERA, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1984):
* And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
* We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
*Parmenides saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/non-being.
* What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?
* Was he correct or not? That is the question. The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious of all.
* The heaviest of burdens is simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment.
* The absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
* History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow.
