KAIDIE DIES: Variation 16 (Happy Aprilsss Foolsss)
Discovered buried alive and burdened to death under layers and layers of her compulsive hoarding of mappings. Every mapping is unique; each mapping is capable of yet more mappings. There's simply no bleeding end to it because everything is connected to everything else. Huffed and puffed, overloaded, hence Kaidie kabooms, has a headache and heartburn and cold sores and piles under all these piles, implodes, as a rather happy April's Fool, smiling.
**2010 December performance-lecture at the Slade School of Dine Art**
Yes we are still rather dead. So here is a mini-retrospective of sorts.
This is a performance-lecture held 2010 December 1 at the Slade School of DIne Art, Nondon, UK. In the ‘live’ version, we would be reading the script ‘live’; in this recorded version, you can hear us (flipping the pages of the script).
What is crucial to note that, all this was so (very nearly) impeccable and mindblowing at that point in time, ie 2010 December 1. Yet, restless beings that we are, that you know we are, this is not fixed in stone (is any? Even stones are not fixed [in stone], for they move, do they not??). We have (clearly) moved on, specifically, improved, in leaps and bounds of course. As you know we are simply incapable of producing anything run of the mill, but evolution-believers (and practitioners) that we are, many of the points raised in this performance have shifted, and many of the imageries have also been transformed. For ever-newer-better-higher-faster-good-better-best rundowns/out-lines/maps/cosmologies and other configurations, come back here often though even that can be slower than what we think while we are on the run etc etc. And, we all know that there can never be a ‘final’ version – even as we reach the ‘final’, for, so long as our stamina (speed and endurance) lasts, we will keep on running.
And the more we run, the better we can run, the further we can run. So, each variation is as ‘final’ as they get.
Point is, run, and you will find your own way. Or rather, ways. So, there you go. Here we are.
This performance-lecture was undertaken as part of our MPhil upgrade to PhD status at the Slade School of Dine Art, University College Nondon, UK. The opening and closing musical accompaniment is created by our usual Co-Runner, PHILIP TAN
KAIDIE DIES: Variation 4.
… THIS PICTURE (with the caption ‘After this attempt to run the country-city-company, Kaidie went missing and is presumed dead’) HAS BEEN REMOVED…
As we stuff our faces with stuffed birds/puds/sprouts/mulling about, shall we have a DISCOURSE? (RUNNING TO & FRO, from the Latin ‘discursus’)?
Hard at work (as if): reading, or rather, posing with books that we have ordered for the library. If we hold the books close enough, hopefully our skin will be able to absorb all the contents, swiftly. And paraphrase them enough to regurgitate in our writing, too, hopefully.
Before you complain that we have been less-than-diligent in our postings in the past couple of months, we must tell you that it is because we have been extremely hard at work writing something else, namely our grand 80,000-word fabulousness and sweetness of our thesis, which theorises our critical strategy of trans-dimensional running for our 21st century technologically-enabled multiverse.
To write, we have to read too, of course. Here are some pictorial evidence of us (LOOKING AS IF WE ARE VERY) hard at work, reading some of the books that we have ordered. We particularly enjoy running with Dr Bernd Heinrich in his Why We Run: A Natural History. Himself is a TOP marathon and ultramarathon runner (coming in as champion, at the age of 41, a race of 100km in 6 hours 30 minutes in 1981 in Chicago!!), award-winning biologist Dr Heinrich presents a dazzling story of why human beings, compared to our relatives in the animal kingdom, run. One of our favourite quotes is found on page 103. It is a conversation between the author and his friend, when the former ran 5-minutes faster than what the friend predicted.
As is usually the case in science, you make a prediction, and if it comes out close, you are happy because you’re potentially right with one idea, and if it comes out different, you’re closer to some other idea that you didn’t even think of before. That’s even better.
What a beautiful, powerful thought. And this comes from the perfectionist and overachiever of the writer-scientist-ultrarunner. To stray from an expectation is not a sign of defeat, but instead, a potentially exciting route of discovery into something that one didn’t expect, perhaps leading one to something else that is even more interesting than where one could have ventured.
Dr Heinrich’s writing is simple and clear, while also loaded with first-hand anecdotes (so this is not some armchair critic/theoryhead who only sits on their fatarses in their ivory towers and conceptualise about the world and the moons and the stars till the cows come home, or as one of our favourite artists ever, the brilliant Groucho Marx, says in the 1933 cccclassssssiccccc Duck Soup, ‘I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thoughts, I’d rather dance with the cows till you came home.‘) We are, frankly speaking, dogtired of all those highfalutin empty gibberish expounded by the socalled pureminds of the socalled academia, some of whom really are only capable of blowing pungent wind through their holycracks.
We are however disappointed with Christopher McDougall’s Born To Run, albeit its extremely exciting premise of learning to run ultra-distances from the humble and hidden tribe of the amazing Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, who have run all their lives, since they first ran away from the invading Spanish (what a poetic and empowering imagery!!). What we find disagreeable however is ultrarunner-and-journalist McDougall’s writing style which has the irritating trying-hard-to-be-cute-and-oh-so-personal-first-person-narrative-smug-frockingfullofselfbelief-noironywhatsoever-chest-beating-we-are-the-world-we-rule-the-world-yayyayay-watch-us-we-feel-ohsofrockinggood-about-ourselves approach also neatly encapsulated in the American talk show which we quite absolutely cannot stand (unless, of course, if it is so very bad that it is very good, out & out excessively trashy The Jerry Springer Show – Jerry! Jerry! we chant, fists in the air and on other guests’ holy bodies).
Philosopher and runner Michael Austin was the one who drew our attention to, in his good (although could-be-better, if each essay by the different philosopher-runners wasn’t so short but was more developed) Running and Philosophy, the etymology of the word ‘discourse’, which comes from the Latin discursus, and which refers to a running to-&-fro! What a poetic image. We have said this before, but we will say this again (because we keep getting asked!), but to all the snobs who still insist that walking is the only valid psychogeographical strategy, we say that you are too closed-minded, and that you really should try running (YES WE CHALLENGE YOU TO SWEAT IT OUT AND GET YOUR ‘PUREMINDS’ AND FATARSES MOVIN’!) to see how it works. Alan Turing would go for a 2-3hour run midday, to run away problems from that he faced at work; yet, it was in the middle of such a run that he conceptualised the beginnings of the modern computer.
Now, what better synthesis of the mind-body-technology-imagination could you get??
BRIGHTON ON THE ROCKS: In July, we asked for your advice for a short trip outside of Nondon; here is our VERY LATE postmortem!
It is already Winter as we speak and we are already nearly ALL OF 12-MONTHS OLD as we speak, but so many things have been happening in our lives that we haven’t had time to follow up and/or update you. If you recall, we asked for your kind advice over Summer for a simple day-trip out of Nondon, our favourite city on earth and beyond, and many of you very kindly wrote in to offer tips. MUCH THANKS FOR THAT, AND THAT!!! In the end, we took up the advice of Susan Collins, and visited Brighton for a day (THANK YOU SUSAN!). The day before we left, we also memorised the melody and lyrics of Brighton Rock by Queen, who is our favourite (and to our mind only valid) royalty.
Unfortunately, Brighton didn’t rock on this day we visited Brighton. Not only did it not rock, it was downhill, worse than a pathetic pebble or a piece of booger-looking plasticine also shat upon by a stray dog. It rained. And not only did it rain, it rained like it was nobody’s business. On and on. Already wearing our swimsuit underneath our clothes, since 5am when we woke up that morning (for the less-than-cheap coach bus that runs on ungodly hours) we went absolutely ballistic when rain hit hard, full on, at 9am when we arrived. Not only did we feel betrayed, we felt frocking humiliated. As you well know, we have been working bloody hard and running/living harder, and have not had the chance to have any break since our birth on 12.12. 2009, and the one single day we went on one, on a day which was technically defined as belonging to the season of Summer, so-called ‘Mother Nature’ has to screw it up. Mother my foot. We felt sad too, as this was meant to be a trip we take with you, our Dear Co-Runners. We hurled all the ‘your mother’ insults we ever knew at the sky, stone, rocks, everything else, while ogling extremely jealously at runners going up and down along the coast. The above image shows the GPS record of our infuriated, heavy and sulky tracks. In pink.
Being tough (stale, even?) cookies that we are, in the face of setbacks, we can only be even more defiant. In the past week, when snow has made Nondon cold, miserable and ‘classic grey (or gray) Nondon’, we have continued our running, albeit all wrapped up as Michelin Man, along with his (defiant) smile. In reference to the ‘mountain’ of earth imprisoning them for nearly 70 days, one of the famed (ex-) ‘Chilean miners’ Edison Pena explains, ‘I could just lie down, but my fury has been channelled into a hatred towards this mountain. … I wanted the mountain to get bored, seeing me run … I am not defeated. I am fighting. I feel that by running, I am fighting to live’ [1]
1 year into our venture, we are so spent and pent-up that we MUST GET OUT OF OUR BELOVED NONDON AND HAVE A BLOODY BREAK. Yes we swear. So we will consult your list of advice. Perhaps we will (re-)visit Brighton, in the deep of Winter, and jump into the ocean for a dip, in utter defiance. Lubed and all wrapped up, like MM.
Oh yes.
[1] These are the words of the miner in one of many love letters he wrote to his girlfriend while he was trapped. Fiona Govan, ‘Chile Miners Attend Mass at San Jose Mine’, Telegraph.co.uk, 17 October 2010. [accessed 1 November 2010].
HITS & MISSES, FITS & KISSES: Let’s agree not to run into each other, but won’t you let us take us for a ride? GAME FOR A COLLABORATION WITH US ON OUR EPIC QUIXOTIC QUEST?
The trans-dimensional runner of this quixotic life has at any one time one foot on the ground, pragmatic/rational/grounded in sturdily hardcore realism, and the other airborne, in cuckoo land and blue skies, with extra-terrestrial visionary eyes on each (swollen) toe, taken with skyscraper-tall mountains of heartattacky salt.
In this Web 2.0 Do-It-With-Others storytelling exercise, we have been privileged to have undertaken several collaborations with you, in our quest for the Meaning of Life 3.0. Here is an other idea for a collaboration (first conceived in early 2010):
As it is, we have not met 99.782 per cent of you, given that our interaction has been only in Life 2.0, ie, via the channels of this running blog, Facebook, Youtube, GPSies, Twitter and so on – and our imagination, of course. Also, given that we are partly an imaginary creation, meeting in real life is possibly an unimaginable task. (That said, we do not think that encounter in one dimension is of lesser or more significance than an other) In this idea of a project, to make the point that we want to maintain or create a critical distance between us, let us go out of our way to deliberately not meet in Life 1.0. The way to go about doing this is that one person shares her routine over a prescribed period of time. The other person – let us call them the/an ‘anti-stalker’ – will journey on the same route, but intentionally missing the previous person, by a few minutes/moments/metres/centimetres.
The thrill/beauty/cruelty/point of the game is to come so very close to have nearly met – but to just stop short of actually encountering the other. Afterwards, the pair could compare their GPS tracks and find out and plot, point by point, by exactly how much they have missed each other. (And of course, this sharing can be done remotely). As a consequence, one or both parties can derive (perverse / poetic) pleasure from the fact that they could theoretically have been in the same time and space, and could have had an encounter, but willfully and precisely do not. The deliberate orchestration of a denial of a run-in is the point of this project. Hence, we will never come face to face and whisper ‘Hi!’, ‘Nice to meet you!’, ‘Nice to meet you again!’, ‘And who are you?’; one may come close enough to catch a whiff of the other, or sneak a peek of the other’s shadow, or catch a dying footprint, but / and that is about it.
The game can be more fun if more participate. An orgy, not of presence, but absence, with participants who are missing – although we will hardly miss one another.
The great thing about this project is that it is of course hardly original, as many of us are already accomplished practitioners in some degree or an other, but, my Dear Conspirators of Pleasure, do you not think that it will be infinitely (more) enjoyable should we make this a studied and planned collaboration/game, with set parameters to play?
So, are you game? (Ah, the wonders of technology, to allow us to indulge, stretch and realise such fantasies…)
** Currently #5 in the War of Films contest: CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S film about KAIDIE AND HER MEANING OF LIFE 3.0. VOTE NOW!** Vote by clicking on + sign at the top of video player. ** Don’t forget to vote for Episode 2, Run Kaidie Run, too!**
WITH 755 DAYS LEFT ON OUR LIFE (or DEATH) SENTENCE (until the last day of the Nondon Olympics on 09.09.2012), HERE IS AN OTHER MINDMAP OF/FROM KAIDIE’S SEMBLANCE OF LIFE (3.0).
I trust not premonitions and I fear not omens. I flee / not from slander nor poison. / There is no death. / We are all immortal. All is immortal. Fear not / death at seventeen nor at seventy. / There is only reality and light. / There is neither dark nor death / in this, our world. / We have reached the beach and I / am one of those who pull the nets in when / immortality arrives in batches. Live / in a house and it will not crumble. I will summon / a century at will, enter / and build my house in it. That is why / your children and your wives all share my board, the table / serving forefather and grandson: the future is decided now.
As read by Arseni Tarkovsky in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror, 1975
** Currently #5 in the War of Films contest: CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S film about KAIDIE AND HER MEANING OF LIFE 3.0. VOTE NOW!** Vote by clicking on + sign at the top of video player. ** Don’t forget to vote for Episode 2, Run Kaidie Run, too!**
NONDON ON THE RUN: SUMMER 2010 #1. NORTH BY NORTHWEST, AND SOUTHEAST, AND SO ON. 25 July – 1 August.
** Breaking news: Currently #6 in the War of Films contest: CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S film about KAIDIE AND HER MEANING OF LIFE 3.0. VOTE NOW!** Vote by clicking on + sign at the top of screen. ** Don’t forget to vote for Episode 2, Run Kaidie Run, too!**
Restlessness is a stubborn dis-ease of ours , but if there is any season that makes one itch more than usual, it has to be Summer. As we crave for a respite from our beloved Nondon , even our loyalty for our dearest Regents Fark is wonky. The comfort of familiarity becomes repulsive. Also, only running at our favourite fark shields us from other textures, tastes and terrains.
In our continuing effort to train for our first marathon in September, as well as to find means to run away from Nondon without physically being able to do that just yet, we have been using running to explore different parts of Nondon, to see Nondon in new ways that we would not have had. And as temporary respites – quickies, if you will. In these runs, we work on distance and terrain, and put speed aside, especially since we often have to stop several times to ask for directions, or stop to read one of those map boards (or whatever they may be called?) installed in the streets. This being Summer, we plan some of our runs heading towards lidos, and have a dip as well.
We made several trips last week, in all directions. On 25 July Sunday, we ran 20.01km along the canal heading westwards. On Monday, we did 9.01km at our usual Regents Fark. On Tuesday, we walked 13.39km South, to the London Bridge area, to survey the space that we will exhibit in a couple of weeks. On Wednesday, we went North, running 24.06km to the rather ravishing Hampstead Heath, including a freaking %$£££^%X# freezing 1.1km swim at the Parliament Pill lido. On Friday, we ran our first ever 30km, heading westwards to and from Kew Bridge. On Sunday, we hit the canal again, this time heading towards the exotic east, but missing exactly 98% of Victoria Fark (15km).
How nice, and how different it was, and hence it was nice. We went to places that we would never have imagined to be Nondon, and ran on terrain that were different, difficult. If you would accept the argument that Nondon is generous enough a city to accomodate and indeed celebrate many variations of itself, then the existence of non-Nondons within Nondon, makes complete sense. In the same line of logic, Nondon, ie Non-London, is completely London at the same time. In Kaidie’s cosmology of the world, that ‘A’ co-exists with not-‘A’ – and often in the same freaking %$£££^%X# space – is perfectly logical. There is (some times frustratingly) no conflict.
‘Fresh sensations, new emotions, are valuable. Can we experience this in everyday life, without endless novelty, which in itself becomes pointless? […] We need that freedom’, as Jeanette Winterson says. ‘Life is too short to save for the holidays’. Indeed.
Serpentine Lido and Hampstead pond, here we come next. [Perhaps even Richmond and Tooting Bec, but we will have to budget getting there (on foot), getting back here (on foot), and having a dip (as aromatic slices of duck sandwiched in slim slices of pancake) as well. Would we have enough energy? …] We need to plan another 5 sessions of long runs, of 30-37km each, and 1 session of 42km. Would you, my Dear Conspirators of Pleasure, have any recommendation of which way we could possibly head next? Some where not too polluted. Somewhere fresh. Somewhere that would excite us. And you, of course.
CLOUD 9’S AND KAIDIE’S (OVERLAPPING) TRAVELOGUES
CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S TRAVELOGUE
On 15 June, Kaidie walked to Great Eastern Street to attend Bring Your Own Shorts I, organised by Christopher Birdman Dent, and had the privilege of watching filmmaker/artist/activist/writer/DJ/performance artist Claudia Tomaz’s poetically-layered film Travelogue (2008) in its entirety – sitting right next to the filmmaker! Travelogue is a beautiful 12-minute film-poem. In the place of dialogue, this is an intricate conversation, a delicate dance, between sound and images. Filmed by the filmmaker on seductive Super 8 as she journeyed from Portugal to Morocco, the film is a spellbinding. One of the most enchanting passages of the film is that of a montage of faces; the camera -and us- come face to face with the people, sometimes lingering on, other times looking away. (At this point, we think of great filmic moments that haunt: Chris Marker’s opening and closing sequences of Sans Soleil with 3 children on a road in Iceland; when the tiger speaks to the soldier in Apichatpong’s Tropical Malady, the opening dream sequence of Wild Strawberries and when fire fights rain in Mirror.)
My Dear Readers, do read about the film and watch and vote for it!
Left: frame grab from Claudia Tomaz's Travelogue, 2008. Right: Kaidie's travelogue 15 June 2010 from Kings Kross to Old Street.
KAIDIE’S TRAVELOGUE
Although we had promised Claudia to reach there early for a chat, we ended up being quite rudely late! That was because we got rather lost at the Old Street roundabout. Kaidie has a love-hate relationship with roundabouts, as she never fails to get disoriented at one, but we do love their Sisyphian loopiness (as usual). It is not as if we have never been to Great Eastern Street – but perhaps it is that we like getting lost (at the expense of our manners). This GPS track is slightly distorted, as we switched it off before we reached the venue, mistakenly believing that we had ‘arrived’. You can look at this map, and other GPS tracks of Kaidie’s Life 1.0 travels on GPSies.
THE OVERLAPPING TRAVELOGUES OF KAIDIE AND CLAUDIA
Kaidie and Claudia Tomaz first met 5 March 2010 at the Late at Tate Britain’s Game Play, at the Blast Theory booth, but have been meeting frequently in Life 2.0. Multi-hyphenate Claudia has a wide body of works that look at technology, landscape, the city and most of all the people in them, in a manner that is sensitive, spirited and never distancing. Her ‘mutant paintings’, Transient Forms are most tactile. The very giving artist has contributed many times to Kaidie’s running blog, and recently made not one but two films about Kaidie as part of her LONDON GROUND series. In spite of our individual paths/journeys, Claudia and Kaidie always have meeting points that are meaningful and striking. Claudia and Kaidie certainly have many common grounds of interests and have been keen running partners, and will most certainly continue to be. Run Claudia Run!
Do continue to watch and vote for the 2 films by Claudia Tomaz about Kaidie! Episode 1 (12 minutes): Kaidie talks about her endeavour. WATCH AND VOTE for KAIDIE AND THE MEANING OF LIFE 3.0 NOW! Episode 2 (10 minutes): focuses on Kaidie’s running. WATCH AND VOTE for RUN KAIDIE RUN NOW!
KAIDIE PAYS HOMAGE TO SOME OF HER VIRTUAL RUNNING BUDDIES AT HER LIFE 1.0 SHOW! #8 YOU CAN BE KAIDIE’S COLLABORATOR TOO!
These are but a handful of Kaidie’s running buddies – real, virtual, imagined – so far, whom Kaidie has met in her Life 3.0 in the past 7 months. There are many, many more! YOU can play a role in Kaidie’s life/ lives! Kaidie’s is a collaborative, open(-ended?) quest for The Meaning of Life 3.0! RUN with her for the rest of the 790 days! Here are just a handful of outcomes Kaidie has created with YOU, My Dear Reader/Contributer/Collaborator/Conspirator of Pleasure, so far, including by some of these amazing Nondoners photographed here!. Contribute, by writing in, sending her feedback here, giving her suggestions, sending her images and sounds and ideas for her to jam with, with you! Add ‘Kaidie Nondon’ as your best Facebook Friend Forever! Friend ‘Kaidie3rdlife’ on Youtube! Follow Kaidie ‘live’ on Twitter! Track her Life 1.0 tracks on GPSies! Friend ‘Kaidie Absent’ in Second Life! Help us make this the best run of our lives!
A LIFE 2.0 RE-PRESENTATION OF A LIFE 1.0 SHOW THAT IS ENDING IN A FEW HOURS: Kaidie’s metamap exhibition #6.
Where do statues go after they die? Statues die when people stop looking at them (Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, 1953). Kaidie’s metamap is of a less resilient material than bronze, and, like Kaidie, has a prescribed lifespan. It begins dying this evening 17:00hrs, and from 11:00hrs tomorrow (after our morning run), we will remove the papers, tapes, blu tacks, glue dots, marker pen marks, other marks, tracks, traces, bits, pieces, things, remnants, et ceteras. We will paint over the walls and floors where we had been, and leave the space as we found it, as if we had never been there, clearing all paths, as if it had never known existence in the first place (good for it) (for its own good).
That things die, that they die from one dimension, that they do not last, that they are one-offs, that they are transient and are not foolishly forever, that they can live on – if we so allow them to – in the realm of imagination, perhaps ever/even more animatedly, ferociously and zestfully, is a concept that we quite adore. (We – you, my Dear Readers, and us- have been there before, when we paid a pilgrimage to Heidiland in a bid to visit the legendary Heidi, who was all but absent, and how we were relieved that she could not be found in Life 1.0, for it only strengthens her presence in our Life 2.0). We relish in the cruelty of this, as we adore how it allows us to train and celebrate the/our power of imagination. (‘I’m wondering what this all means to you’, he asks. I am silent. ‘You are immaterial; you do not exist. In fact, you are already dead,’ I want to say, which to my mind is not negative, in our same Heidi-logic, but which would inevitably be taken to be otherwise. So I keep silent.)
The work dies from Life 1.0, our primary world, but/and migrates to / returns to / re-starts in Life 2.0, in the virtual and imaginary realm, and exists as if it has done all this while, independent of the one in the physical world. One is not lesser than the other. To be pedantic, the Life 1.0 metamap in the exhibition ‘came from’ Life 2.0 in the ‘first place’, with the 120 maps and images created on the screen, and having previously only existed in Cyberspace. Already, even as it is alive, we are re-creating Life 2.0 re-presentations of it, in a parallel realm. The work is the same work in either lives, but the Life 1.0 ‘version’ also completely differs and is independent of the Life 2.0 one. In fact, there is no ‘essential’ work. When we run restlessly between Life 1.0 and Life 2.0, we are re-creating the/a work again.
2nd row top left: photograph of Kaidie at work by fellow artist-exhibitor, Laura Malacart. Beside that is a sketch by Kaidie of the work, before she began. Middle: Kaidie, quite knackered by now, poses with fellow artists and exhibitors Deborah Padfield and Errol Francis at the end of the humid evening of the opening 25 June. in the next picture, Errol competes with Kaidie for Person With Most Number Of Countable and Accountable Teeth Award 2010. We are fighting neck to neck, shoulder to shoulder, and- of course we are expecting this- teeth to teeth, a tooth for a tooth, gum for gum. Who do you think should win? Bottom right: Pink poster Spillage indicates the title of the show. Bottom left: Kaidie’s hand-made wall text for her new hand-made wall-text-installation, 24 June 2010, 1 day before show opened. The masking tape on the wall were to be all licked up, of course. Kaidie’s Life 3.0 ecosystem tolerates no wastage (most of the time). Check out the ‘paper tippex’ on the right hand side of the wall text as well (since there is no undo button in Life 1.0).
LAST 2 DAYS TO CATCH KAIDIE’S FIRST LIFE 1.0 INSTALLATION! Slade Centre of Research, WC1H 0AB. Kaidie’s metamap exhibition #5.
Across a 14m-wide wall, Kaidie works on site across 9 days to create a metamap consisting of 120 maps and images, that attempts to map her transdimensional run. This show departs from Kaidie’s recent works in that it utilises no multimedia, and that Kaidie installed this by herselves, got down on all fours and was all hands-on and filthy, screaming at no assistants except herselves. Slade Centre 25-30 June 2010, Nondon.
The baby in the triptych in the middle fingers the trails and links of Kaidie’s wall map – good. Then she goes on to spill red wine and pringles on my floor – no good, but she’s a baby, and we are so magnanimous as to hold no grudges against babies. And then she cries loudly, as if she was the victim! – oh, NO GOOD, but still understandable in the scheme of things (yes we are rational beings). But that is not the punchline – the adults responsible for the tot did no thing to help clean up, and escaped! – NOOO GOOD. My Dear Readers, we are sure that you have encountered ultra-righteous people with a strong sense of entitlement, who act as if they are the only on earth to have ever reproduced (THE REST OF US – if you did not already know – ARE ORPHANS MADE FROM PLAYDOH). So we – speaking as self-righteous runners and figures of imagination – had to stoop on the floor and lick up the pringles+wine+the baby’s tears+dust+hairs (thick, thin, curly, straight, blond, red, brown, black, etc), being ever so keen to store up food and drinks in our system at every opportunity in the middle of the ‘we-are-all-in-this-together’ recession.
Image of Kaidie overstretching herself by Alexandra Gomes during private view 25 June 2010 Friday. (Yes – pink, and its shades, was the order of the evening. Why? Because we have for the past few lifetimes tired of the obligatory black attires at art openings.) THANK YOU ALL for coming to the exhibition thus far, and its opening. More images of opening and exhibition to come – look out if Kaidie has caught you on camera! Did you say and smell of cheese? So, watch this space. Do not move, for soon all this will disappear from Life 1.0. (We will film ourselves de-installing the work, which had taken 9 full days to install, on Thursday in time lapse, and play it backwards, and upload it on Youtube later. Rather terribly exciting isn’t it).
25-30 JUNE: Display of WHY RUN? (WHY NOT?) and other mind+mentalmaps. Slade Centre of Research, Nondon #4
NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING, AND RUNNING HAS SEVERAL HISTORICAL THREADS.
RUNNING CONTEXTUALISED IN THE TRADITION OF TRAVELLING AND TRAVEL LITERATURE.
WITH THE INTERNET, KAIDIE HAS MORE RABBIT HOLES TO RUN IN(TO).
RUNNING AS A SIMPLE, VISCERAL COUNTERPOINT / CRITICAL STRATEGY FOR OUR TECHNOLOGICALLY-MEDIATED REALITY. (PLUS: HULA-HOOPING IN I AM FIT FOR LIFE 2000)
THE 'WHY RUN' MAP IN ITS FULL GLORY. SEE IT (RE-) CONTEXTUALISED IN THE INSTALLATION!
A QUICKYSNEAKYBLURRYMCFLURRY PREVIEW OF KAIDIE’S 120MAP-METAMAP: 25-30 JUNE EXHIBITION #3
Kaidie hard at work, at the Slade Centre of Research at Woburn Square, creating a metamap of 120 maps of her transdimensional run. Beware, however, of Kaidie's knife that she's holding on her hand - she might slash more than paper if you try to come too close. Keep a critical distance! In this show, there is NO multimedia, NO moving images, no cables and no technical cockups, only penknives, masking tape, gaffer tape, 120 pieces of A3 papers, one 25metre wooden creaky scary ladder that Kaidie has to climb up, one lower sturdier ladder, papercuts, marker pens, cups of foamy coffee (we were supposed to have quit coffee!?), plenty of dust-and-hair (curly, straight, long, short, thick, thin - ALL YIKES!) -collection on Kaidie's jeans as she kneels/prostrates reverently on the dirty floor before her wall, and other analogue goodoldfashioned cockups. Come see for yourself. Original photograph by Laura Malacart 19 June 2010 Nondon, UK.
25-30 JUNE: KAIDIE SHARES HER MEANDERINGMADMAPS + MANDALAS. Slade Centre of Research, Nondon #1
What: In this exhibition, there are 13 PhD and researchers on show with a wide-range of works including performance, sculpture, video installation and sound. Private view: 25 June evening. Exhibition: 25-30 June. Location: Slade Research Centre Nondon WC1H UK. Opening hours: 9am – 5pm daily except Sunday.
Kaidie exhibits her Multiple Mad Meandering Maps + Mandalas of her restless running across Life 1.0 (primary world), Life 2.0 (realm of imagination, Web 2.0 realities) and Life 3.0 (Web 3.0 AR+MR, hybrid reality). As we speak, Kaidie is creating a 14metre-wall-installation, a metamap of her maps of her intradimensional run. And there is NO multimedia in this new work, only goodoldfashion 2D ‘stuffs’. Can you believe that? Me neither. Well, come see for yourself. (We would have used the adjective ‘Magnificent’, in conjunction with the brilliant Magnificent Maps exhibition at the British Library, but that would not have been very Modest of Me, would it?)
See you around. Literally. Being all-rounded we can bounce ideas off each other. Jolly well.
May 2010: ever-expandable layers of reality -cum-running tracks
March 2010: an appropriation of the yin-yang symbol - or/and an appropriation of the pepsi logo.
December 2009: picture-perfect simple/simplistic venn diagramme of the in-between.
ANALYSIS OF MY 155.0km PATHETIC RUN-WALK IN COMPENSATION FOR MY 1550km NONDON-ZURICH-NONDON FLIGHT. (But don’t you dare scoff – better SOME effort than NO THING [?])!
I am presenting you, my Dear Readers, THE official one and only scientific philosophical analysis of my Nondon-Zurich trip last month. I had promised to run/walk/crawl/jump/swim 155.0km as a pathetic gesture to pay for my 1550km Nondon – Zurich – Nondon flight.
So finally I have recovered from my jetlag (there is a 1 hour time difference between London and Switzerland, for those of you who did not know). After a few nights of 12 hours of sleep, (thus is the luxury of Life 3.0) I was recharged and sat down to tabulate my results.
The chart in the centre is my own documentation of my journeys. I began working towards fulfilling my goal from 22 January, and 15 days later, I completed the given task. A few points to note:
– All distances are estimations (based on previous timings, ‘measurements’ [using my fine fingers’ widths] of distances based on paper maps).
– As distance (and endurance) is the aim, timing is not taken into consideration. (In any case, my pace is alwaaaaayyyyys sloooowwwwwwwwwwwwww – but some are slower than sloooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.)
– For any given session, distances must be more than 5km to be taken into account. Anything less will be ignored (and laughed at).
What surrounds this chart are maps generated by Mini, my Garmin foretrex 201 GPS, which I borrowed from CASA and Urbantick (whom I suspect owns a large stash of other Minis, Mediums and Majors, given his quite interesting experiments in the field.) Detailed versions of these maps can be found on my page on GPSies. The thicker lines in blue are my tracks as documented by Mini. (Information geeks who find pleasure from creating/looking at different patterns from words and numbers will derive some joy from sites like these. However, I like to believe that I maintain a critical distance [pun intended]).
Not harbouring any gadget-fetishism whatsoever (oh puh-leaazzee, dah-ling, I am an au-naturale artificial being! Tsk tsk.), one of the points that intrigues me at this point is the difference between my representation and Mini’s, ie, one that is (supposedly) subjective (based on memory and temperaments of fingers), arbitrary (based on [highly-educated, ahem] estimations) and analogue, vs one that is (supposedly) scientific, accurate, objective and digital.
This difference/gap/slippage is the space-time where/when Kaidie exists/lives.
IN THE PINK OF HEALTH: DAY 55: (ONE OF) KAIDIE’S MAPPINGS OF HER LIFE 3.0: NOT A WORLD OF BLACKS AND WHITES, BUT OSCILLATIONS OF IN BETWEENS.
If you can read between the lines and gaze between the greys and grays, why don't you test out this mapping in YOUR life?
DAY 6: MAPMAKING WORKSHOP AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY; ANOTHER SITE MAP FOR THIS SITE
Sight map of this website. I cannot bend my knees due to my folly of falling off the treadmill 2 days ago, but I can map the globe.
There are many exquisite maps at the British Library. (Like the British Museum, there are many, many, many things in the British Library. One of the reasons as we all know quite well is that they, well, ‘appropriated’ many things from all over the world during the glorious days of imperialism, but Kaidie, a 3rdlifer, while aware and conscious of course of these discourses, is free from the baggage and burden of history/histories. As well as taste, some might say, looking at my map, above).
After the workshop, I walk down the Euston Road, which leads to Marylebone Road. Opposite the Madam Tussaud’s Museum (which is full of my impersonator friends), is a pub named the Globe (see below). As a true-blue cosmopolitan Nondoner, I down 9 pints in quick succession in 6 minutes, of Hoegaarden, Asahi, 3 Moët et Chandon Brut Impérial, 2 Mojitos, washed down with 2 straight vodkas. Burp. (In Life 3.0, there is no legal age-limit. Nothing is illegal, or nothing is legal either.) Refreshed from my small drink, I go home and make my own map (see above).
We are told that there will be a big map show in April 2010 – either the show is a big show, or that the maps that are shown there are big, or it is a big show that shows big maps. Magnificent! I must go! I must put it down in my diary.
Around the globe in 6 days.
I MUST, MUST go as well to look at The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam show which closes 21 Feb 2010! I have just signed up to receive online newsletters. I must register to be a Reader as well.
SO MUCH TO DO, AND SO MUCH TIME TO DO THEM ALL! How I adore Nondon! My Life 3.0 is a bed of roses. And fragrant proses. Sigh.
Do not, my dear Readers, envy me please. Inequality is life. Such is life. Accept it!
I MAKE A NEW FRIEND IN EAST NONDON
I swim out Mummy’s tummy and wander about. I reach a place with many tall buildings, which excite me. Peering inside, I see offices with no one, as it is a Saturday. I visit the Nondon Museum, which tells me about Nondon in the past, which is nice, since I would have quite limited knowledge of Nondon before I was born today, though I think I would also enjoy exploring cities knowing next to nothing about them. With adjustable lenses within my eyes, I see a giant cucumber in a distance. This makes me excited again. I feel hungry. With desire rushing to the end of my earlobes, I swallow a few bagels (salmon and cream cheese) at Brick Lane. I see an exhibition by an artist called Sophie Calle. This is new to me. Her work is quite interesting. So this is what contemporary art is. I think I like art. I then put on earphones and walk a tour by Janet Cardiff. As someone new to Nondon, and on the Grand Tour of Life 3.0, I like the idea of being on an other tour while being on a couple of tours. Cardiff whispers into my ears. I hear sounds of footsteps. I am unsure if it comes from the earphones or the environment. I turn around anyway, and see a person behind me. She has a large pair of plastic wings on her shoulders, which she uses to wipe her mouth.
‘Come join me on my tour’, I say to her, and offer her one of the earphones.
