In Search of A/The Point of Life

PRESS COVERAGE

IN 2011 JANUARY 11, WE (Kaidie, Kai die, Kai live, Kai Syng Tan, dead Kai) POPPED UP AT ASIA TATLER (Singapore).

As you well know, we are highflying, highlycultured, highlycultivated, highbrowed and hightea-ed. At the same time, we are thick as a slice of 14-month-old Tesco’s nofrills white-sliced bread (made of highly-refined plain flour!!), and our humour, as you our dear Reader knows well by now, is lowbrow and scatological. Yeah baby. Nonetheless, at the very least we do have a sense of humour. We are uncertain if many other people can say the same. Our life as it is has been fluctuating high-and-low as usual, but a few weeks ago it was temporarily associated with the high society, as we (all of us Kai, Kaidie, Kai Syng, Kai Die, Kai Live, Kai Lives) were featured in the Tatler Asia (Singapore) magazine. Not our usual strasse shall we say, as our usual strasse is concrete (specifically on the pavements of lovely large cities) as well as ones-and-zeroes (on the information superhighway). Here is the lowdown (how could we possibly resist such a cheap pun??).




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!


Kaidie goes ON, and ON, and ON… for 12 minutes in CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S London Ground film ‘KAIDIE AND THE MEANING OF LIFE 3.0′ EPISODE 1. WATCH and VOTE NOW!

Claudia at work filming Kaidie at work. Other images are screenshots of related websites (see links below).

Multiple-award-winning filmmaker CLAUDIA TOMAZ (Locarno!! Venice!!!!!!!!!!!!) has made a film about Kaidie. This is Episode 1 of 2, in which Kaidie talks about her Rough Guide To The Meaning Of Life 3.0: Kaidie’s 1000-day Trans-dimensional Run 12.12.02009 – 09.09.2012.  And talks. And talks. AND talks. For ALL 12 minutes. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Episode 2 coming soon! (EVEN) More yakking!! Take a look at the film and do vote for it! The music that you can hear is composed by award-winning PHILIP TAN (Animal Farm, National Day Parade 2008, Football! Football! 2010). The film was shot 24 June 2010, at the Slade Centre of Research of the Slade School of Dine Art, Nondon, when Kaidie was installing her meta-map wall installation.

You, My Dear Reader, are not unfamiliar with Claudia, a filmmaker-artist-writer-performer-activist who also spins under the name Cloud 9. You have seen her contributions here, there, there too, there there too, as well as here, just to name a few! And there are many more in Life 2.0! Claudia is one of Kaidie’s most constant co-runners of this quest. Her thought-provoking feedback, insights and suggestions have pushed Kaidie  and her adventure in many exciting ways, making her otherwise silly journey worth travelling.

The Do It With Others (DIWO) ethos of this work also underlies Claudia’s LONDON GROUND series, of which the film on Kaidie is a part of. London Ground is a collection of films ‘made in collaboration with selected artists of different practices (music, film, art, activism) in London underGROUND 2010. The artists invited are not mainstream ones, but people with dreams and their feet on the ground,’ according to the artist.

Claudia’s methodology of (self-)distribution and exhibition also fully exploits the  Web 2.0 infrastructure. This is an exciting and new platform of ‘microfilmmaking’, in which filmmakers share their work online, in a sustainable system that bypasses middle bodies, and allows the artists to communicate directly with her audience. Every view and vote helps the filmmakers make their next films, and allow them to stay truly individual So please watch, and vote! (And please support [the good things about] Web 2.0!)

Have a peek into the multilayered world of Claudia! Read about the LONDON GROUND series! Take a look at the blog the Holon Film Lab! Take a look at notes related to the film on Kaidie! Have a look at the next chapters of cinema and see how you can contribute or make use of this system as well! Claudia tweets as well – follow her ‘live’! Check out Claudia’s work-in-progress (talk about multi-tasking)!! Look at notes about her previous book Mobile Narratives!

How did the 2 travellers meet? What does Kaidie make of some of Claudia’s work? Find out in the next posts!

Booked doublefaced: This week, Kaidie's Facebook profile picture is that shot by Claudia; guess who shot Claudia's picture?


A month ago, during Kaidie’s dislocation, she was momentarily located in a Singapore newspaper in Life 1.0 (printed edition) and Life 2.0 (online version), and Life 3.0 (somewhere in between).

The above is reproduced and cropped from Today Online 23 March 2010, Mediacorp, Singapore.

** ERRATUM: Kaidie is not an artist. She is a (re-)searcher for the Meaning of Life 3.0. Now THAT’A a FULLTIME AND NOBLE (pre-)occupation!**


KAIDIE’S DISLOCATION PROVOKED A WORLDWIDE HUNT (of sorts). (Perhaps Kaidie had been virtually hanging out with Mika, as pixels)

During Kaidie’s absence,  the press was (semi-)hot on its heels to help us hunt her down. Here is one of 2 articles published last week that discusses Kaidie’s dislocation and/or Kaidie in general.

P.S. 1: This article talks about Kaidie’s dislocation without mentioning her disappearance in the past month – so it seems that the journalists here ‘get’ Kaidie’s work! (ie, running in the ambiguous, arbitrary, amorphous gap between reality and imagination)! This is one of the few occassions that the press/public media ‘gets’ Kaidie’s work in her current and previous lives! And this is with-out Kaidie having had ANY contact – remote/virtual/actual –  with the journalists of this article. Allow me at this point to stroke my chin (like Kaidie in this picture) and go, ‘Hmmm. Interesting…’

P.S. 2: However, contrary to what this article claims, as far as I am aware of, issues of nationality and identity are irrelevant in Kaidie’s cosmology. Kaidie is born with no family/history/background/ethnicity/culture/gender/citizenship/place/country/allegiance. She begins afresh, ground zero. That said, she is (al-most certainly) female, the last time I checked.

P.S. 3:  Why is this  categorised as ‘alternative art’? What is this alternative to? What on google-earth is ‘dominant art’? What on google-earth is ‘dominant art’ today? Yesterday’s ‘alternative’ is tomorrow’s mainstream. Fast forward, to the era of Kaidie’s Life 4.0 or 41.1, and this will have been considered as old-school and even classical. Unbelieavable isn’t it. Let me stroke my chin again.

P.S. 4: I am sure Kaidie does not mind charity donations from the readers of the article and this blog for her quest. After all, this has been classified as ‘alternative’, has it not.

P.S. 5: Perhaps Kaidie has not just been continuing her quest for the Meaning of Life 3.0 in Second Life (as we have just established) all this while when she was missing, but cavorting with the not-undelicious Mika and his bubblegum in some storage space as ones and zeroes some where. No wonder she had disappeared! That said, there is clearly a very serious size-compatibility technical issue here: Kaidie’s face alone is the size of Mika’s entire folded-body-on-a-sofa. Tsk tsk tsk! Kaidie should run more loopy loops to shrink into near-no-thing-ness, or drink some magic potion (which we hope is calorie-free) or drink the magic potions while running. Being smaller+lighter+baggage-free, just as being identity/allegiance/race/etc-free, enables her to be dis-located easier any time she needs/wants to. Travelling light is one of the most important rules (along with having good stamina for this multiple-ultra-marathon of transmigration, and endurance – in enduring oneself) for the traveller – more so if you are running. Perhaps Mika knows where/what/when the Meaning of Life 3.0 is? An other chin-stroking time.

Reprinted from CNN Go 23 March 2010.



KAIDIE INTERVIEWED ON WINTERTHUR RADIO STADTFILTER ABOUT (HER) LIFE 3.0 (26 January 2010)

Click here to listen to my interview with Ms Susan Krausse of the Radio Statfilter Winterthur, Switzerland on 26 January, during my 3rdlifer-in-residency at the Villa Straeuli, for your listening pleasure (sic). Since we are moving back in time temporarily, let us indulge and enjoy this wallpaper of a friend I met in Heidiland. (By the way, the following is a blatant self-promotion, but since this is my site, I am more than allowed. Here I go/come: if you wish to view the entirety of the film I made there called Kaidie In Heidiland / Heidi In Kaidieland, come to my performance-lecture at the London College of Communication 10am Tuesday 9 March. This will be Kaidie’s first Life 1.0 performance in Nondon. It will be extra-ordinary.)

HeidilandCat