MONSTER (a poem of love and its opposites). HAPPY VALENTINES DAY.
Premiered at Oxford University UK, at the ‘Human- Machines, Mechanized Modernity, and Mass Subjectivity between Asia, the Soviet Union, and North America in the Twentieth Century’ conference, June 18-20, 2009. Music by Philip Tan. Special thanks to Aaron Moore, Tina Chen, Sarah Teasley. Created by a predecessor of Kaidie’s in a previous life, Kai Syng Tan, May 2009 Singapore. The opening lines in the 2nd act of the film are taken from Cascando by our most beloved Samuel Beckket.
Monster is a video poem seen from the point of view of an elderly woman, who really is an imagination by the artist of herself in the near future. Monster addresses man’s eternal obsession in modifying his body and nature in a compulsive bid to ‘improve’ himself. Such notions as the frailty of the body & flesh, and how our body-machines decay and imaginations of means through which we sustain/prolong/improve on them, are teased out. With the classic allegory of Frankenstein as a point of departure, the work posits the Man vs. Machine/Monster argument as a complex and layered relationship that is at once dependent, violent, obsessive, loving and destructive. While ‘I’ (Man) have created ‘you’ (Machine) out of a need for survival, ‘you’ have fought with me against (my) nature, but entrapped me nonetheless; my selfishness, greed, ambition and insatiability has led me to create an indomitable Monster/Mutant that is increasingly out of control – yet I remain faithful, and continue to love, nurture, and protect you. And I get hungrier still. This man/machine dance/wrestle is a powerplay that is paradoxical, grotesque and tender at the same time. Incorporating text, performance and animation, Monster is accompanied by a haunting soundscape made up of sounds from construction sites – an all-too familiar sound that fills the artist’s ears in the high-tech Asian miracle city that she hails from. The shiny images of the city-state in a relentless process of construction and rebuilding are juxtaposed with personal, intimate images of everyday objects photographed in the artist’s home – used, forgotten, dusty as they are. We go up close to the skin of an elderly lady, whose life overlaps that of her daughter’s. Happy Valentine’s.
‘For by stroking of him I have found out electricity’…
One of our best running buddies, James Odling-Smee, shared the following poem by English poet Christopher Smart (11 April 1722 – 21 May 1771) with us. We find out on that democratic encyclopedia that Smart was a popular poet, and berate ourselves for not having known him before. Not being believers, and not knowing the work of Smart well enough, we will refrain from analysing the subtext of this work, but we truly enjoy this as a beautiful ode to our favourite animal, the cat. Enjoy. (Thank you James!)
A front paw of Chico, the many-toed cat of another of our running buddy, artist and writer ANJI REYNER. Thank you Anji! (We will be seeing more of Chico in Kaidie's adventures! Stay tuned).
For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry (excerpt, Jubilate Agno, 1759 -1763) Christopher Smart
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually–Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.
WHY WE ARE RUNNING FOR SHELTER
We exist/live/run, in order to look for the Meaning of Life, and we run not only in real life (what we call ‘Life 1.0’) but online (what we call ‘Life 2.0’), as well as in hybrid realities of mobile Internet (what we call ‘Life 3.0’). As we run across the various dimensions, we call our running ‘trans-dimensional running’ (ASTOUNDINGLY CREATIVE NAMING INNIT!!!). While it would made our lives easier if we only sat at our armchair and desktop too cook up a fabulous tale that works perfectly on paper (and screen), we have taken upon ourselves (how grand!) to take up running in real life as well (big deal!). We reckon that while we are at it, we might as well make it meaningful for others as well (hopefully, although we [think we] harbour no delusions of self-aggrandisement as to how much our existence makes any difference to anybody else).
Charities exist to fight for meaningful causes. When faced with the necessity to make a decision as to which charity to run for in the upcoming 2011 Nondon Marathon (IN 70 DAYS!!), we selected Wateraid and Shelter , as we reasoned that water and housing are but the most fundamental needs of any being. When Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity got back to us, we were absolutely delighted.
As restless and insatiable beings, we have always been peripatetic, as we traverse the worlds and lifetimes, necessarily in solitude, but doing our best in each life and dimension as well as we can. This is by no means a unique position – with today’s highly mobile population, and with the ubiquity of smart mobile gadgets, we have become location-independent as ‘digital nomads’, in this Life 3.0. Which wonderfully coincides with our own attempts to continually strip ourselves of baggage (in a previous life, giving up the paintbrush and canvas in 1995, for the film camera, then the video camera, and today, with only our laptop as not only our studio, but our life itself, as we store our data on the invisible ‘cloud’ online. A compulsive reduction of clutter, and the active application of the [Buddhist] dictum of non-attachment that nonetheless lies in direct contradiction with the instinct to hoard, to hold on to things… Short of stripping ourselves of ourselves, what next?????????????????????). Yet we are well aware that this discussion is rich. There are many, many who are not itinerant by choice, for a vast complex web of reasons. How can those who have the ability to make such a choice, respond to those who do not?
As runners, we do the only thing we can do, that is, to run. As we have said repeatedly, our running is but a small (and futile?) gesture in the scheme of things, but a small step towards an attempt to not be a part of a/the problem. If that is at all possible.
With the political and economic climate still looking difficult, please help us support the work of Shelter. The images show us the affordability – or rather, un-affordability- of living in London for those claiming housing benefit for the next 5 years, when the cuts by the ConDem Government takes place. This research has been compiled by Alex Fenton, research associate of the Centre for Housing and Planning Research of the University of Cambridge (5 November 2010). As Nondoners, we are concerned. Nondoners forced out of Nondon because of prohibitive prices – where can these Nondoners go? Will this become a Nondon that is populated only by a certain group of the society?? Where can these Nondoners run to? What would that Nondon be like??? What sort of Nondon do we want???
Let us all run for Shelter, now.
For high resolution maps and full analysis, please visit the Shelter website!
THANK YOU OUR FRIENDS FOR YOUR WELL-WISHES FOR OUR FIRST YEAR OF EXISTENCE
On 12 December 2010, we marked our first year of existence. Here is a selection of some of the lovely messages we received from some of You:
WHO AM ‘WE’? The use of the personal plural pronoun explained in this interview we had with Shiseido Singapore.
A couple of months back, Kaidie’s efforts were featured in an online site by the Singapore wing of the Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido, from which the images above are quoted. We also answered a few questions, which are reproduced here. The image of us above has been appropriated from another realm, before our birth, in October/November 2009, in an other interview.
Q: What’s your philosophy and attitude towards life?
Hello World. We are Kaidie, a trans-dimensional runner, looking for The/A Meaning of Life 3.0, by running for 1000 days within and across various dimensions of reality: ‘Life 1.0’ (the primary world – including the city of ‘Nondon’), Life 2.0 (the realm of imagination, as well as online realities made possible by ‘Web 2.0’), ‘Life 3.0 (the hybrid realities enabled by ‘Web 3.0 on our portable wireless devices), as well as ‘Life 4.0’ (the hypothetically-named ‘Web 4.0? and other future technologically-enabled realities, as well as other cycles of our lives to come). We die on the last day of the Nondon Olympics on 09.09.2012, so do join us on our quixotic quest! With this mission in Life, you can tell that we aim to live our Lives to the full, while we are here!
Q: Why Kaidie?
‘Kaidie’ is a variation of artist Tan Kai Syng; or rather, it is more accurate to say that Kai Syng is the Life 1.0, real life version of Kaidie. That said, Kaidie is also all of us out there: the users of the Internet, the people who go online in the time-space of ‘consensual hallucination’ (as William Gibson labels the Internet). So, Kaidie is one, but Kaidie is also many, and any one of us can be Kaidie. hence the utilisation of the plural personal pronoun of ‘we’. As Cyber-theorist Sherry Turkle says, instead of asking ‘Who am I’, the more relevant question is ‘Who Am We’ in the age of multiple identity today, which the Internet further magnifies (1996). Our ‘we’ embodies Kaidie, Kai Syng, Kai Die, Kailive, Kailives, Kaidie Absent. It also encompasses the ‘i’ of iPad, iPhone, iPod, and ‘You’ or Youtube, and You of the Times Magazine Person of the Year 2006, and or ‘my’ of Myspace. But this is not a homogenising we; neither is it the implicative Coalition ‘we-‘re-in-this-together’, nor the patronising Majestic Plural. Instead this ‘we’ includes the different shades of us, in different contexts. It’s an orgy which celebrates all variations of us!
Q: What do you hope to achieve and what’s next for Kaidie?
Kaidie runs to look for the Meaning of Life 3.0.Whether we succeed or not, we must die on the last day of the Nondon Olympics on 09.09.2012. At this point, we have about 670 days left, so we still have no clear idea of how we will die, or if we would succeed in our quixotic quest. With regards to the question of ‘what’s next’, we can only speculate: perhaps we will succeed in finding what we are looking for, and, as they say, ‘live happily ever after’, or rather, ‘die happily after’. Or, Kaidie might move on, literally and metaphorically, to the next stage of her life, and become ‘4thlifekaidie’! You, my dear Reader, can have a say in all this! Write in and give Kaidie advice on her journey, and contribute to her Lives, now and forever!
Q: Describe the most beautiful moment in your life.
In our short life in the past 11 months, there had been many beautiful episodes such as when we disappeared, one of our Facebook Friends offered prayers to look for us. We believe that there will be more beautiful moments to come in the next 670 days, so do look out for it with us!
We go to bed and dream our recurrent dream of riding the Trans-Siberian, in loops. We wake up, in cold sweat, to (another) new year. Livid, we run a deliriouscatharticmadloop in a myopicdarkness at our favourite Regents Fark at 6am. We only begin to calm down with the words of Bruce Chatwin:
One afternoon in the early 70s, in Paris, I went to see the architect and designer Eileen Gray, who at the age of ninety-three thought nothing of a fourteen-hour working day. She lived in the rue Bonarparte, and in her salon hung a map of Patagonia, which she had painted in gouache.
‘Ive always wanted to go there,’ I said. ‘So have I,’ she added. ‘Go there for me.’ I went. I cabled Sunday Times: ‘Have Gone to Patagonia’. In my rucksack I took Mandelstam’s Journey to Armenia and Hemingway’s In Our Time. Six months later I came back with the bones of a book that, this time, did get published. While stringing its sentences together, I thought that telling stories was the only conceivable occupation for a superfluous person such as myself. I am older and a bit stiffer, and I am thinking of settling down. Eileen Gray’s map now hangs in my apartment. But the future is tentative.
Bruce Chatwin, ‘I Always Wanted to go to Patagonia’, 1983, in Anatomy of Restlessness, Viking, 1996, p. 13.
‘LIST OF THINGS THAT QUICKEN THE HEART’: Closing the year (2010) with an other Chris Marker quote (1983), this time after Sei Shonagon (1002)
(Over) stretching ourselves to get geared up for more mindbodyblowing trans-dimensional runs (2 layers of socks) in the new year 2011.
Chris Marker, San Soleil, 1983: ‘Shonagon had a passion for lists: the list of ‘elegant things,’ ‘distressing things,’ or even of ‘things not worth doing.’ One day she got the idea of drawing up a list of ‘things that quicken the heart.’ Not a bad criterion I realise when I’m filming …’
Sei Shonagon’s elegant and evocative list, The Pillow Book, 1002 (italics ours): ‘Sparrow feeding their young. To pass a place where babies are playing. To sleep in a room where some fine incense has been burnt. To notice that one’s elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy. To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one’s gage and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival. To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure. It is not and one is expecting a visitor. Suddenly one is startled by the sound of rain-drops, which the wind blows against the shutters.’
Kaidie’s list, post Xmas, 2010, on the cusp (cusp – what a lovely word) of an other new year, 2011:
1. The moment of realisation that our legs have been working in perfect synchronicity with our arms, mind, emotions, environment, weather, and that we had been un-self-conscious of this happening; that we have fully inhabited, embodied and embedded running.
2. The moment of realisation that we have been living+working+playing in the city of Nondon, and that we had been un-self-conscious of it; that we have fully inhabited, embodied and embedded ourselves in this great city.
3. When beginning to structure and write a new chapter (it soon gets extremely laboured and tedious, and is nothing but meticulous building, or precise shearing and stripping of, block by block, bit by bit).
4. Experiencing the transition/cut between from the black-and-white opening sequence of Tarkovsky’s Mirror (of a man overcoming his stutter) and the first scene of the film proper a-washed in luscious green.
5. Experiencing the transition/cut between the closing sequence of Marker’s Sans Soleil and the final credits (of 3 children on a road in Iceland); the moment when the woman moves in La Jetee (1962).
6. Experiencing the first notes of Glenn Gould’s rendition of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and, with the assistance of good earphones, the melancholic-ecstasy in Gould humming/singing.
7. When water from the very hot shower first hits our skin after we emerge from the lukewarm swimming pool (afterwards, it is merely utilitarian).
8. In the first 30 seconds of acquisition, licking the foamy head off a very hot cappuccino thickly dusted with cocoa (but as soon as the bubbles fizzle off, so too, does our interest).
9. The moment of falling into a deranged, swirling, topsyturvy, eternal, divine love at first bite with toro sashimi shrewdly laced with fresh wasabi (how it stings!); ditto, at first sight and bite, with Sainsbury’s bakery’s 99p cheese twist (or that pecan and maple pastry thing 79p) (Our heart quicken, and misses a few beats. Gulp.)
10. The sudden / brief moment of mutual recognition of something of a spark of sorts happening (before it/whateveritis falls into numbing patterns that we run away from, and move on, hollering, ‘Enough!’, because we do not have the stamina or interest to sustain such a spark; that a spark is such only because it is momentary; anything longer than momentary ceases to be such).
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??
WE TURN ONE ON 12.12.2010. WE HAVE 637 DAYS TO RUN TO LOOK FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE, before we die on the last day of the Nondon Olympics on 09.09.2012. That is the day we will cease our 1000-day quest.
One year ago, on 12.12.2009, we were born. Today, on 12.12.2010, we turn one. Before we die on 09.09.2012, we have 637 days left to look for a/ the Meaning of Life 3.0. We are Sagittarius according to our star signs – if you buy into / believe that school of thought/belief. To mark this occasion, we ran through the shopping districts of Nondon to the constellation pattern last month. But where oh where, on, or out of, googleearth might a/the Meaning Of Life 3.0 be?
We pondered on the question today, as we have for the last year of our lives. Needless to say we have arrived at no answer/solution/conclusion. Yet / hence, we are running as we have for the past year, and more so than ever before. It does not get easier, but we are keeping at it. We have also (more, or less) kept our hair uncut for the duration of the 1000 days, as a measurement of the passage of time, nodding to the 1-year performances of one of our favourite artists Tehching Hsieh.
To work on our grand(ious) question, and to mark this grand(ious) occasion of our birthday (DO WE HEAR YOU SAY THAT WE LOOK OLDER THAN OUR AGE?????), we decided to do 4 things:
1) To compile a list of things we have done in the past year. By no means exhaustive, this list proves that we have put in much effort (without much returns?), but, like any good road movie/quest, it is always the journey that matters. So we are getting there, or getting there there.
2) The second thing we did today was to listen to Sugarcubes’ Birthday.
3) The third thing we did today to mark our birthday was to visit our local cinema to watch Palme D’Or winner at the 2010 Cannes, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, by one of our favourite filmmakers, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Even for a hardcore believer/follower/user/advocate of the law of non-linearity like us, we found this work challenging – which is also one of the reasons why we adore Apichatpong (for, what fun is there is things were too easy and obvious??). When, in a previous life when we curated his magical Tropical Malady in the ‘South East Asian Programme’ at the Cinema South Festival near the Gaza Strip in Sderot, Israel, we had a clear epiphany that Apichatpong’s films are best enjoyed when one is in the hazy, stony, liminal state of being semi-asleep-and-semi-awakeness. That is what his work does too – pushing one to (one’s) no-man’s land, in the chaosmos of realities, being at once exposed and vulnerable, as well as most lucid and mindful, in the chaosmos of feeling ill, and feeling ill with happiness, cruelty and beauty, predator and prey, a cat and a fish (and an ecstatic encounter with a catfish). This is what Tarkovsky, Herzog, Chagall, Bach/Glenn Gould and Garin Nugroho do to us. It’s appropriate to have this done to us, on our first year running within and across Lives 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.
4) Before doing all of that, we begin our day with a(nother) run. WE ARE ABSOLUTELY LIVID THAT ONE SECTION OF THE REGENTS CANAL IS CLOSED OFF DUE TO SOME RENOVATION/DEMOLITION WORK OF SOME SORT OR ANOTHER. So, no more canal-Victoria Fark runs for the next few weeks (or – horrors – months?!?!). We are back to loops at the Regents Fark.
Life goes on, or rather lives go on. As usual, if you have any advice for our quest, please DO write in. Contact us – click on comment here, or write to us at <dislocation@3rdlifekaidie.com>, become our friends on the evil FB, tweet us. There is more than one way to grab us.
Thank you for running with us in the past year. Are we ready to continue with the best run of our lifetime(s), this life, every life?
3 PRINTS GONE; WHICH IS YOURS?! Your donation of £100 and above for our RUN FOR SHELTER AT THE 2011 NONDON MARATHON comes with a SIGNED+KISSED+PAWPRINTED unique print from us! Come meet us on 2 March at WC1H 0AB FOR MORE PRINTS! (For the latest posts, sccrrolllllll below).
We are running the 2011 Nondon Marathon to support Shelter. Shelter is a charity that works to alleviate the distress caused by homelessness and bad housing. It is cold to run in winter, but colder still to live in the streets in winter. Please help us in our tiny effort = running, which is what we are tasked to do this Life. DO VISIT OUR FUNDRAISING PAGE AND MAKE A DONATION NOW! ANY, ANY AMOUNT IS MOST APPRECIATED!
Thanks to the continuing excellent work of the ConDem (cuts, taxes and general feel-badness), our fundraising efforts has been going slow. Yet, homelessness remains a real problem, and we are running everyday in preparation for our race. For limited time only, WHEN YOU SPONSOR KAIDIE’S RUN FOR GBP£100 OR MORE, YOU WILL RECEIVE A UNIQUE, 1/1 PRINT – Signed+Kissed! Autographed! Lovingly-gazed! Paw-printed! – LOVINGLY CREATED BY KAIDIE, first shared at the our 14metre-Metamap wall-installation consisting of 120 maps, at the PhD Exhibition at the Slade School of Dine Art, UCL, Nondon!! We have paid £100 to run for Shelter, but EVERY SINGLE PENNY WE RAISE FROM YOU WILL GO DIRECTLY TO SHELTER. CONTACT US NOW! <Dislocation@3rdlifekaidie.com>
* COST: As tagged * DIMENSION: 42cm at the longest side (unframed) *EACH IS A UNIQUE, 1/1 PRINT: Signed, autographed with customised message! Kissed, lovingly gazed upon too. Paw print included if desired. *METHOD OF PAYMENT: ONLINE! CLICK CLICK AND CLICK THIS PAGE! * METHOD OF DELIVERY OF PRINTS: Nondon, London, Spore, Elsewhere, via slow mail, flesh-to-flesh, Trafalgar-pigeon-to-your-doorstep: in this day and age, worry not – we will find a way!* 110 OTHER PRINTS AVAILABLE! We will however make only a small selection. * QUESTIONS? Contact us NOW! <dislocation@3rdlifekaidie.com> * As of 11 February, the Kings Kross print is the property of Mr Zadoc O’Higgins!
** ROLLING UPDATE: As of 11 February 2011 Friday: ZADOC O’HIGGINS, ANONYMOUS and ERIC AULD will each receive a SIGNED, UNIQUE PRINT for their GENEROUS DONATIONS! THANK YOU SO MUCH! A MILLION THANKS also to our friends MICHAEL DUFFY, SARAH YEE, CRISTIAN GARCIA, CHRISTINA MOK, LAURA, FERNANDO ODCERES, ANDREWS PARKES, MICHAEL DAYAN, PAUL KNEALE, UMI BADEN-POWELL for your donation and words of encouragement! THANK YOU Ms WOO YINGYAN of the Media Development Authority of Singapore FOR YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT! THANK YOU LOW SZE WEE for your generous support for our effort! Sze Wee is Deputy Director (heritage) of the MICA in Singapore – what a lovely Xmas gift! MANY THANKS also to the lovely dancer & choreographer (including of the SEMINAL DUMB TYPE!)/actor TAKAO KAWAGUCHI for your GENEROUS DONATION! You are our ABSOLUTE DARLING! THANK YOU TOO to our friends HILLARY CARTER and ANONYMOUS for warming our icy Nondon weekend! Hillary, one of the organisers of the very wonderful Farnham Pilgrims’s Marathon that all participants raved about, is himself an accomplished marathon runner WHO COMPLETED HIS 100th RACE in Surrey! Having slipped and bruised ourselves in the icy conditions in Nondon recently, we have relented and returned to the hamster wheel of the gym. Running on the treadmill feels oppressive, but as the donation of our friend MARC FLEPP (runner currently down with runner’s knee!) came in, we feel encouraged and will learn to work our body with machine. The £1500 target still looks very, very far away, SO PLEASE DON’T BE SHY AND STEP IN AND LEND US A HAND! Every single bit/penny matters!! And our most sincere gratitude to artist ANDREW STAHL, Mr BENSON PUAH, CEO of the National Arts Council of Singapore and two of our friends with the same name, ANONYMOUS, our friend SHAN, and adorable YENTHREE A FRESA – another wonderful ex-student from a previous life, artists PATRICIA TOWNSEND and SONIA BRIDGE, our ex-student from a previous life, VASSILI SIBIRIUS, urban planner DANIEL M FITZPATRICK (also a runner!), psychologist BEN VOYER (himself an accomplished MARATHON RUNNER!) and art teacher MS CHUN WEE SAN (who had previously supported our run for MSF too) and Collaborator-Conspirator JAMES ODLING-SMEE FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT SO FAR!!
WE TURN 11-MONTHS OLD ON 12 NOVEMBER 2010. 667 more days to go/come/run, before we expire on the last day of the Nondon Olympics on 09.09.2012.
We turn 11-months-old today. BRAVA! Well done us, to have come this far. To celebrate we went to buy a glorious bunch of Brussel Sprouts from the market during our morning run. We are also chomping down the sprouts, which is one of our favourite Xmas vegetables, in anticipation of a nice Xmas 2010 and end of our ear. The smiley vegetable seller gave us an avocado for free when we told him that it’s our 11-month-old birthday. Wonderfullymushilycreamy comfort food indeed, but that brusselling bundle of joy was rather hefty as we lugged it on our run back. As an incentive to ourselves to carry on running, we held the bundle like so in the picture, in front of our face, to entice and lure us to carry our feet forward, one step at a time. With this tactic, we ran and reached home without any problems.
We ate the sprouts plain without relish, but with tremendous relish. In the face of so much green-ness, we don a green (well, turquoise, to be pedantic, but on the same wavelength, surely) top in this photograph. Our tongue is turning green with envy at our own very meaningful life, as we speak.
And my Dear Readers, how do you think we could mark our 1st-year anniversary on 12.12.2010 in a meaningful fashion? Wolf down an intense and big 70% intense cake? Bungee-jump from the Gherkin? Run 12 rounds at Regents Fark? Do 365 star jumps? Swim 12 km in an outdoor chlorinated pool? Do 12 good deeds? Save money for our next lives? Save the world? Get ourselves a new wardrobe of pink (or green?) running clothes? Get a life? Eat more greens, as Popeye-fuel for the next laps of our amazing Lives?, etc.
My Dear Conspirators of Pleasure, as you have in the past 11 months, do write in if you come up with wonderful ideas. Let’s see where we can go, together.
WHERE ARE WE, AND WHERE ARE WE GOING?? Running about in Nondon today, we ran into a sea of people who are LIVID about the Coalition cuts to education.
The demonstration is happening as we speak (However, we are hearing of violent clashes, which certainly does not sound good for anybody). Students, lecturers and education workers from all over the UK are stopping traffic in Central Nondon, in response to the Coalition Government’s announcement of drastic cuts all across education, including up to a 100% cut in funding for the Arts and Humanities, as we heard. We took pictures of the furious crowd as we ran into them in the middle of our running about in Nondon. We even ran into UK artists Susan Collins, Andrew Stahl and Jon Thomson!
We ask the same questions that we first raised in May: What now, brown cow??
FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS OF WALID RAAD / THE ATLAS GROUP at the Whitechapel Gallery!
Place: Nondon. Date: 2 November 2010. Time: from 13:00hr GMT. Starting point/point of departure: Central Nondon. Loop point: Whitechapel Art Gallery. What for: To see Walid Raad's show. Route: via the City. How was it, then: Crowded. Nice Gherkin you've got. Pet peeves: 1) Shoveling past people dangling cigarettes in their fingers. 2) Women/very large people who walk slowly but occupying entire pavements 3) Women/'girls' (sic) who are in a large group but walking very slowly or giggling and chatting away in the middle of the pavement believing that they look cute and are drawing attention - indeed, from an angry runner 4) Children/babies/prams with young parents with same level of entitlement as the chatty women and fat bastards who block entire pavements and roads, as if they are the first people on earth who have given birth and hence demand special treatment and that the rest of the world have been created from playdoh. We don't blame the kids but we blame their smugly parents. GET OUT OF OUR £k*fING FACE!!!! Attire: Short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts. Temperature: 14 degrees celsius (sweaty run). Smell: Not So Terribly Good for an art gallery (or elsewhere). Quality of outward-bound run: Painful now with not one, but BOTH legs with shin splints. Could not get a comfortable gait. At least our limp is balanced now. Run back was easier and even sweatier.
On 2 November, we awoke from a 12-hour sleep (after none the previous night) to run through the City to the Whitechapel Gallery. There are many, many artists we admire (Chris Marker, Marc Chagall, AES+F, Tarkovsky, Fernando Pessoa et al). Walid Raad/Atlas Group is one of these people whose footsteps we (attempt to) follow. In a previous life we had the privilege of experiencing his performance-lecture in a workshop we attended. Already conflating fact with fiction, objectivity with subjectivity, history with memory, ‘official’ grand narratives with micronarrative in our own work, and already familiar with the genres of the essay film, performance as practitioner, lecturer and sometime writer, Raad’s performance-lecture made an impact.
At this Whitechapel show, Raad’s appropriation of museum aesthetics in a trademark clinical austerity in his approach is chillingly disturbing as it is dead funny. We particularly love the small model of a gallery which contains tiny precise replica of his work.
We realised that there was another source of chilliness, and that came from our exposed legs. Another observation: except for primary school kids, not many other gallery-goers wear shorts. Was that why we received some interesting looks from the gallery-sitters, as we did when we visited the Wolfgang Tillmans show after a 30km run in Hyde Park? Will spandex and leg warmers have saved us from the faux pas (if it was indeed one), and also help us look ‘tuned in’ onto the retro ’80s look (or at the very least, an artistically clever and ironic wink/nod, that the artistically clever and ironic art world would approve of)? As usual, suggestions and advice welcome.
The above is the GPS track of our run to the gallery and back, totaling about 8.9km. For a detailed version of this and other GPS tracks of ours in Life 1.0, look here.
Anyhow. Go run with Walid Raad. He’s not bad at all.
SOMEONE IS BRIBING KAIDIE WITH £2.50 FOR EVERY KM SHE RUNS (or crawls)!! SPONSOR KAIDIE IN HER FIRST LIFE 1.0 MARATHON and WE MIGHT DEVOTE AN ENTIRE POST FOR YOU! (Yes we are that mercenary) #2
Chin Hwee Tan has offered to donate £2.50 to the Rotary Charities for every kilometre we complete at the Farnham Pilgrim Marathon! This means that on average we will earn £2.50 for every 5 minutes 30 seconds we run; in another words, 45.45454545 pence every 60 seconds, as we plant (AND REMOVE) one foot in front of the other. Over the course of 42km, we will collect a grand total of £105 from Chin Hwee!! (On race day however, the money will come much, much harder to earn, for we will be running offroad. Having been spoilt park and pavement runners, running on uneven ground will slow us down drastically. We have been nursing a shin splint and tendonitis, but we continue practising as we speak. So far, we have run up to 30km for 4 times. The next challenge is to go up to 35-42km, although monotony and physical exhaustion is what we are teaching ourselves to fight…) THANK YOU very much Chin Hwee! (This is not the first time Chin Hwee is contributing to Kaidie’s effort – he had previously sponsored our 10km run for the Medecins Sans Frontieres!)
CONTEXT:
As you know (YOU DO, AND YOU DID, AND I KNOW THAT YOU DO AND DID, ALL 700 OF UNIQUE YOU-s WHO CLICK ON THIS SITE DAILY! NOW IS THE TIME TO COME FORWARD AND BE COUNTED, SO THAT WE CAN PUT A FACE TO YOUR NUMBER!!!), we are running our first ever Life 1.0 marathon on the historical Pilgrim’s Route, in the Farnham Pilgrim’s Marathon in Surrey, in 3 weeks. We have begun training in the past 4 months. We decide that while/since we are at it, we wish to make it worthwhile for others as well. We wish to raise money for the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice and other Rotary charities. We are now aiming for around £200. It goes without saying that we would appreciate any amount. Having said that, it is certainly fine too if you decide to splash out £100, £1000 or more at a go. Please, do not be shy – if you can, please do (re-)distribute your wealth! In return, we will thank you in this blog (and the evil Facebook, and Twitter, etc) should you make a donation! We will also put in extra effort in our training, to make sure that we finish the race, and finish it in not too indecent a time. Currently, we have collected approximately £140. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, CHIN HWEE, GREG and JAMES! Over the weekend, our ex-kidnapper, The Good Pirate, aka Chutha Indigo, aka Chuthatip Achavasmit has also made a nice donation! – her second since our Medecins Sans Frontieres effort! THANK YOU CHUTHA!!
HOW TO DONATE:
Note that if you are a UK taxpayer, every £1 you donate will be made up to £1.25 by H. M. Revenue and Customs!! Unfortunately, there is no online button to click donate for this run. Hence, if you are keen to make a donation, please contact us now <dislocation@3rdlifekaidie.com>. What we could do is to collate the monies and pay the organisers (IF YOU TRUST US?). In this case, we will tell you how you can pay us (hard cash, electronic bank transfer or cheque). Being such accountable and highly responsible beings that we are, we will publish the filled-up form shown above (but with your personal details protected, of course, if you wish), after we have confirmed the amounts we are receiving. Alternatively, you can draw out a cheque payable to: ‘The Rotary Club of Farnham Weyside’ directly, and let us know. Whichever method fits you. NO EXCUSES NOW, my dear Readers!
NEXT UPDATES:
Look out for the next posts with updates about the Farnham Pilgrim’s Marathon. In the next weeks leading up to race day, we will be supplying details about our fundraising effort and progress (or REGRESS, as it resembles currently…) The 42km is part of the pilgrim’s route! Which is one of the reasons we have chosen this for our first ever Life 1.0 marathon. We will be arriving a day before the race, to walk a small part of the route, to get ourselves familiarised (this is also our first time in Surrey!). As a nod to Chaucer’s wonderful Canterbury Tales, we are sewing our donkey costume and braying each time we our shin screams.
Our 3rd and 4th 30km runs in yellow- at our usual Regents Fark, and Hyde Fark. If you are keen, you could run with us – in the mirror-image of the purple path. We might run into each other at approximately one single point, around Great Portland Street tube station. See you sooner / later. We are th one with a lousy painful gait. Go on, laugh at us, but throw us some money first.
** Currently one of the top competing films in the War of Films contest with 110 votes: 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!**
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!**
WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE A DONATION TOWARDS KAIDIE’S RUN FOR THE ROTARY CHARITIES? KAIDIE’S 1st LIFE1.0 MARATHON #1
** HOT OFF THE microwave OVEN: As of 8 August, 1) CHIN HWEE TAN, 2) GREGORY BEITCHMAN and 3) JAMES ODLING SMEE have offered to make a contribution! With these financial and emotional blackmails, the pressure/pleasure is on... ... Chin Hwee's offer is particularly good, so we will devote AN ENTIRE POST on it!! Look out for it in the next couple of days! IF YOU MAKE A DONATION, AND ESPECIALLY IF YOU DONATION IS *INTERESTING*, WE *MIGHT* DEVOTE AN ENTIRE POST JUST FOR YOU!!! So hurry! (That's KAIDIE'S BLACKMAIL for you.)**
As we mentioned, we are running our first ever Life 1.0 marathon on the historical Pilgrim’s Route, in the Farnham Pilgrim’s Marathon in Surrey, in 7 weeks. Do you think we are terribly excited, or do you think we are excitably terrible?!
While/since we are at it, we wish to make it worthwhile for others as well. We wish to raise money for the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice and other Rotary charities. If you are keen to make a donation, please contact Kaidie now <dislocation@3rdlifekaidie.com>! We are aiming for £100-£200. It goes without saying that we would appreciate any amount. £10 is fine but so is £1, $1, 1 euro, 100yen, or other currencies in other denominations. Please do help, if you could! Yes yes, we do understand and agree with what the sweaty Slavoj is saying, but please do your bit in redistributing (your) wealth. CONTACT KAIDIE NOW!
Kaidie ran 30km to and from Kew Bridge as part of our training for our first ever 42km race. We carried our hand-and-toe-drawn map in our waist pouch, and consulted it every now and then during the course. It would not surprise you/us for us to confess that we were still lost a few times, and had to ask about 7 people along the way for directions, including a motorbike courier outside a kebab shop, who said that he could not help me. 'And you call yourself a courier?!' I shouted. 'It's lunch time now, love!' he shouted back. 'What a pedantic prick.' I replied (not). I would have been better off asking an old lady on a stairlift. This map has been sketched on what used to be the boarding pass of a budget airlines. Make a guess which.
In return, we will thank you in this blog (and the evil Facebook, and Twitter, etc) should you make a donation! We will also put in extra effort in our training, to make sure that we finish the race, and finish it in not too indecent a time. For the past 12 weeks, we have been devoting several hours each week to running (scoff not, for if you had legs the length of ours, you would take that long, too). As we hit 30km last Friday, we are increasingly confident that we will be able to finish the 42km race. However, as for the number of hours we have to spend on the road, we are extremely uncertain, for we are reminded that the Farnham route will be hilly and uneven! Having been a spoilt pavement/tarmac runner, it is very likely that our timing will be increased significantly! We must practice more, on varying terrain!
Follow our training ‘live’! Have a look at our running routes! Suggest others! 24-30km required much mental coaxing and physical effort. We imagine the next laps of training – 30-35km – to be even more trying. So, if you run in Life 1.0 as well, you can help push our fatarses and soggy brains along by running with us, for some parts of our practice sessions!
It would have been all too easy for one to simply let one’s imagination run wild and create a purely fantastical story. What is vital in Kaidie’s endeavour is the emphasis on the Life 1.0 realism as well. We have taken upon ourselves to pick up running in real life, and as a test of this, the task of completing a marathon. In this way, we are learning and experiencing in first hand what we are selling, by conditioning and teaching our body, mind, and spirit – if we have any?? – to run.
Look out for the next posts with updates about Kaidie’s first life 1.0 marathon. In the next weeks leading up to race day, we will be supplying details about Kaidie’s fundraising effort, training development, as well as her plans for her run – Kaidie could run dressed up as a monk (thank you Duncan for your suggestion!), nun or donkey (afterall we are of the same colour and shape and voice) from Chaucer’s wonderful Canterbury Tales, but we will have to watch the erratic bowel movement if the latter (unless of course, we do an impromptu Paula Radcliffe).
Left: screenshot from Farnham Pilgrim's Marathon website. Right: Some of Kaidie's tweets in the past 12 weeks of her training.
** IN THE MONTH OF AUGUST, 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 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.
Booked doublefaced: This week, Kaidie's Facebook profile picture is that shot by Claudia; guess who shot Claudia's picture?
SICK ON/OF SUNDAY, MORNING (watch out the worlds behind you).
Mixed signals, outside Regents Fark.
6:30am, Sunday. Nondon’s revellers from the previous evening are still roaming the streets, in search of action. Some attempt to run along with me. Fortunately, I could outrun them.
Some Sundays are easier, others less so. 2 Sundays ago, I could only manage 2 laps, instead of the intended 5, and with much difficulty, after having overcome some physical and mental roadblocks. I felt ill, or imagined that I felt ill, since one can never be certain (Do I feel hot? Do I feel cold? Am I shivering? But I am sweating buckets. Do I feel hot and cold at the same time? Is that not self-regulating and, theoretically, nice? Is this not usual? What, then, is the issue? Am I running out of excuses?) People talk about ‘listening to one’s body’ – however mine does not speak the same language as my mind, and therein lies the problem of (not) understanding.
In our fantastic(al) pursuit for The Meaning Of Life across various spatio-temporal dimensions, we come up with many more maps that attempt to articulate, define and indeed find and create our position(s) in the (grand) scheme of things. Each one of the maps/charts/diagrammes/mandalas/images/representations/visualisations invariably attempts to be an improvement (of sorts) of the previous, but all try their best, as pictures, to be picture-perfect, with demarcations and borders clearly drawn (Is that not the whole point?). But these idealisations never ever work in practice (is any body surprised?). In real life/in Life 1.0, spillages/cross-fertilisations/mix-&-matches/picks-&-mixes happen in mega-orgies that beat all tomorrow’s parties, hands down. Only mongrels/hybrids/chimeras/hyphenates exists, in a chaosmos that is calamitous as it is celebratory. There is no line, for instance, that separates happiness and sadness (or so-called ‘happiness’ and so-called ‘sadness’); feelings of strength, calm and elation exists in the very same dimension with despair, desolation and gloom. Not even a thin line. Not even a thinly veiled attempt at that. Does that not complicate things a little? (Why then, have different words, if they are [supposed] to refer to the same thing?) What are we supposed to do when they come hand-in-hand?
At this point – which is as good as any other – one is reminded that Sunday mornings, and the notion of Sunday, is a recurrent theme in many a popular tune. Our favourite on a Sunday, that are (re-)played in our heads as we do our laps, whenever we allow non-silence to interrupt, are those by Velvet Underground (although, or becuase it has been said that Lou Reed wrote this for Nico, he sounds exactly like her) Sonic Youth and Billie Holiday (and some of their derivitives).
(Speaking of Lou Reed, there is of course his Run Run Run which Kaidie can run to, in each of her 3 lives).
JAMES ODLING-SMEE’S GENESIS OF THE CHOCOLATE NEMESIS.
Under ordinary circumstances, Kaidie can demolish any Nemesis – especially Dark Chocolate ones, and in particular those of 70% cocoa and above (yes, ones that are 85% too) – with absolutely no effort. Including, and especially big big big ones. However, under extraordinary circumstances last week, The Chocolate Nemesis (TCM) launched a most brutal attack (Perhaps Kaidie shouldn’t have departed from her Companion For The Evening? Would CFTE have helped her win the Battle?). Kaidie did not expire before her 1000-day grant, being skillfully saved by 2 Amazing Angels. Here, we learn about the genesis of the word famous James Odling-Smee‘s Formidable Chocolate Nemesis. Mister Odling-Smee is one of Kaidie’s virtual runing buddies whom she met when running in Life 2.0, specifically, the evil Facebook. Here is THE FIRST EVER CAKE AND RECIPE SHARED ON A RUNNING BLOG OF A TRANSDIMENSIONAL RUNNER. Yes it is official!
WHEN ONE IMAGINARY FIGURE (who is currently run down with gastric flu) RUNS INTO AN OTHER, WHAT SHOULD/COULD SHE SAY?
Left: 27 May 2010, Museum of Nondon. Right: 6 July 2010, BBC. Kaidie feels quite underdressed and under-made-up next to Claire, but takes comfort in the observation that we share the same hairstyle- in the front, at least (although her blunt fringe is more austere than Kaidie's DIY one).
In our epic quixotic quest for the Meaning Of Life 3.0, Kaidie encounters things/people beautiful, brilliant, and downright bizzare (But of course – without all that drama, melodrama, hitting of supersensitivelysensational gspottingly-explosive landmines (ohhhh yesssssss), going on freefalls (ohhhh yesssssss) and hitting of no punchlines, how could we sustain this bloody story of our lives?!) Bizzare, even by Kaidie’s bizzare standards. Kaidie (Since this post name-drops to death, let’s go) (3rdlifekaidie) (kaidie3rdlife) (Kaidie Nondon) (Kaidie Absent) (Kai Syng Tan) first came face to face with Grayson Perry (Claire) at the opening party of the Museum of Nondon, Thursday 27 May 2010. As seen in these pictures taken by Guy Gormley (Louis Enchante), Kaidie was wearing one of Kaidie’s ‘ministerial dresses’ that has also met President Shimon Peres, President SR Nathan, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, and a few other Ministers and Ambassadors in the past couple of years in a previous life (Yes, it is time we get new costumes and not commit the faux pas of looking as if we are in the same spatio-temporal dimension with the same clothes across lives). Apart from Perry, Kaidie also ran into other larger-than-life figures such as the conservative Boris Johnson (the one nice thing about him is his huge mop of blonde hair), nasal-voiced Alfie (Michael Caine), Woman with Rather Large Hair (Babara Windsor) and Red Ken Livingston (ex-Nondon-mayor-but-to-be-Nondon-mayor again?).
Tomorrow evening, Kaidie will be running into the Turner Prize winner Perry again, in the BBC studios, in a TV programme. While Kaidie had been on TV programmes in some of her previous lives, Kaidie is quite terribly excited as this is her first as an audience member in this life in Nondon (BBC reminds us to ‘make a major contribution to the show. You may see yourself on screen and it’ll be your applause or laughter that you’ll hear’. But being quiet, well-mannered and modest people in Life 1.0, BBC may be disappointed to know that we will not be creating any ruckus, except maybe to throw some chocolate muffins at Ben Fogel when he speaks, but eat them when it is Perry’s turn to speak). When we first met Perry / Claire, we said: ‘We quite liked your maps at the Marvellous Magnificent Maps exhibition at the British Library!’, to which Perry managed a noncomittal ‘Thank you’.
If we were given the opportunity this evening, what should we say to Perry? What should we say to Claire? What should we say to Claire-Perry? Do write in and let us know! (And watch this space for our post-show report!)
(It is official, however, that we are currently struck with gastric flu, according to our local GP, which explains the dizziness during our worst-ever run last Sunday and this morning’s nausea even when only wimpishly pulling down 0.0010 minimilligrammes of weights at the wimpish gym. We just hope that we will not sneeze/puke/projectile-puke/burp/speak in tongues at our companion/Perry/Claire/Fogel, or, worse, do all at the same time [given the multitasker that we are], or fall asleep mid-show at 19:30hrs, which we have in the past 3 days, and still wake up 8/9/12 hours later and looking and feeling like a bloated pumpkinbumpkin that has been run over by a few cars at Regents Fark. ‘It will pass’, says the young female doctor, cheerfully. Yeah right, thankyousomuch – but what should I, the one who emobodies all the uncouthly syndromes – do at the mean time while ‘it’ ‘passes’? ‘Cut down on high-impact sports’, she advises. Indeed, because we swiftly get all topsyturvy. ‘What about swimming? That is a gentle sport’. ‘So long as you don’t do lots of front crawl laps.’ But that’s what we do. ‘Oh, just sit back and vegetate then’. She did not say the latter but that was the decree I got. Not having green fingers, vegetating is not a forte of mine…What can we do with all that unspent restless energy??? [The little that is left, that is])
Nice Ken says: "I really liked Singapore! I was there for the London Olympics bid". But Kaidie forgets to tell him that Kaidie will die on the last day of the Nondon Olympics 09.09.2012. We ask Boris for a new bike so that we can rest our tired toes and knobbly knees. Failing to get any sympathy (look, he is not even smiling in the picture!!), we ask the Woman With The Big Hair standing next to Alfie. Failing that, we ask the Pearly Kings and Queens standing in front of Thomson & Craighead's London Wall. Failing that, we ask Ken: 'You'd better run for the next one! We're not getting good help here. '
As of 6 July Tuesday 09:20hrs: here are the comments I have received so far. Write in (here, or on Facebook, or Twitter) if you have any more! I am writing them down on a piece of paper and will aim to raise them if the situation allows. Thank you!
