The Death of Pumpkins

I have to admit that I was one of those teenage angsters back in the early 90s who listened to loads of American 'Alternative' music. Smashing Pumpkins was one of them, and one of their favourite albums for me would be Siamese Dream.

I still remember listening to them almost every morning on the way to school, and that was the era of cassette tapes and walkmans, mind you. Cassette tapes cost only $8.50, and you can get good albums from Supreme Records, Roxy or Dada, back then there were no IPODS and MP3s. As you know CDs cost about $25. For that price, you can actually get a cheap 'kapok' guitar from Davis Guitar Shop down at Peninsular Plaza.

Coming back to The Smashing Pumpkins, yes, I love them. I was there when they performed at the Harbour Pavillion in '96 or maybe '95, I can't really recall. I remember I was chased out of the hall for crowd surfing, and that was fucked up, I used to have this big shoulder length hair (everyone wanted to look like Kurt Cobain back then) and all I remember was that I was pulled by the hair and thrown out of the hall. The gig was not really awesome actually, in fact, I think they cut their set short because Billy Corgan had food poisoning or something.

Fast forward to 2007, the Pumpkins new album, 'Zeitgeist', I took a listen recently, and I felt it is a really shitty album, and I am super disappointed, I thought Tarantula had a promising intro but the rest of the songs were just bad alternative music mashed up and trying to be hip in these era of indietronica.

And of course, its either I am geting old for this music, or Billy Corgan is running out of ideas and still cashing in on this whole bleak period of bad music. I think I am going to give up thinking that I am still living in the era of alternative rock. On a personal level, rock is polluted with recycled sound from the past....

Like they say, when you are in doubt, go back to the classics, they never will never fail you....so at this moment
Stevie Wonder 's Song in The Key of Life is on my list.

The Quote Generator

The Quote Generator project by Danielle Freakley, a 3 year performance project by this young Melbourne based artist. From what I heard she is pretty big in Melbourne, and it was great to share the bill with her in Interpositions.

The Mindl Market Catharsis

HAM in Darwin.

The Northern Territorial Adventures

Khai, the dirty malay boy in a laudrymat, Cullen bay.

Sunset at the ski club, witnessing Lynn's performance.

Picnic at Berry Springs

Ash Keating at the mall, before the cops came after someone reported a drunkard in the vicinity.

The death of ego, the death of it all.

Darwin Festival 2007

02:30hrs, Sunday,19th August 2007,
Interpositions, Performance Art Festival,
Darwin, Australia.

When Steve Eland the director of 24hr (A contemporary art space in Darwin), invited me for this event, I really did not know what to expect. I was curious about Darwin, I knew once the Singapore National Soccer Team trained here in the 90s.

Thank God, Mr Robert Guth decided to be part of the event, volunteering himself as the official/unofficial photographer/chef for Interpositions.

Steve picked us up from the small little airport at about 2 in the morning last saturday, where I got stopped at the customs for taking photos of the baggage clearance space (stupid me).

The weather is warm, with low humidity, its just like in Singapore except that when you sweat you don’t stink. We stayed at Steve’s place that looks like a house in Tropical Heat (if you can remember Lorenzo Lamas).

This event is interesting because of how it is being curated, Steve curated the show in such a way that the artist will have to find a space to perform and when he or she wants to perform, the tagline for the show is ‘ You don’t find us, we find you.’

The market in Darwin is a cultural/lifestyle event, they have like market or pasar malam/funfair thing going on 3 times a week. As you know there are only 100 000 plus population in Darwin, it seems like the only leisure here is to go to the market and see the sunset.

This is the Australian culture that I did not get to experience when I was in Brisbane or Melbourne 3 years ago. The past couple of days, the list of activities were structured/improvised/flexible, in the morning all the artists will be at Steve’s place for breakfast, then probably there’s a performance in the afternoon or in the evening, the artists will prepare props or such. Set the time, and Steve will mobilize everyone, and we will hit the spot, perform and back to Steve’s place, chill and talk about the work or whatever we want to talk about.

The inter cultural exchange has been good, in the line up there is Jill Orr, a legendary performance artist based in Melbourne who was Stelarc’s side kick in the 70s, and she is about my mum’s age. She is such a ball of energy, only untill the middle of the week she got pneumonia and she got slightly mellowed.

Most of the performance artists are based in Melbourne except for Hayley, who is based in Darwin.

Singapore is represented by regular performers in the circuit Khai Hori, Juliana Yasin, Lynn Lu and myself. Jason could not make it due to unforeseen circumstances.

As usual, the first thing that Singaporeans will talk about is the food. Steve brought us to one of the markets near 24hr Art, there were so many Asian cuisine, but they were pretty greasy, bad and overpriced. I had a small Tupperware of fried rice, chicken satay and Coke, altogether was about 10 bucks.

Surprisingly, people actually ate this stuff, and I saw an old Chang Kee type of curry puff selling at 3 bucks each.

I realized people really take their time here, and we are not used to being so laid back, this is when art and leisure melt together into one, and you absorb art on a natural level, instead of having to force them in like what you do unknowingly. Steve said, this event is a shook up, a good mould for future happenings, perhaps.

I was blessed to meet emerging young artists from Melbourne such as Ash Keating (The Rubbish Man), Danielle Freakley (The Quote Generator), of course the hilarious Jason Keats who never failed to amuse everyone with his silly Australian humour. I like their spirit of working without any government funding in Australia, like Jason he runs an art space in Melbourne called Carni, where they have events almost every weekend. Of course not forgetting, Ann the Samoan/Melbourne artist who deals with ghost and hair in her work.

Goodbye Siglap Close

In a few weeks time, this Siglap Studio will be gone, and we are looking for a space. As I walked pass by the street, I realised everyone is selling their houses, and new houses are being rebuild or renovated at least. The landlord has already sold the house, a month ago, we were given only 2 months notice to vacate the place. It has been nice, close to 4 years living in this grungy house...its time to move...

I can never afford to buy a 2 million dollar house...is that important?

Kassel Greyskull

Yes of course Documenta: Museum Fridericianum, I took a lot of photos of the artwork, but that will come later..

The view of the village from the river... its German Kampung for you.

The banditos from left Shubi (Singapore), Javiar(Germany), Me and Sarah (US of A).

Miko the L.A. musician/artist who was helping out in the workshop, I want that Digital Casiotone guitar.

The Open Space Village..the weather got really moody throughout the week, the first night was the craziest, it went don to about 10 degrees...


I know I am too lazy to upload photos...but here are some...maybe I will do them bit by bit...or maybe not...

Mali kita Yaya

I think its about time we have to realise that we Singaporeans are a total screwed up for we are not sure how to sing the National Anthem. We have been pretending...

Traseone and Manic Jango, Berlin, 2007

Lost, somewhere in Berlin...searching for Reichstag...

Deutsch Bitte Danke

One of Anselm Kiefer's powerful works in the main hall of Hamburger Bainhoff.

Hirst's 'The Void' at Hamburger Bainhoff.

Me, the Reichstag and Berliner Sun.

Dimitri and Marina, on our way back home from Kreuzberg.

The Punk Rock house near Meiringer Hostel.

Germany was quite an experience, meeting people, Documenta 12, Melhus, BauHaus (Thirsty smell in Malay), Open Space and Brothers Grimm. Walking aimlessly in Berlin, meeting curators and art talkers. I got to Hitler’s bunk, smell the Berlin Wall and cherished the sun with the rest of the sun craving Berliners.

Sleeping in dorms, waking up with a smelly naked couple on the foot of my bed. Just to let you know, German timing is precise, if you miss the train, that’s it, go get another ticket. That was what happened to us on the way to Kassel, well, one of the staff led us to a wrong platform, and that’s it, we had to say goodbye to our 50euro ticket and purchase another 70euro ticket.

My advise for those of you who are in Germany craving for Asian food, do not eat in any restaurant with these words on their door’ ‘Asian Imbiss’. It’s a con job, they just throw anything that taste Asian into the wok convincingly and call it Asian food. So basically, all these Germans got a taste of Asian food.

Ok unfortunately, I have to admit, Singapore is a food paradise. When I came back, I had to look for hardcore spicy food, for 2 weeks I had to endure eating rabbit/cowboy meal day in day out.

On my last night, Truong brought me to a Berlin karaoke place, ok, there are 4 karaoke pubs in Berlin. 3 are own by the Koreans, and they only do only Korean songs, so we went to the only rocking karaoke place in Kreuzberg (the place where they shot Run Lola Run).

All they had was a room with no ventilation (really, no ventilation at all), many Europeans don’t own fans in the summer and I don’t know why, a small 14 inch tv with text of the songs and a small mixer for the microphones. Lo-fi and strange, as I passed by other rooms, I saw a group of people in standing position banging their heads and singing to ‘Smell Like Teen Spirit’. It was the weirdest karaoke pub I have ever seen, this is quite on par to the one I went in Hanoi, where the deco was like someone’s living room.

Kassel is a beautiful town, from what I heard if there is no Documenta, the town is dead. Truly, shops close by 6pm, except for some random cafes. Documenta was quite an experience; most of the works were exceptionally good, especially in the nue gallerie. Some of them were didactic, while some were purely aesthetic, but after Venice, I felt I’ve had enough to see. It is like if you like to eat apples, and you are given 2 basket full of apples to finish within a day.

Open Space was an experience, hanging out with students from Finland, Israel, Scotland, Chicago and Taipei. Sharing works and ideas, sitting in front of the fire explaining the geography of Singapore over and over again. But it got really cold in Kassel, the temperature went down to 11 degrees, though there were sun at times…to the Finnish, Scottish, and Americans it was warm.

Now I have to prepare for Darwin this week, for the Interposition, a Performance Art Festival. I am not sure what to expect from Darwin, but hopefully everything will be good.