有限生命中的虛實
Tammie Kang
康怡
The Reality of Limited Life
The Reality of Limited Life 2019 by Kang Yi / Tammie Kang
Process development with MA Fine Art University of the Arts Utrecht
Thanks to my colleagues and teachers. Project Support MC Julie Yu Jasper Roek Essay Support Charli Herrington Christina Della Giustina Sophie (H. L.) Su Special Thanks Chuang Han Jun Chun Chun Kang Deborah Lee Nabeh Lee Shaine Linsolas Tanja Becher
Introduction Background Context Methodology Case Study References
Introduction
Have you ever wondered? Just wondered? Have you ever hesitated when thinking about other possibilities in your life? Do these possibilities make you happy? sad? inspired? anxious? scared? excited? Have you ever thought that being happy is just as complex as being sad? I once heard that whenever we imagine different possible futures, our timeline cracks. Every time we are facing choices our future splits and duplicates. This writing is about times and emotions. This writing is a practice to think from time to times.
Background Photo by Tammie Kang
The first experience with philosophical meaning I had is from an age when I was capable of grasping emotions from foul language. When I can read the overloaded emotions from cursing. The TV was on in the living room playing a gangster movie from Hong Kong. There was a man been forced to drink lots of alcohol because he betrayed his gang. The picture I saw, when his face squeezed over the entire screen, seemed happy. The camera zoomed out showing that there were two women sitting beside him treating him like a king. The glass was a whiskey glass. He laughed very hard. And when the women fed him with the whiskey, the scene changed to the next cut, which showed this same man sitting beside a plant on the street, laughing. A pedestrian passing by was staring at him. After watching this scene as a kid I had an emotional crisis. I feared what was in front of me and didn't believe what I felt.
In my memory, my second philosophical experience is when my grandmother passed away and my grandfather started to tell me the secret of how she will come back to life. This one might not be the second if I don't have a third one. The third philosophical experience is when grandfather passed away a half year after grandmother’s death. When I was asked to explain what I want to address with my research title “The Reality of Limited Life”, I linked it to my grandfather’s last half a year of his life. I chose this title due to the urge of justifying my grandfather’s wish for grandmother’s resurrection. I thought about that half year of his life and want to tackle those moments with notions of time. I consider them as moments in a whole, complete life, with no intention to follow linear time, accompanied with concepts of past, present and future. My initial urge has evolved into a broader sense of researching the notion of time. Instead of tackling what can be defined as reality or what can be true, I consider “reality” as a component in time and it reveals in a subtle texture what stays with time.
Before funeral of grandmother's
Grandfather hosted a massive feast of 600 tables for ghost on Chung Yuan Chost Festival.
Context
How is Time?
The “times” I am referring to in this text are conceptual times. It is a long journey for me to arrive at this feeling and these insights. I would like to take you with me through my process step by step. “The problem with the question 'what is time?' is that it presupposes that time is something that has a being, firstly, and that it only has one being: time is x or y and is one. Maybe that presupposition is fallacious, maybe we live and move within manifold and various dimensions of time. Maybe we should say not that time is, but that times are, as a first step.” In Simon Critchley’s description, I realize the dimensional element of “time”. It is always only considered as true, when it relates to productivity value in a socio-economical envieonmwnt. Productivity implies value in linear form, comes and goes with a definite essence of irreversible destiny. That is why I feel to prove one’s value in its own time is quite difficult. I choose not to prove value under the same logic of a linear time perspective. I want to prove time in its one value, that is different “times” with their own rights. To elaborate on this difficulty, I have to point out the aggression of the act “understanding”. The book, Practising Theory and Reading Literature: An Introduction, mentioned, “Stephen Greenblatt often thinks of subversion as an expression of an inward necessity: we define our identities always in relation to what we are not, and therefore what we are not must be demonised and objectified ‘other’.” As for how we understand ourselves individually, this process of self-defining can lead to an aggressive way of objectifying ‘other’. That is when the aggression of understanding comes out, when one feels not relating- followed by obsessive defining.
I would like to avoid this attitude of defining, so as to approach the notion of times and my own memories, through a kind of in-between quality of thinking. With my work I try to create possibilities of talking about “time” through “times”. I would like to avoid the debating form of the academic paper as much as possible, to create space for disagreement and a communication that flows evenly. “Time is more abstract than times. The plural form has the advantage of addressing time through its instantiations rather than its disembodied essence.” Introduction in Parse Journal, Times issue After spending some times with Simon Critchley, the approach I choose to deal with this encounter is to develop on a practical level; To be able to produce is addressing the concept time from one being to individual fragments to collective temporalities. I choose to address this loneliness generated by our own moments in life as a collective temporality. One aspect of this act is to generate generosity on understanding how each other lives. Times and temporalities have different textures. I use them to create pluralistic environments on a mental level.
The question “what is time?” is an intimate question. I cannot answer it with a definite answer. I can only frame it: “how does time affect me?”, “how does it affect our behaviour?”, “how does it allows us to be with a human being in different emotional states?” By resisting the tendency to prove what time truly is, and instead concentrating on how time feels, I put a sensational layer on the notion of time. The work sets out on a journey towards being with time, in time, on time, within time. I have explored all kinds of different ways of describing time. I also encountered “Time and Free Will” by Henri Bergson: “Duration is the qualitative continuum of "lasting through" as experienced by a conscious subject, or as present to consciousness.” What I understand from the definition of duration from Bergson is that consciousness (in my words, mind) along with time is how time exists for us. Because my focus is not consciousness within the soul, nor within the brain, with Bergson’s quote my focus on time became even more clear to me: a notion of time that developed, morphing through imaginable textures created by the word “duration.”
I wish to explain my choice of not going deeper in the direction of discussing consciousness: “There is more than is actually present at any single moment and a change will always be qualitative.” -”Time and Free Will” by Henri Bergson. “This Instability about time takes me forging to the belief that time is an illusion, my continuing illusion carrying on with my grandfather’s ended illusion.” -Doc0.1, me This note from my diary marks where I stopped working with notions of reality, that limit me and push me toward definitions or results, and instead made me choose to work on key notions that have ephemeral qualities: temporalities, times, emotions. It is a tendency to quantify time in linear thought which I have been trained in since I’ve been taught about the idea of progressive time. Stopping working on notions of reality is because the quantified texture of reality which implies one truth that operates debating and pushes ideas toward definitions or results. What I am trying to do in my work is not changing the past or returning to the past, but being with the past which is not past. When I encountered Sharon Hayes writing, it brought me from a philosophical to a physical layer in my research: “What I am doing in my work is not returning to anything, but rather attempting to speak from an understanding of public and from an understanding of my own public relations as composed of and through multiple temporalities that are held together in a singular moment.” To maintain this mentality of knowing there are different times in terms of the perspective of living, I go through some debating in my head and still struggle finding articulations for my action.
Methodology
Here I try to structure my thinking activity. The hard part for me to describe method is these thinking activities involve entanglement and spaces for each other. In my head I imagine the environment is a 3 or more dimensions-space that I can place these activities freely.
Meta Narrative Back & Forth
Theater Visual
Light
Repitition
Shifter
Performance
Writing
Fragments/ To be continue
Back & Forth
Back and forth is a temporal and inevitable movement in my thinking activity. This movement generates differences and operates the space in-between the definite. Back and forth allows the elements which have a similar quality to entangle with each other. This movement exists in every other method I use for thinking and allows me to change from textual thinking to visual thinking to conceptual thinking. Because of this linear way of writing I choose “back and forth,� which seemed to make sense in describing my action in thoughts, I would like to emphasise it is a temporal movement which doesn't possess elements. It is not back in terms of returning. This movement can jump in different dimensions of thinking and generates a pattern of entanglement. In the methods that will be mentioned later, I will further describe this movement in each method.
Theatre
Operating different concepts through performances, I consider it necessary to contain intentions which implies at-the-moment experience. Theatre play happens in specific time that represent certain agreement. The uniqueness of a show in set timing is an indispensable for oneindividual to agree that the moment is spent in full awareness. The preferred choice of my approach, performance, reminds me about the quality of theatre: when entering into the space one has to reset different mentalities and count different senses of measuring time. Theatre provides these qualities. Furthermore, performance within theatrical context in my creating process strengthens me to focus on transforming the performance into the experience. The theatrical context helps me to develop performances in terms that the boundaries given accept or break. It provides direction to think towards rules which are guiding and still flexible and comfortable to work with.
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This is a common struggle during the developing: the back and forth process. Moment-based experience <-> performance <->temporality They switch and overlap sometimes.
Temporality
Light
To create this singularity, plurality and flexibility of the notion of time, I tend to work with light as physical material. The quality of light plays an important role in my working process, for one thing because its existence reminds me of the absence of other spaces, which creates a subtle effect of what is shown and what not. I tend to change the shape of the light during the performance to install flexibility and fabricate different qualities of time. To me light explains the gentle and merging quality of times. To play and to talk about times in its exiled forms is what I enjoy and elaborate in performance. It is this idea of time as succession and duration that leads me to express and experience with light shape changing in my performance. The light operates focus and dimensional sense of watching and thinking and builds up physical space as well as mental space.
Repetition
With this writing, I plan to explore repetition and use it as my way of communicating. Writing is a linear form which it will inevitably affect the digesting of information. Certainly, there will always be a point to start with because we think of ourselves as individual beings. The repetition generates the loops of time, and in those moments, one relives again. The repetition is a way out of linear thinking instead of trapping. It’s emphasis on possibilities rather than the repetition itself. “Every path is the right path. Everything could've been anything else. And it would have just as much meaning.” from the movie, Mr Nobody. I focus on the rhythm of repetition. The huge part of the use of repetition in my practice is telling the story of my loss of grandparents, again and again. Over time the story changes, the story changes little by little without me noticing which leads to many diverse pasts just like endless possible future, and when this linear texture spreads massively in two ends, the texture of the story changes. To keep this mentality, I imagine different strands of temporalities existing together. My time reading the text, the time in the text, the time people listen to the text, the people’s individual time within their different lives and the time of the moment we share. These different temporalities are different qualities of times, co-existing in the temporality of the performance.
Shifter
Memories are triggers of my whole process, how to tell them again? How to live them? How can I deal with these emotions together with memories? The decision of how tender I would like to present an individual is a difficult decision. To start with a personal story and reduce during the process is the balance Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been practising during the development. The works go back and forth with memories. It is a process that has more than two dimensions. In writing, it is also a difficult situation to deal with. This balancing is not always ideal. I start by working on the idea â&#x20AC;&#x153;timesâ&#x20AC;?. It makes the memories become easier to tell together with time. Balancing takes an important role in deciding participation in the performance. When deciding to have an interaction with the audience, the personal story will take part differently in the process. There is the use of linguistic shifter in my works and writings which is to use I, you, there, here. These shifters also offer emotional transfer in my works. The methodology I decided to use within the development is one which emphasise an in-between quality to generate an immersive feeling.
Meta-narrative
Looking back at my works with certain frame is the way I document them. The rhythm takes an important role in my developing. It is a systematic way to generates an immersive space that is similar to ritual, step by step, from time to time. This way for narrating has similar quality to theatre, unlike theatre, the ritual has its own way of generating an audience. The audience of ritual can be rather switchable. The narrating in my process is to decide whom I direct myself to talk to. I would like to address the absence in my works that lead it toward a form similiar to ritual. Talking to the absence, talking about the absence. Ritual contains a formal texture of an event which makes the happening situation documentable- documentable in terms of how to describe the works afterwards. Steps in ritual make it formal, the intention on each step has been controlled. In my performance, it is rather about the setting. I would like to say it is more like an algorithm. The algorithm contains direction, the rhythm of intention in the context of the algorithm makes performances contain an archival value.
Fragments/ To be continue
With the position of no one true reality in my works, I tend to form the way of perceiving information through fragments. This is an approach of creating a continuation in my works. The fragments create the possibility of different ways of composing for each individual. I imagine those elements I give operate in a similar way to a poem. I have noticed my writing in Mandarin uses the language highly based on metaphor. My thinking activity operates in a similar form of film such as Montage. The rhythm is one of elements grows from this thinking activity. The ambiguity of memories and dreams makes it possible to form the connection to films.
For example,
EYE / LEAF the shape of them can create an unstable connection, and to be able to strengthen this image:
BLOODSHOT EYE / LEAF VEIN.
This is the implication I want to create with fragments, both elements give connotation to each other. I believe it is subtle and it should be given with full intention.
Case Study
The Slipper The Medicine Pot The Rice Cake The Moon Block The Fire Practices
The Slipper
How to treat a road? First, imagine the bottom of your feet is hard. Second, imagine the road is like clay, with every step you take, you leave a mark of existing. C a re f u l is how to treat a road.
It is a calm night. As usual, she is sitting in Washitsu studying. Around 10:00 pm, she called a friend, saying her grandfather is in the hospital and she needs to study for the exam the next day. She speaks in a defensive attitude when mentioning she will visit her grandfather right after the exam. The night feels, as usual, the later it gets the more intense the bass sound created by engines gets, soon it will swallow the sound of the clock. By 1:00 in the morning, her phone started buzzing. She takes a lazy break and checks the message said, “Dad in the emergency room, getting electrotherapy, will give up after ten minutes.” It is sent by her aunt. She grabs the cash and keys then runs downstairs.
Each step is very
heavy
, hurtful.
She looks around, has no thought, still at this moment she thinks “why I am so dramatic?” she runs to the asphalt road to stop a taxi. “Hospital! Please! Please!” It was a long drive to the countryside. Moon gets brighter and brighter, almost shiny. She stares at the phone, her fingertips get white as she holds the phone tight. The phone buzzes again. Screen light reveals her face in the dark taxi, her eyes are wide open showing those little pupils. She breathes hard many times while gritting her teeth then starts screaming. She breathes and screams. She cannot breath and cannot make a sound. Each time the scream sounds drier, after several times, her throat split into a mute. The energy left from her is for punching and scratching herself. Her nails breaks into the flesh in the middle of her palm and ooze blood, same as the thigh under the left hand. The wound looks like a red moon slowly spreading into a full moon. For a moment there comes a small silence but soon follows by the sound of trembling.
“1:29 confirming the death.” The taxi driver passes her some tissues and gives a discount for the trip to the hospital. * “He took off the tubes when he can. So they tied him.” She hears it from her aunt. She runs into the hospital almost collapsing, her aunt stops her and says, “don’t cry in front of grandfather or else he cannot leave in peace.” His face loses the possibility of any existing red in the world. The smell of disinfecting water grows its roots in the cotton of the pillow. The blood marks from tubes on his face are screaming, screams those freedoms he was not able to have. Her world melts everywhere except this room where his body is. She walks toward him, grabs his right hand. She kisses his forehead and says, “I love you. I love you, grandpa.” Over and over, she wishes if she can kiss the right amount of times he will open his eyes. She remembers this scientific fact that when a person is passing, the sense which will last longer is hearing. She kisses him on the hands. The nurse moves the bed towards the elevator. Her aunt keeps reminding her not to cry. She keeps holding his hand and pinches his skins. His hands are really cold, and this time the wrinkle she makes with his skins are not shrinking back to his body. They arrive at the floor of the mortuary, there’s a room called Peace Room.（太平間） The people from the funeral company cover his body with a blanket filled with Scripture. “The whole body needs to be covered,” they say. Before the setting in his house is done, his body needs to stay in the hospital to go through a ritual of maintaining the soul be able to stay with the body. “Don’t touch, or else you will take away part of grandfather’s soul.” Her other aunt says.
She wants to scream. The heat from his body is still losing and the intensity of the air already reaches to the maximum. She remains silent, this silence is the loudest noise she ever hears in her life, the silence cracks into pieces, leaving some slit for her to breathe. “I’m going back with grandpa,” she says when the cars arrive, several black cars line up for the family to return home with the body. The car must be covered with sun proof curtain because the body cannot see the sun. So many rules, so fragile, this process of moving him back. She starts wondering if all these rules to follow are just a way to keep people busy. She reaches to the cocoon where his body sleeps in. The nerves inside her start growing, not too much, just about right amount, a bit more than fear, she opens the bag and holds his hand. She loses language, only remembers how to cry and yell. The car devolves into a still room with this body within the bag, the bag expands then swallows everything in the room. The only thing left is a repetitive whisper, “I love you.”
Taiji
Yin Yan Yin and Yan represent the relationship between change, describing how seemingly contrary forces may actually be interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. It is from the book 《周易 . 繫辭傳》, “In the system of Change there is the Great Ultimate. It generates the Two Modes (yin yang). The Two Modes generate the Four Forms (major and minor yin and yang). The Four Forms generate the Eight Trigrams.” The ancient word 陰陽（Yin Yan）means facing sun（陽 / Yan） and not facing sun（陰 / Yin）. The Yin Yan develops philosophical meaning, book 《周易 . 繫辭傳》, “A balance of yin and yang is the Way (Tao)”. Taiji involves the notion of Yin Yan. 太 (Tai) means “too”, “extreme”. Tao= Taiji= Yin +Yan. And the notion of Yin Yan is used often in Chinese divination.
極 means
The Medicine Pot She goes to her home town every week, it is a trip of two hours by train. She takes her textbooks and laptop, the weight of the bag always takes her space in the world, the heavier the bag is the smaller she gets. She arrives at her home, the sunset peels off the shadow on the house making a path for her to enter her home, also a temple called Tian Gon Altar. She climbs several stairs which are made with tiles, each step swallows the heat from the bottom of her feet. He, her grandfather, he lies on the bed. he is facing the table beside the bed, lying sideways. He is using his phone to send her a message before she arrives. He smiles when he sees her, the smile seemed fresh. A new form of a smile, just born before it appears. Every wrinkle with this smile transformed into scars, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been cut on the surface of his flabby skin. She gives him a hug, rolls up her sleeves, prepares to massage his feet or whatever tasks he needs her to do. The bit of his muscle paralysis by the loneliness, his legs turn into thin sticks, only possible to be used for standing up. The room is crowded with two beds, two desks, two individual sofas, two drawers and two tables. The air is also crowded, with a musty smell from a blanket, scent from Incense. He looks at her arm and sees those scratch marks from allergy, he gives himself a mission. She is not willing to massage him because she thinks the muscle pain he has is from the lack of walking. She has been asking him to go to the midnight store with her many times. It is their ritual, the ritual of holding hands and walking on the street as watching their shadows together on the road. This is the same midnight, only without walking to the store. The room separates into two areas as the yellow light from street shines on his back while he standing in front of a medicine pot. The town is near the sea, the wind taste salty. The salt on the floor reflecting the yellow light makes him seem like standing on golden dust. The other area is one of the beds she is laying on, with only the light of the computer screen on. She pretends that she is sleeping.
He starts to cry to the gods while cooking the medicine. He cries about his granddaughter, his poor allergic granddaughter. He cries for help from gods like she has a severe disease. He chooses to cry for this. He is too stubborn to cry for the past, his wife. The wife who passed three months ago is already in the past. He is raised not to cry, only cry for a certain purpose. He knows that she is awake, and his cries will guarantee that she wakes. As the pot boils the medicine, she can hear the sea. As he’s crying, she can hear the wind. The wind always sounds like crying, the rice field near their house generates a sound effect of dropping tears. He has no tears anymore, his eyes are getting drier as they are getting greyer through aging. The pot finishes cooking. While he opens the lid, porcelains collide with each other, making a clear sound. If he sees it, he can see the sound is see-through and reflective, sharp and shiny. This sound shreds the silent roar that occupied the room. He gives her the towel that wetted with the medicine and tells her to wipe her allergic part on the body. The medicine is water with ashes of scripture and his prayers. * In the morning, he starts to tell her about the story, the story of how his wife will be back alive. He has every detail done. Every time there will be something changed in his story. The story becomes stories. They are so vivid, next to each other. She listens to him, afraid that she will lose the memory of his stories, so she starts to record him. His children are saying he is getting crazy. Getting crazy, an ongoing process is a lonely state deeper than any other states. They choose to think he has hope to recover but take away his right to speak the truth. Little by little, he thinks he could not go on with his life. He told her, “they said I’m crazy. I heard. But I’m not. They will see.” After saying this, he breathes deeply, the air been put out from his mouth broken into pieces. Every spacing in between accumulates his tears.
He asked her to take care of his wife before. He called her and yelled at her said that she should always keep eyes on his wife. He adapted to his wife’s patterns, started to adjust alone time for himself to have a conversation with gods. His wife was getting younger, days by day, then turned into a soul that can only stop shrinking around him. This soul stopped shrinking. She tells him that she wants to go to the toilet. Tiles in the restroom are white and cold. She sits on those white squares, feels the coldness climbing up on her through the nerves at the bottom of her feet. He knocks on the restroom door and asks if she is ok. He hears her silence because she also hears his silence. His silence is loud, loud as a storm. The storm is expanding, swallows everything in, the restroom, the stairs, the rooms, the asphalt roads, the rice fields. She always finds those rice field strange. They look so lifeless for being alive. But she has the same colour on her head now. She dyed her hair after her grandmother passed. One day he said, “the dark hair is growing back, do you want to dye it again?” So he came out of the house for the first time after his wife passed. Since then, her hair changes every three weeks. Silver, pink, purple, blue, blond hair. Her hair gets drier and drier, when all the colour went off her hair, a rice field colour revealed. The texture of the hair, the sound of the hair changed. She hears the rice field every day when wind passes by. Her hair starts to fall off easily but she couldn’t see when she is showering. Those hairs are too light, too bright. After half a year, her hair stops changing. She leaves the natural colour of her growing. She leaves the thick times growing, dragging her head down to the ground.
The Rice Cake It is a long way for her to reach the second floor. Each step breaks a nerve. When she almost lands the last step of the journey to the second floor, her legs disconnect with the brain. For a very long time she doesn't move, the nails start growing then pinned her to the floor. It feels like years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years. Over and over, she feels the seasons come and go for several times.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<< She just wants to find a vase for the daisies (bigger) she picked from the field. It is the season for nurturing the land’ not to use it for farming. The farmer put the seeds of different types of daisies so they turn to nutrition after fall. She holds those daisies in the hands, there are several cuts on her fingers. Each cut wants to speak something, each cut wants to expand into a bigger one. They start with creating tickles, then the pains. As a dark blue vase shows in her eyesight, she stands up immediately then runs to the third floor. At the third floor, there are these freezers. She sees lots of rice cakes in her grandmother’s freezer. They have been labelled and put neatly against each other, together with ice creams. She takes one of the ice creams and one of the rice cakes out from the freezer. They are labelled “1992”. They are the same age as she is. The freezer is a big one laying on the ground like the type a restaurant would own. There are five fridges in the house because her grandmother never throws anything away but her own memory. There are three big freezers, one walk-in freezer and a freezer her grandfather is lying in. She sits beside her frozen grandfather, looking at him as hard as she can. After some hours liver mortis will show like frozen rice cakes with moulds. The funeral company will cover the freezer until his preparation for the trip to the funeral. The staring might stop everything going on in his body, she imagines. The blood might still keep running, the skin might still keep breathing.
If the staring doesn’t change, everything will be still. She feels like staring at the painting Golconda by Rene Magritte. Everything is still, but at the same time moving. He can move in anytime. He can bend his fingers, he can open his eyes, he can breathe with his nose. She thinks she can stare at him for a whole night without sleeping like someone who is truly heart-broken on the TV shows. Silver lines show in the air. The sight looks like broken glass. It starts getting more and more damaged, then the view breaks into whole darkness.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> * How cold should the body be to maintain it how it was? Which one is colder? The body or the rice cake from 1992? The funeral company comes and takes her grandfather out from the freezer. They set up a shelf with curtains and start to wash him. She stands outside the curtain listening to the sound of water. Where are they at now? How they are gonna wash his hair? The absence of water creates his shape for her to imagine from outside: where he is now and where he is not? She feels the shape is getting smaller and smaller. When she cannot hear any shape of her grandfather’s existence, they open the curtain. He is clean and dressed. He lost all his front teeth, they put a set of a new one. He doesn't look like him in her eyes. Being perfect and complete for the death, or actually for the living? she wonders. Her memories adjust immediately so she could recognise him. She feels scared. The past is so easy to fabricate. There is no definite past she feels. Past is just as ethereal as future, every time she memorises it, it changes. The family members have to put on his shoes to wish him a good path. Her aunt put two stacks of banknotes in his hand. They are called tshiú-bué-tsînn (手尾錢). Before the dead are leaving, they can bless the family. The money is used to start business or build a family.
His fingers are almost stiff. Her aunt makes some effort to push the cash in his hands. On the way to funeral place, she wears mourning clothes and a headpiece made out of a sack. Her aunt tells her to dye her blonde hair back to black for the funeral. She looks around and feels no one is around. she decides not to do it. Her blonde hair is an invasion. The bond she had with him. Like her tears are an invasion in the house. If there is any stubbornness inside her sadness, it is not considered sad enough.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<< Over a night, everyone knows what those moles mean on his face and everyone can speak for what he would want. She is never brave enough to think about what he would want for his body. She has no saying before this or after. That is when she realises the hierarchy between their relations. On the funeral, each group needs to go on the stage to pray to the dead. The family needs to bow to them to show appreciation. Her grandmotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sister goes on to the stage and cries her name. Everyone knows except her that she might not be able to survive. She was his vulnerable precious pearl protected in his hand, from very little age. No one in the family sees her until now, and in this moment every parts of her gathers and spreads then she changes.
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Bwa Bwei (Poe divination) A ritual of asking advices from gods or ghosts. This ritual requires two wooden blocks called “Bwei”. They are two separate woods shaped like a crescent, There are two sides of each wooden block, one side is flat, the other side is curved. The flat side is yin means dark side, curved side is yan means the bright side. 1.Holding two moon blocks in hands and kneel down in front of god 2.Telling gods your name, birthday, where you live, age 3.Saying things you want to ask from gods 4.Hold the moon blocks higher than your eyebrow 5. throw it on the floor Yin+Yin: Angry sign, No Sign Yan+Yin: Holy sign, Yes sign Yan+Yan: Laugh sign, Thinking sign Stand Sign: One or two moon blocks stand without showing sign, people consider it’s miracle. Same Sign: Two moon blocks cover each other, also considered miracle. The word “Bwei” showed in book《 演 繁 露 . 卜 教 》. People used shells as “Bwei” because shells were currency back in time and were easy to get. Because the shells (Jiao) are like cups (Bei) that can contain water, and shells “Jiao” sounds similar to “teach” in mandarin they together mean to ask advice and ask gods to teach something. But the clams were fragile so people replaced them with wood but curved in similar shape like shells then it slowly turned to shape like a crescent. The colour red is for good luck. Notes: If there is family ,member passed, it is forbidden to use bwei, it should be replaced by coins.
The Moon Block He thinks about his decision of cremation of his wife. He tells his granddaughter his wife is angry because his wife picked this Fengshui Land to be buried so her leaving can be a blessing to the family, but instead of burying her, he chose cremation for her. He said his wifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soul was not in that body anymore. She sits beside her grandfather on the bed watching him having severe hiccups. The stomach inside his body functions differently. It can only contains pills, burnt scriptures, coca cola and fish soups from 73.6 kilometres away. Those hiccups sound like crying, like the crying accidentally breathed some air in. He casts the moon block several times, yin yin, yan yan,() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()() ( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () ()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(()) ())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () )(()(())())(()yin yin() () ( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()() ( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () ()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(()) ())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () )(()(())())(()yin yin() () ( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()() ( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () ()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(()) ())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () )(()(())())(()yin yin() () ( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () ()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())()) (()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () )(()(())())(()yin yin() ()( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( () ())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () ()() ()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(() yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () )(()(())())(()yin yin() ()( () () ) ()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(() ()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () ()()())))) (()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () )(()(())())(()yin yin() ()( () () )()()() ()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()() ()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () ()()()))))(()(()) ())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () )(()(())())(()yin yin() ()( () () )()()()()( () ())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()())))) (()(())())(()yin yin, yan ya))))(()(())())(()yin yin() () () () () ()()()))))(()(())())(() yin yin() () () () () () )( () () )()()()()( ()())(()()()()()))))(()(())())(()yin yin, yan
He keeps asking if he can see his wife, he is talking to his wife. He said his wife is now an other person, she is god. So he doesn’t use the coins. She looks at him, his tone goes up and down, sometimes his voice breaks, sometimes his voice turns to whisper, sometimes his voice melts into a sigh. He doesn’t stop murmuring. Those nonstop murmuring require some deep breaths, somehow in her eyes he is giving something out instead of exchanging air in. He is giving something out, those things without shapes and names. He is waiting for a sign of yes. She finds it surprising that the chances of holy sign appearing is half, but )()(()()())(()()()()()()()()() ((((((( )))(())()()))))()() yin yin/ yan yan()). After 17 times, still no Holy sign, he keeps casting. When the yes finally shows, he lifts his head and asks her if she wants to go out. * He walks toward the statues of lion in front of the temple. The sun is taking the shadows away from the ground. He says only he can be there because only he can tell who is his wife and his wife won’t show if someone is with him. She stands away from the statues looking at him. He told her to stand under the tree. She tries to stare at the sun, she feels the anger toward it. The flames around it almost shows, they are frozen flames, light up the world, feed the loneliness. She remembers her grandmother told her this story about how her grandfather got to marry her grandmother. / It was also a very sunny day, the air was salty. It was also in the same town. He was on a brick roof. There was a well beside this one floor house. People in the town were worried because they know he was just a kid before college and his father didn't allow him to marry her. Suicide by jumping into well was a trendy way in that time. People gathered and he was yelling, “I’m gonna let the sun burn me to death!” /
He doesn’t like heat. She asked him, “grandpa, which one you can accept more? Too cold or too warm?” He answered, “Too cold, definitely too cold. if you are cold you can put on more clothes but if you feel too warm you can’t peel of your skin to feel less warm!” She wonders if he is using the same strategy, if her grandmother doesn’t show then he will let the sun burn himself to death. And sun is not crying for him. For no one.
The Fire
Coldness is good for him. He enjoys it. She remembers his belly was always cold. Also other 50 fat lumps under his skin, those lumps have smooth surfaces, struggle out to get sunlight. The shiny surface looks like boiled eggs. When she was little, they traveled to Japan together often. In the hotel, he always took boiled eggs from the hotel and wrapped them with tissues then put them in his pockets in case his granddaughter got hungry. After the funeral, the last step is to seal the coffin. The family has to avoid the moment when the coffin is about to seal. The body of him needs to be moved to crematorium without sun shining on it. She hears many rules that she doesn't know how to deal with so she just follows. After imagining three sounds she hears from the nails into the coffin woods she feels those three nails are going into her, like the replacement of those three bone nails the dentist suggested but she never got. It is not a grey day, not a cold temperature day. It is not a sad day. The light beams between leaves, taking away any parts to hide. The warm wind dries tears as they are just falling down. There is no perfect setting from nature for this funeral. *
The instructor says when the coffin reaches the fire, the family needs to yell, “ run, fire! watch out!”. Slowly the coffin is moving on a conveyor towards the fire. The air is getting intense, people in the room starts to shrink like runners before the shot. “Yell!” The instructor says. Her mouth seals like the coffin when she imagines the word, “run”. He didn't run, he couldn't run. “Pow!” ( 跑 ) is the pronunciation. As the last tip of the wooden coffin is about to disappear, she yells, “grandpa!” All voices mix into a whole and burn by fire.
Practices
The Parallel Space
She presses the phone and sits at the other side of the red carpet. A record of a her granfather's voice comes out from the phone. It is not English. She translates each sentences to English. It is a recording of more than 8 minutes. It is about how her grandmother can comes back alive.
Time Looks Like Light She reads a letter. It is a letter to time. The shapes on her change through reading.
Distance in minds It is a book on computer.
Dear We Again Separated She writes down the sentences from the letter and realises same parts of sentences are "Dear we again seperated..."
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there (N52.083096, E5.175015)
Everyday around time of
f the sunset, she writes logs on the window until the next day.
here (N52.083096, E5.175015) The light from the room slowly turns brighter. The light breathes in and out.
Regrets
The sound of violin appeares, it is four tones. Those red dots come out of the drawer. She opens the drawer and those red dots fly. At certain point, they falls. She reads a text about things she regrets. Those red dots stop for a little, and then rewind. She closes the drawer when all the red dots go in.
Tour of Units She plays a sound of clock. Then she reads a text about afterlife. She takes people in front of tapes on the wall and tells the stories about those lines.
Scars
She reads a story about contusion. The video on screen is at her back and when she reads the part where says something about colour, the colour shows on the screen.
time to times To be continue.
I’ve been struggling a lot with wether to keep the original title of my proposal. I decided to keep this title because of my process, I wish to keep this struggle from the beginning and wish to lead myself to my project “time to times.” I wish that myself and who is now reading this can accompany me through this process. Whoever is doubting their time and who needs different rhythm in their life, I wish we can all together, living under these temporalities and cherish and be careful with each steps. Developing this essay with Christina Della Giustina and Sophie (H.
L.) Su is a nice trip of reaching to the same mind set of time. It is a beautiful journey.
References
Not Now!Now! by Renate Lorenz (Ed.) key writing by henri bergson A Masked BallOr, the appearance and disappearance of the bathroom smoker by Otsuichi The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata Six memos for next millinieul byItalo Calvino A SCULPTURE TURNING INTO A CONVERSATION by Falke Pisano Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott Sum: Forty Tales from the A erlives by David Eagleman A CONSTRUCTED CONVERSATION BETWEEN KAY ROSEN & VIRGINIA WOOLF by ROSEN Dispersion by Seth Price The Bella Lingua: two short stories with one title How to disappear by Haytham El-Wardany Species of Spaces and Other Pieces by Georges Perec
Artist References Sharon Hayes Falke Pisano Jaha koo Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh Stanley Brouwn Francis alys Wu Chi-Tsung Joyce Ho Film References RashĹ?mon (1950) Mr. Nobody (2009) Inception (2010) Interstellar (2014)