By May Lin Figure1: Rebirth, photo credits to Kaen On November 13th, 2015, I had the honor to interview two artists in the Treasure Hill Artists Village. As I mentioned in my last article, Treasure Hill Artists Village is a historic settlement with an artist-in-residence project, allowing artists and residents to form a community together. The artists I interviewed come from extremely different backgrounds, but both were infatuated with the village and bring an exotic flavor. Kaensan Rattanasomrerk Kean is a young man from Bangkok. At first sight no one would ever guess he was an artist who produces such meaningful works. As soon as he graduated from the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, his films started to be shown in many festivals. In spite of his young age, he has made many important films, with titles such as Rain Full, Rhythm, and Substantial. Many of Kaen’s works involve Buddhist philosophy. In Substantial, by showing distorted materials, he makes a statement about the laws of nature and how human beings try to infringe on them. Rebirth is a video installation placed with flowers. The flowers are frozen and then slowly flourish once again, representing the idea of death and rebirth. Figure2: Rebirth, photo credits to Kaen In Substantial, you mentioned that the more we are attached to our surroundings the more we try to infringe on the laws of nature. Why? I participated in this work with my professor, and I think it was the first time that I was truly creating an artwork. Before this work, I thought a lot about life and the Buddhist religion. What I meant was that people are prone to escape from the circle of nature when they have more and more desire; for example, some people seek eternal life, but death is the law of nature, and people try to fight against the law. In the film, I try to create an object by following the same process used to create sacred objects. I wanted to question the idea of “worship.” Because in Thailand, there are lots of people who pray for immediate gratification but are unwilling to pay it back. They emphasize the format of offering sacrifices but they don’t really dig into the philosophy of Buddhism. Personally, I think their behavior is shallow. Occasionally, Kaen has special video installations which project his images to special spaces such as doors or ceilings. Exit is the most famous of this kind. It was a collaborative work between Kaen and Jakrawal Nilthamrong, projecting a video on the exit of the museum. Via this installation, they hoped to focus on the institution of the museum and its function in society. Some of your works are special video installations, such as Exit. What do you think these installations can bring to the audience compared to normal ones? When you go to the movie, or watch videos on a screen, they are only two-dimensional images. But with these installations, I can assign a new meaning. For example, in Exit, we project an image on the glass of a door, so the image has a symbol of connection between the outside world and the museum. The main subject of this work is the application of space; the audience doesn’t have to see the whole video. Falling Rain and Rhythm are Kaen’s very early works. They both dealt with issues of social class in Thailand. Inspired by northeastern-born laborers, Kaen contrasted the life of immigrant laborers with those born in the city who were well educated. In these films, he asked whether it was society or fate that dramatically discriminated between these two groups. Figure3: Exit, photo credits to Kaen In your works Falling Rain and Rhythm, you discussed the lives of migrant laborers and contrasted them to those born in Bangkok. What gave you the idea of studying this topic? Back then, there were many workers coming to my house. They were mostly 18 to 24 and searching for chances of success in Bangkok. The problem was these laborers were not only uneducated but had many burdens to carry; for example, they had to send money back to their parents who suffered from bad living conditions in the country. In contrast, there was another group of young people born in the city with high education and high living standard. Many workers in my house participated in the film. I had a lot of conversations with them, and I even put the dialogue into the movie. I think what causes this kind of problem is the matter of class, and it happens everywhere, even in Taiwan. It is hard for people to see each other equally because we all have desire for better things. Figure3: Rhythm, photo credits to Kaen Can you briefly talk about your project in Treasure Hill Artists Village? What I want to tackle is some sensitive political issues in Thailand. Currently, the new government has overthrown the old one, and they shut down the media and the news. People are prohibited to talk about them or the political situation; if they do, they can get into trouble. Now, in Thailand, people are concerned about the future of their country, but they can’t even talk about it. Therefore, I want to express how I feel through my artwork. Kaen isn’t the type of artist who draws inspiration from the outside world or interaction with the community. Most of the time, his only companions are a cup of coffee and a piece of paper filled with fresh ideas. Kaen has his own way of seeing the world. To him, art can be anything in life depending on how people define it. With a bashful smile, he said he is still young and still searching for the answer. So far, he just wants to express his feelings and thoughts through film. Agnieszka Pokrywka My first impression of Agnieszka was that she was clever, mellow and silent. However, during the interview, I soon realized that she was also kind and full of enthusiasm. Though born in Poland, Agnieszka has spent last couple of years in Finland. She works as a graphic designer and cultural organizer although educated as a filmmaker, an interactive designer, an art critic, and also as a physicist. How would you describe Finland in one sentence? Finland is a country of silence, forests, and saunas. Finnish people are silent, but when they talk, they are really straightforward, which I admire a lot. And another thing I love about Helsinki is that although it’s a capital city, it is also very close to nature. In just a few minutes of a bike ride, you are inside a forest. That’s specific for Finland, not the whole of Europe. Europe is so much smaller than Asia, but it’s just as various. We can’t name a typical culture in Asia because there are so many, the same is true in Europe. What I really like unique about Finland is that it is a mixture of Northern Europe and Eastern Europe, and it is familiar to me because although being Polish, I have lived in several European countries located even further north than Poland. What appealed to you to come to Taiwan? And how did you know about Treasure Hill Village? Since I’m interested in fermentation, which very much depends on temperature, climate, and culture, I really wanted to explore a different environment. Then I found this village on the Internet. While reading the history of Treasure Hill, I actually found that a Finnish architect was involved in restoring the place. I even met with the architect and asked about the village, the weather in Taipei, etc. After talking with my friends who have come to Taipei, I liked it very much, so here I am. Figure4:Bacterial fortunetelling (work in progress), photo credits to Agnieszka Agnieszka’s current works were conducted mostly in connection with Pixelache, a Helsinki based transdisciplinary platform for experimental art, design, research, and activism. The word Pixelache was originally found in a Finnish article that predicted new words which we would need in the future. It is formed from the words “pixel” and “ache,” referring to the ache of digital influence in everyday life. The purpose of the platform is to challenge mainstream standards and conventions, not only related to media and technology, but also to contemporary society in general. As one of the directors of Pixelache’s annual festival in 2015, Agnieszka gave us a full account of the concept. What is the history of Pixelache? What do you do in the platform? Pixelache is already over 14 years old. It started as an underground cultural organization, but we’re now shifting into more and more socially engaged activities. We want to promote the attitude that people are able to do things on their own. I always make a joke about the Pixelache webpage which people still find hard to understand and quite mysterious. There is a sentence there describing our organization as “a transdisciplinary platform for experimental art, design, research, and activism.” It’s “design” because we tend to build things ourselves and make people interact with each other and their surroundings; it’s “research” because we like to reuse existing knowledge in new ways in order to produce unconventional solutions. We said “activism” because we are reflective and reactive to the given context; and as for “art,” I guess when things are getting weird, people tend to see it as art. What is the concept of Living Spaces Festival 2015? The main activities of Pixelache are annual festivals, and the formats are different every year depending on the people organizing it and the people involved. This year, the exhibitions and the workshops were decentralized, taking place in many different spots even in the suburbs in order to interact deeper with local groups. The main aim was to involve people in its content rather than let them be the passive public of artworks. When my coworkers and I were planning the festival, we reflected on the general tendency of festivals, in which people experience a couple of days of an extraordinary atmosphere but soon go back to normal life afterward. We wanted to build a festival that would continue its influence and give people a new mindset instead of just temporary fun. Therefore, we came up with the decentralized structure and festival program happening in unusual locations. What sets Agnieszka apart from the other artists is that she is not only an artist but also a physicist. Her art works are often combined with scientific experiments and visual aesthetics. The Ferment Lab project is one example of that. Helsinki’s Ferment Lab is a group work exploring mobile urban farming and food processing by fermentative methods. In Taipei, Agnieszka performs her individual exploration of the intertwining of bacterial and human culture. Figure5:Recycling Olympic Games during Pixelache Festival 2015, photo credits to Agnieszka Can you talk about the Ferment Lab project? Why do you compare the process of social change to fermentation? Ferment Lab is a complex idea composed with a couple of sub-projects. One of these focuses on urban farming in Helsinki. In Europe, it is getting more and more popular to do gardening in the city. But it is a bit funny to do so in Helsinki since the weather is very cold and the lifespan of plants is rather short. Therefore, we were thinking about building a mobile greenhouse equipped with an additional source of light. The unusual thing is that the greenhouses are powered by the community. And we are currently working on the software and hardware to maintain that. It means that instead of donating money, people donate electricity saved from their households. So if you save power, it goes to your plants; but if you use too much electricity, your plants will die. By this project, we expect not only to save electricity and grow plants, but to activate a community around the greenhouses in order to enrich the social life in the neighborhoods of Helsinki . Figure6:Growing bacterial starters on Eleonore ship in Linz, Austria, photo credits to Agnieszka
On the other hand, I have a personal interest in different fermentation methods. What I find extremely interesting in fermentation is that it happens all around the world; for example, wine, beer, even stinky tofu are fermented. When you get closer to culturally shaped natural processes like fermentation, it makes you understand the given culture better. Fermentation happens when certain micro-organisms need to obtain energy. This changes everything: the flavor, smell, color of the food. It is amazing that you just need a little bit of bacterial starters, and everything becomes different. And I think that’s also the beauty of human culture. For instance, we are having a conversation here; we exchange thoughts and are affected by that in a super tiny way. We interact with other people later on to let another micro-transformation happen. This infinite micro process inspires me a lot. You don’t need a million people to change the world, a major influence can start from a very small group of people. Having conversations with these two artists was a pleasant experience. As Kaen has said, art can be anything in life. It could be a short film which expresses ideas or personal opinions; it could also be a science experiment derived from the needs of the local. When you start to inject your emotion into what you are doing and enjoy the process, it is a unique work of art. Open your mind, art is everywhere. For further information, click the following links : Ferment Lab http://board.net/p/FermentLabTaipei. Pixelache http://pixelache.ac/ Pixelache Festival 2015 http://livingspaces.pixelache.ac/ Personal page of Agnieszka http://alwaysunderconstruction.info/ Personal page of Kaensan http://www.kaensan.com/ a
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May 2024
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