HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Raining most of this first day of 2006...spent the count-down with the multitudes at KLCC, downtown KL...first time we've seen people milling about in the streets, actually WALKING to destinations. Rivers of people, including hundreds of gangs of stylishly punked-out children huddling on the steps. The air was noxious with the fumes of some party 'spray' the kids were unleashing cans of on each other (and less vigilant passers-by) which the cops moved in to bust up when they managed to jostle through the crowds; there was a huge phantom fireworks display that was closer to a spectacle of the imagination as everything ended up wreathed in smoke and nobody could actually see anything...

Rounded off the night at a friends party watching a gang of gay Chinese boys get lost in the fancy Christmas lights display...the first time Tess and I remember being stone-cold sober at the final crank of the minute hand...

YIPEE CUP IS GO

Writing from a bubble tea cafe called 'Yipee Cup' in neighbouring SS 2, our favourite new digs. The food around here is unbelievable, the pirate DVD stores first class. And its another one of those areas here that truly never sleeps (lots of the hawker stores actually open at 11pm)...very, very Chinese, loads of neon and HK-style cafes

SLACKING OFF

The above picture was taken in Klang many, many months ago. As anyone who's bothered to check in here recently knows we've been complete slackers with this blogging thing of late...so this is going to take a decidedly non-linear turn for a while as we sift through pictures of the past few months and pencil in the details...our trip up north to Perlis, Penang, stuff we've been working on etc. etc.

WHAT ELSE NEW

So what else is new? We both abruptly quit smoking which frankly is sometimes quite sad and even a little boring. We're both a little shocked to realise that we've been here just about 6 full months and so now the 'period of enchantment' is over, partly because we can see the cracks in the floor and partly because we need to get down to the business of making money. We'll be having another show in this new year, sometime near the end of this month most likely (read below)...and hopefully scoring a residency and maybe other exhibition opportunities. We got awarded a prize for a video we made a few months ago, from the Malaysian Video Awards...no cash money but funding for a future film project. Christmas without family and friends felt a little odd and we were simultaneously hit with strong feelings of nostalgia and home-sickness, but there'll be some visits this year which should alleviate the itch...

In any case, we wish everyone a Happy New year and if we haven't talked to you lately we hope to fix that situation soon...

Kajin

UPCOMING: ALLEYS OF DAMANSARA JAYA AT SEK SAN GALLERY, KL

Sometime near the end of Jan/ beginning FEB Tess and I are doing a joint show at Sek San Gallery in Bangsar; I'm posting a few preview images...

[Click on any of the following pictures to enlarge:]






The project started with moving to the suburb of Damansara Jaya about 4 months ago...the first few images are of a back alley to our house which we take to the Atria complex or SS 22/11 every morning.

Tess and I are both quite fond of taking this route...sort of like negotiating a stone platform with deep 'longkangs' (drains) falling on either side, grown over with thick moss and green sludge. Rats, cats, squirrels duck in and out of the drainpipes...once in a while there's the crunch of a cockroach underfoot or a gecko gets flattened in closing the metal door. During what they call the 'forbidden hour' – the interim period between day and night – bats unhinge from the trees and do threateningly low swipes...the mosquitoes are fucking impossible at this time.

The alleys here are quite empty (we've come across less than a dozen fellow travellers in all our months here) and unused but full of 'information'...what I mean is that by walking these routes you tend to pass by clues of the private lives of the inhabitants...wash hanging out to dry, cooking smells, water gushing out of the numerous pipes that empty into the drains...by which quality one can determine wether someone's bathing or washing dishes or emptying paint into their bath and so on, in murmuring to loud exclamations of liquid.

They switch character at night...our own alley is an eerie beast after-hours. But there's this quality of darkness --- a very deep black in the shadows --- which is fascinating, and qualitatively different in this part of the hemisphere. It's like there's all this hidden 'information' in what you can't see.

So we've been busy capturing these spaces in a series of night-photos...we're basically shooting every single alley in this neighbourhood on full moon nights. Those have been quite interesting journeys...

The last three images are stills from a video piece we're currently working on. Basically it's portraits of ourselves levitating in these spaces during that 'forbidden' hour...it's a simple, Melies-like visual 'trick' that's quite convincing...I'll post the video online after the show opens.