Announcing “Border Studies“, a haphazard collection of visual inspiration from New Territories Studio. While the more formal New Territories blog/site is still under construction, check here for fragments pulled from the lucid dreaming experience that is Tumblr in 2011.
Threads: Asia, art, landscapes, cultural remixing, the aesthetics and problematics of exploration, absurd and arresting images
See it here.
(click for the more annoying GIF)
Recently I became the “creative talent scout” for Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai – their first in this somewhat bizarre-sounding role, I believe. I’ll be helping to expand W+K’s network of emerging Chinese talent and pool of creative collaborators (with an emphasis on China, but also across Asia and internationally).
I’ll also be curating an events program in our office here, open to the Shanghai creative community at large, to bring in cross-disciplinary inspiration and strengthen W+K Shanghai as a local creative hub.
See the full announcement here, and see you around – I will be the one with binoculars “scouting” high and low!
A track for the impending autumn, from influential yet short-lived Japanese band Jacks. More on their history here.
“からっぽの世界”, ジャックス, 1968
(“Vacant World,” Jacks, 1968)
[audio http://newterritories.org/images/03-からっぽの世界.mp3]
It’s a pretty insane week here in Shanghai, as the “back-to-school” activities of the artworld commence, but truly looking forward to an event I’ve helped organize for this Sunday evening: two recent works by Singaporean filmmaker Ho Tzu-Nyen, to be screened in association with my friends at Future Perfect, and hosted by the just-barely-soft-opened Shanghai branch of Café Sambal. (Many thanks to Cho Chong Gee of Sambal for graciously supporting the event!)
If you find yourself in Shanghai this Sunday, please do attend – it should be a relaxing, atmospheric end to a crazy week.
Teaser for New Territories – experimental studio for research and production – full site coming soon (more…)
At long last, Short Stays had its premiere at The Opposite House on May 18. See some snapshots here…
Click below to play a slideshow of the Short Stays film stills and making of…
Link to set on Flickr.
Short Stays, the film project I produced for The Opposite House hotel in Beijing, will have its long-awaited premiere on May 18. Read more on the Short Stays website.
SHORT STAYS / 暂停
3 Short Films by / 三个短片
Zhao Ye / Liu Jiayin / Peng Lei
赵晔、刘伽茵、彭磊
“It returns the child’s eye to the retinas of men. Emerging from subway, [taxi] or even hydrofoil, the visitor to the [Shanghai Expo 2010] feels that he is in a special world, full of runaway pylons, impossible cantilevers, and buildings that look like flowers or accidents of flowing lava.
Is it the future? Not exactly.”
This John McPhee surveying the 1964 New York World’s Fair in his essay “Fairs: The World of Already,” but he could just have equally been describing the Shanghai Expo. Some photos from the still-unfolding, barely-comprehensible spectacle.
Slideshow of May 1 (on Flickr):
Slideshow of May 2 (on Flickr):
At Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport, there are now baskets of free lighters to greet arrivals passengers who undoubtedly had their lighters confiscated before their flight. I had a hard time choosing, but finally settled on a hot pink clear one inscribed with the legend, “punchtobacco”.
Spotted near Huaihai Lu on an autumn afternoon.
These little guys appeared to be informal ambassadors for the upcoming 2010 Shanghai Expo… way cooler than the dreaded Haibao.
Shanghai Pups (上海小狗) from Samantha Culp on Vimeo.
(Daido Moriyama, “How to Create a Beautiful Picture 6: Tights in Shimotakaido“, 1987)
Before I headed to Tokyo, I did a Google search for “Shimotakaido,” the neighborhood where my friend Patrick Tsai lives and where he was graciously allowing me to crash. One of the first results was this awesome 1987 photo-series by renowned Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama – fitting, as Patrick is also a photographer and a big Moriyama fan.
A short review I did on “Light Streams,” the current show at Center for Cosmic Wonder in Tokyo, is up at Artforum.com. Read online here or in the vault. See some pictures from the show below.
[Tokyo, Japan]
Since Beijing was preoccupied with military parade mania over the October holiday, it seemed like a good time to escape to Tokyo.
Full set here.
Bonus: learn Chinese from an animated panda on Japanese television.
My rambling notes from the week of SHContemporary are up at Artforum China; read the full article online here or in the vault. They didn’t end up using all of my pictures, however, so here are a few extras below…
Currently up at NPR is a great mini-set of 70s Iranian funk, collected by Egon of Stones Throw Records. It’s part of their ongoing Funk Archaeology series, and features tracks by some folks I’ve never heard (like the sitar-and-Afrobeat-infused Mehr Pooya and beach-psych-y Kourosh Yagmhei) as well as my old favorite, Googoosh (or Googoush, or گوگوش, all of which apparently mean “Swanhawk,” which is extra cool).
My article on Bangkok’s Kitsch Cat is in the newest issue of Theme Magazine.
Read article online at Theme or in the vault.
Where was I during the longest and most complete solar eclipse of my lifetime? On the Bund, in a rainstorm. If we didn’t see the sun, at least we saw the darkness.
