Art Pandemic and Everything In Between

[Music]

do you know that 2020

is no longer a year but an adjective

it’s such a start a new millennium by

way of life

i mean let’s think about it we start the

year

where the fear of another world war

natural disasters occurs later

a few celebrity stats i don’t know who

their name is and

a global pandemic accompanied with an

ongoing civil rights movement

and a centerpiece of it all a razor thin

election that keeps the entire world on

its feet

it seems like we woke up to one bad news

over another is it

as if the world is only spending doom

and every day

we kept hearing the stories of

racial injustices and coronavirus

and status of how many deaths how many

recover how many is the lives

and we just freaked out not only

freaking out

but to feel disgusted dissatisfied

and disbelief everything is out of

control

and it was just all noises going through

her head

so for prospective artists like me it’s

all about a constant need of creation

of making something meaningful our

mundane and terrifying parts of the

world was

and still experiencing that burning

desire to create

is what makes artists the larger than

life figure

that people often look forward to

especially in times of hopelessness and

desperation

artists are the one that provides magic

something surreal that sparks their

imagination

pushes a boundary and gives us some kind

of purpose

just to be alive but it’s not up to

artists

or designers it’s it’s up to everyone of

you here

whatever life is offering you good or

bad

take it turn into whatever you want make

the most out of it

and just channel all the energies of the

world out there

now looking back i started quarantine

feeling repulsed by the fact that i have

to stay at home and feel uncertain like

everybody else

school got cancelled weeks after weeks

my ass level got delayed until another

summer

and it just felt like a train wreck

there were times that i thought to

myself that oh

i would rather get hit by a train into

staying at home for another meeting

week but part of being an artist

is part of being quarantined actually is

to learn how to have fun all by yourself

when you’re cutting off from lots of

resources as i cannot go out to my go

out to meet my friends at coffee shop

or mingle in the old quarters so what

should i do

what do i have left actually well

i looked at home and i found what i’ve

got it’s actually

a roll of brown sugar paper bottles of

spray paints

acrylic paints paint brushes paint

rollers

and my trusty macbook so what did i do

with it

i made art like what else do you expect

an artist to do

right but it has it thought somewhere

as i looked back and think oh my works

actually

also it’s actually a byproduct of all

the cultural influences that i have

and music has been a big part of that

music

films books oh simply what’s happening

in the world has great influence in my

art

so i when i heard this song called ray

of light when madonna came

up i knew what i had to do immediately

look how gorgeous he is that’s it

i thought to myself the swirling beats

the madness of production

with all the multi-layered sounds of

analog sims and guitar riffs as it came

out of an oasis song

and madonna’s cracking vocal the sense

of wonderment

it all exudes from both the lyrics to

to her delivery and her looks in a video

as she came out of multicelly painting

like some pre-raphaelite goddess but

will take no update of course

i mean who is that goddess wearing

double denim right

and damn these things stuck in my head

as i kept rolling my paint splattered

over the place

spray it on top of everything as a kid

did all those things

i forgot all my troubles i forgot that

the concept of time

and space didn’t even exist and at times

the sky was the only limit

it was this rush of energy that excites

me

when all these sensory and sonic

impulses keep circulating my head

and i was soaking this wet dream of

the marriage between techno sounds and

psychedelic image

here’s the outcome you see and this

painting to me is a reflection

of how small we are within the universe

and sometimes it felt like we are we’re

actually trying to run away try to catch

up with it

but i do realize

that what a privileged position i was in

just to stay at home to pain and

to consider this time p and period as

like a readjustment

or a pause rather than something that

has greater consequences in a lifetime

sometimes i felt like some obsolete

hollywood celebrities

complaining about how boring quarantine

is

when in fact i live in a big mansion i

fancy myself with dish of steaks on a

weekend

i spend the entirety watching the same

rom-com for a 10th time

oh as if it’s more of the fact

that i complain about such menial things

in life

that other aspires to have and that and

that i need a reality check

so i read the news and

i was flabbergasted by the fact that

face mass price even hiked

by 350 percent and that’s suddenly out

of nowhere

this mysterious plague has moved its way

like a dark cloud

to the other half of the world and now

nearly 50 million people actually get

infected

and across 40 countries you see

when a force that has no moral of

self-control whatsoever

like covet 19 pushes us into such a

diabolical place

an artist has no choice but to react to

it

and what do i mean by reacting to it

by reacting to it it’s not just it’s not

downplaying it

or covering it up but showing it in the

most bad and naked form that one could

possibly think

the job as an artist now is to not only

let you indulge

carelessly with these stories with this

artistic vision of a song or

or let your imagination flow through

flashes of painting

the job as an artist now is to tell you

the truth

and the truth that might hurt you that

might break you

and that might make you disappointed by

humanity

because for so long artists have been

there

to provide us some kind of excuses just

to escape the

rather challenging realities of our

lives from aesthetics dance music that

we can dance to

while weeping on the dance floor to a

broken heart

to a sonic and visual overload that is

an arena concert tour

which transforms us into another

dimension with 120 minutes

all of these things are there just

just to help us create just help us

escape

and get away from the insanity of life

while create that illusion of safety

that we

were so desperate for

and thinking back to my previous artwork

this titled ray of light it’s about a

fantastical illusion

of something that’s very very far away

and that you cannot even touch it but

now

with covet with everything that’s

happening in the world

all safety itself it’s just an illusion

and the jobs in artists is officially

reversed we are here

to break that illusion tear it to pieces

to tell people to wake up and deal with

whatever crap that’s happening around in

the world

and speaking of speaking of breaking

illusions

and and all these issues are happening

in the world it kind of reminds me

of this installation that i did quite a

few months ago actually

and as you have seen here there’s the

tata trench coat

with red spray paint on top and here

there’s a disco bowl that’s being

wrapped around plastic

with stains of fake blood on top of it

and 10 dollar bills

and a little corner over there there’s a

handbag that’s decorated

with latex gloves and disorienting

gravity

so what comes to your mind when you see

these images

what comes to your mind when you see is

installations

is it looking like a war zone to you is

it looking like a world it’s an

apocalyptic ending

or is just a confused and abstract mess

of

artworks like quasi political statement

you know it’s not out of the blue

i decided to cut my trench coat ripped

it up

spray paint splatter it over the place

or spray paint my hand back

and decorate with dirty like takes

gloves

that must be some kind of purpose is it

because part of being an

artist is to bring new life into this

mundane

and everyday life objects that you’re

not even paying attention to

so it was quarantined that i decided to

give these items a new life a makeover a

reinvention whatsoever you call it

but with a twist a twist based on my

feelings in the world

a twist that comes from realizations and

anger

or the unhealthy way that we are running

its course into

and thanks to covet 19 the world was

stripped

to the barriers of bones and reveals

such a disgustingly

exploitative way that we are running a

course into they were functioning

and it’s quite scary to think about how

the world

is often emphasized on such

unnecessarily superfluous and innocuous

luxuries

and that we live our life with

manufactured desires

of having this materialistic aspirations

of having oh

i need a new designer handbag oh i need

another coat

just just because of a celebrity’s worry

when in fact none of those things matter

especially when you’re at home 24 7

being in your pajamas having zoo meeting

the whole day

is having a handbag necessarily

i don’t think so but you have to look at

a bigger picture

the bigger picture lies on the fact that

is it worth

losing our humanity is it worth losing

our kindness

just to trade off for this vain and

superficial desires

that were put upon us by the world not

by us

and look i know this is fairly ironic

considering this word comes from a mouth

of a privilege to teenage students like

me

but part of being an artist and part of

being a human

is to evolve and that i finally realized

that the world is actually so much

bigger

than my own privileged bubble and that

whatever i do

whatever i spend my money is on that’s

the way it consequences

to others who are less privileged than

mine

so where do we start from here

where we go after we seeing all these

realizations

all these angers all this disappointment

well it starts here within you

just have a pause at whatever you’re

doing

and think what makes you angry

what agitates you what makes you want to

scream out the top of your lungs so loud

everybody can hear

as you may have seen i was angry for a

materialistic world

i was supposed to succumb to it i

suppose

to live my life vicariously through it

with little or no consequences

but i don’t want to continue that toxic

cycle

so i decide to use my power and crafts

as an artist

to create works to create works

that can hopefully generate changes and

create a small

but necessary conversation that means

you have to each other

but that can only happen if you’re able

to take control of the narrative that

the world has given you

and as you know the world is full of

crazy narrative that will force us upon

us

that forces us to succumb to it and we

have two choices

a to be enslaved by it or

b to break away from it

so what you’re gonna do well

you have to make a decision and whatever

happens afterwards

take it as a way that the world is

teaching you a lesson

like covet 19 it exposes everything in

such an overt way

but we cannot help but pay attention to

from wealth inequality

to of such a flawed health care system

to

simply hume us human as very greedy

creatures

but it’s all there for a reason and part

of making this decision is to know what

you want in life

what do you what you want to come out

roses do you want to have on a lock down

for three weeks and feeling miserable

or you want to stay at or you want to

work to live your life

pay your rent as normal so make those

decisions wisely

and don’t take these any of these

opportunities

for granted as an artist

so many people have tried to dictate me

and what i should do with my life

they tell me that i’m not good enough as

an artist

that my works are too abstract too vague

to naive for people to understand

and that i’m alienating people with my

own

my own political opinion but i do like

do i look like i care

do i look like i allow them to get in my

way getting my nerves in my system

hell no so

whatever life is trying to put upon you

whatever resistance that you experience

from the world

or in the world grab that driver’s seat

take the turn because nobody’s gonna

show you how

at the end of the day are you walking

the dog

or is the dog actually walking you thank

[Applause]

you