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