Kumjing Hla

Onistudio was fantasizing about keeping animals for sometimes until we received a lovely present this week from Chumpon and Noi who drove 2008km from Bangkok to K.L to Singapore. We adopted a beautiful lady.

This is her passport:

Hla has traveled with Chumpon and Noi hours by hours, borders to borders, from one country to another country to another country. She wants to see Singapore… Well she found onistudio; it cannot be that bad. Sometimes we ask her to clean the spider webs off our fridge but most of the time Hla sits at onistudio balcony enjoying Singapore’s hot afternoon and hokkien mat rock medley from our neighbours.


onistudio proudly present our new member,

Kumjing, Hla.

Interview (I)

Please follow this link to hear excerpt of our upcoming show Tom Waits For Nobody (02.12 jamming session between Leslie, Zai and Chee Wai) and enjoy as the artists talks about their work, sound art and their 2006 plans.

Oni will be follow-up this interview next week.

In the meanwhile please post your comments/questions to the artists.

Oni wishes you a lovely week ahead.

Dehydrated Monsoon

Last night, like many other night as I was drunk I went back to my old apartment and as I struggled to open the door I realized it’s my old apartment.

It woke me up like I have just been kicked on the ass.

The drunkenness was gone and quickly I ran out before someone called the police. It took about 10min later that I got back to the state of drunkenness and breath nicely… pheww I thought…I look at my watch it say 5.30am. Then after that I imagined what would happen if suddenly a beautiful lady open the door with silk pyjamas and nice curved cleavage… and told me ‘oh darling you come back so late’ and she too was drunk with half open eyes and red lipstick... then we went to the room and just before we sleep (or you know) her husband opened the door and saw me on his bed. On his right hand I noticed a plastic bag and I smelled char kuay teow. Tell me do I have a film waiting for me? (I mean nightmare right) And I also imagined the husband will look exactly like me. It’s something like being John Malkovic.

Anyway, I supposed to write about dance because friends like Fu Quan and Joe are telling me that they want to see my dance. To think of it I usually just say I got lazy about dance because my body is still far from good for dancing and at the other point I have Weng Choy telling me ‘I want to see you talk”. And I can also imagine Alfian Saat come to me and say ‘fuck all the gibberishes just talk!’ (in a good term for sure) but that’s not exactly my ‘style’ not that I don’t talk… its something like some guys like to make love while the high heel is still there on her nice feet.

Now I’m dying to wait for the time when I can be very isolated and get really quiet in the studio and do my drawing and its activity suck me deeper into ‘speechlessness’. And I must say I’m busy drinking with people around me not necessarily a ‘social gathering’ but because I need to get connected to some people I love their vibes and dream/vision etc

The last time I dance is not so long ago actually …Fringe Festival last year February. I have made up my mind I will only dance once a year and I think that’s a lot already. It has to be solo because I don’t really know anymore what to do with others body on stage with different story. Anyway the last danced is Erroism…it is for me to get into this hopeless mood… The post war hopeless mood…I did get into that hopelessness but hell know its not easy to dance with that inside you…for that reason if you ask me to do it again I would say I need a break from that mood for sometime before I can handle it ‘better’ so if I am planning any dance this year it will still about this search for an hopeless body and make it dance. To quote Tatsumi Hijikata

Butoh is a dead corpse dancing

And that’s what I want to do ‘dead corpse dancing’… many Butoh dancer see it in many different way about this statement ….the Malays have a saying rather close to that ‘hidup segan mati tak mahu’. (to live I’m embarrass, to die is not what I want)... well that’s my translation some people will translate it in different ways for sure.

This year I will dance and it is a tribute to Akiko Motofuji and Tatsumi Hijikata. It will be butoh. But I don’t know when as for now once I start drawing it also means I start dancing in and with it… so guys the next time you heard or read a poster saying I’m performing solo make sure you come because the next one will be another one year or one and a half.

It’s 3pm now and it says Sunday. I just come back from T.K Sabapathy house with Josef Ng. It is indeed a strange visit which I was supposed to do like 10 years ago. It is also strange feeling that I felt the guilt why I did not visit his house. It’s an old house and the kitchen is what I call stunning. It is a kind of house I want to live in. We go for the kitchen the rest is not very very important because like many islanders that I know kitchen is the centre of universe. That kitchen Saba and Dori had is really based on old ‘Kampung’ design I call it. You sit there and you just don’t want to move I wonder how many hours had saba and dori ‘wasted’ their time in their kitchen. Now I am waiting for next week because I want to eat Doris and Saba’s food. They cook and I’m sure they cook real well.

My neighbour is screaming... well she is singing and it’s those karaoke thing. We can’t complain because it’s Sunday anyway and so I’m going now probably for char kway teow with very very black soya sauce and sure beeeeeeer

saba and dori's kitchen

Tom Waits For Nobody

onistudio presents

Tom Waits For Nobody

A Soundtrack For An Animated Film They Can't Afford It

2006.03.10 The Art House Playden 20:00

more information

In less than 3 month I’m all charged up entertaining my dream café/ pub/ gallery/ with books, magazine, sneakers, posters, flyers etc,

onistudio

This year is a full and very pregnant year. I have plans for July to be the launch of my one and only CD documenting some of my old acoustics songs which I’ve been playing for the past 5 years. I’m organizing ‘Conference of the Birds” in April while March a gig with Chee Wai, Koichi and Leslie. These are all part of ONISTUDIO projects. I will have 3 exhibitions touring Bangkok and Fukuoka Japan in June and july. And the list goes really full and rather scary.

Besides all this I have been rather attached to some new friends who seem to be operating under the spirit of DIY culture. They are mostly musicians and half the age of mine… angry, kind, jovial, serious, ambitious and searching for direction in a creative lifestyle.

Yesterday I have a meeting with the Art house to talk about how ONISTUDIO and them can work together, then I saw some red writings on the wall.

After I had finished reading it surprised me that they’re an old friend Kuo Pao Kun’s words. After I read the first line I did not continue but I read it again and again and only after 7th time I continued reading it ends like this:

"I see this as the only possible future for us in Singapore; you have to find a process to temper yourself and you have to look beyond, to all the cultures and civilizations in the world”

The first line is

"I was thinking for quite a few years about how can we in Singapore, living quite comfortably, and more and more wealthily, how can we produce art?"

Once I heard a joke about Pao Kun something like he has been a little isolated and did not shave. When he went to the toilet one day somehow he noticed a mirror. Looking at the mirror he told himself

‘this man looks really familiar.’

While we were rehearsing Zero001 in 2000, I told him that the story is really funny and his reply was “Zai someday it will happen to you too” and I think this is the day it happened but with some differences. When I read the first line I thought the writing on the walls is mine.

I think that is what I have been asking myself since I started ONISTUDIO. There is some worry for me to think of artist operating with extreme consciousness (if not dependence) of grants and sponsors. Many I know are seemingly sucked up by the system willingly, thinking there isn’t any choice, it is impossible to function without support from the NAC or other institutions. While I agree that it’s a necessity, my point and worry remains

“How do we take care and protect our own process?”

Definitely what I realized through Pao Kun’s words is that I have to give these two years thinking positively as to how I can make some efforts working with younger or older people whose spirit I like and to work hard to present their work. I will propagate certain issues and most importantly about thinking small, independence and care for the process artists take in developing their works.

With this web, the journey for us has just begun. I hope you can truly understand this point of view which I believe is the most simplistic manner to bridge people from different practice in the arts, get the right attitude and support the local art scene, making it as vibrantly fearless.

Last night while I’m so drunk I thought of Anti-Bitching and Anti-Complain campaign.

Will that make life less exciting ?

Zai Kuning

2006 almanac

This is onistudio current schedule for 2006, we'll still updating our line-up!

Click here for more information:

March
April