i went for future of imagination today. i really liked some of the pieces. so open to interpretation and so, dare i say, intimate, even. intimate performances are the best, like 'language' and like foi, where you can't help but be just so AWARE of what is transpiring in front of you rather than paying $100+ for seats at musicals in which you still can't see the faces of the cast (sigh, but i'm still going for Westside!).

but in the midst of watching the turkish artist desperately trying to zip up her wedding gown and everyone looking on expectantly it just really struck me (as it often does at certain times) how artists are just so brave. they just have to put themselves out there all the time, risk getting laughed at by audiences who don't understand, risk getting yawned at by unappreciative audiences, having to put up with handphones that keep going off, having to live up to the expectations of audiences like me who go in with the mindset that 'i want to be wowed'. and most importantly they WANT to make sure the audience gets touched, gets moved, gets 'wowed' in the way they intended. it's hard not to worry about that. i know what it feels like to put up a show - all the apprehension, 'do they like it?', 'why are they laughing?', 'why are they NOT laughing?' and even then i was only involved in the production side. i didn't have to REALLY put myself out there because they weren't my words or my directing or my acting to give away.

that's why i don't want to go into producing or art management or whatever (i was vaguely insulted when carol thought i was going to do art management?!). and yet, i don't have that courage - to really put yourself out there as an artist and i keep assuming i'll find it eventually with everything i experience, but now i'm not sure. i'm already eighteen and still afraid of getting burned. maybe it's something people never grow out of but HAVE to do anyway. overcome the fear? suffer for your art? that's why i keep my poetry (if you can even call it that) relatively private and obviously unpublished. i just don't want people to really KNOW, yet. it's such a queer feeling, and people say that 'poetry is meant to be read and exhibited and blah' but for me it's really not the case. 'masturbatory writing', angela used to say.

i hate the feeling of 'exhibitions' ... sometimes i feel we're always just judging or gaping at things like people who stare at monkeys in cages and clapping like they've performed good tricks - and yet they can be awfully poetic. it all depends, i think.

i can imagine it being quite monumental - my first 'exhibition' or whatever. somehow i always imagine it being an exhibition rather than a film or a play because photos or art pieces seem so much easier to 'stage', in that sense. but i haven't even done art for the longest time, and as for photography i have zilch experience or equipment. then again, i don't know? i just feel a need to direct something, i think it will be fun. maybe a bunch of us should come together and just put up something. it would be absolutely mad. what am i talking about? i am an exhibit, this blog is an exhibit, we are all exhibits in a very disturbing sense. always this constant need to communicate, to connect, to display, to be a part of rather than to celebrate loneliness and individuality and singularity? i know i feel it all the time and at times i am starkly too much aware of myself.

performance art is really amazing in that sense, because the artist IS the art piece, technically. not much else is required, not many words ... just ideas, visuals, IDEAS! which really aren't easy to come by.

but why should i continue keeping secrets i don't wish to keep (but don't know how to share)? i'm beginning to realize that it really doesn't matter sometimes, what people know and what they don't know about me.

and i really want to do plenty of things and get involved in many things and meet many more people but it is just so hard because i have such a hard time managing my time and, argh!!

i want to take time off to just wander around SAM, it is such a wonderful, beautiful place ... and then after that walk around the whole island and explore.

also, it's so hard to trust people. i'm frankly quite disappointed by the lack of confidence i have in most of the people that surround me at present.

+ posted by M @ 12:18 AM