diacritic | art and culture

Last weekend, we tested the a prototype for the floating surface in the swimming pool of our friends Tsering and Sita. We were surprised at how heavy object was. Would it even float? While it could sustain its own weight, it could not bear much more. We improvised and placed an inflatable tube underneath and only then did it had enough buoyancy carry a person. We'll need to make some fundamental modifications to the object, including expanding the surface area, its mass above the water while hopefully minimizing its own weight. And the ocean will be another experience altogether.

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I'm managing a number of concurrent projects with varying success and as a result the blogging has has suffered. But to let some exciting projects slated for this summer out of the bag:

Mogas Station. Rokovoko (Production sketch).

52nd Venice Biennale 2007
Mogas Station will participate in this year's Venice Biennale with a new work, Rokovoko, as a part of the Migration Addicts project curated by Biljana Ciric. The video work will be produced over the next months in Vietnam. The title of the project comes from a passage in Herman Melville's Moby Dick:

"Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down on any map; true places never are."

We are under a serious time crunch to produce the work, perhaps the tightest we've seen yet. But so far, this is one of the biggest breaks yet and we're determined to see each project through. Opening June 10, 2007

ZKM | Center for Art
Mogas Station as well as individual entries from its members will be exhibited during the Thermocline of Art. New Asian Waves exhibition curated by Wonil Rhee at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany. I plan to present a new series of c-prints called Mesovelia, or the Water Treaders with a 2005 series of prints entitled The Loudest Sound. Opening June 15, 2007.

A.ART 2
We are currently working on our sophomore issue of A.ART. It looks to be a strong follow-up to our premiere at the Singapore Biennale 2006 with the Camouflage Issue. Our next focus is on Climate Control. If everything works out to plan, we can hopefully distribute at the ZKM, Documenta and the Venice Biennale, all opening in June 2007.

Singapore and More
I'll be heading to Singapore in connection with Wonderful Weekend organized by the Saigon-based Wonderful District and TheatreWorks and ArtsNetworkAsia in April. Throughout the year, I'll be working on two other projects with Theatreworks under the Mobilising Arts Communities (MAC) umbrella: 1) Creative Connections (Sáng tạo Kết nối), a series of workshop for youth merging design and industry and 2) Future Perfect Tense, an architectural modeling installation re-imagining Saigon. Also on the list is the development of a performance for Future of Imagination 4 (FOI4) slated for September in Singapore.

The plate is full and I'm also now teaching full-time at RMIT. So, I'll close now and prepare my next lectures on intertextuality and semiotics.

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