No Contact; Disappearance

Before this blog dies for next two years from LZ's neglect, I will post my monthly post here.

I don't quite believe I'm going to embark on it myself, or that I would do something like that, or I would be ready to do something like that so soon, but I think I'm going to do it.

I read about Tehching Hsieh and Bas Jan Ader after I started teaching, so that must have been after June 2005 or later. I was never really a fan of performance art.

I don't consider what I am about to do as performance art or art at all, or 'work', or 'gesture', but simply an experiment or simply 'life'.

STATEMENT

I am going to try something new and different in life.

1. Before 31st Jan 2010, I will get a new mobile line and it will only be made known to colleagues and relatives, hence rendering it impossible for all my friends to contact me.

2. For two years starting 31st Jan 2010, I will not be on Facebook, MSN, Livejournal, and Yahoo Mail (which means if I receive an email for 100 copies of my art book I will actually miss it)

3. For two years starting 31st Jan 2010, I will not attend any gatherings (weddings, reunions, visits etc.) or meet up with any of my friends or contact them. Any meeting will be entirely according to chance or circumstance (like meeting army friends during reservist or meeting art friends at some MOE art workshop).

4. Besides the above, I will try to avoid all my usual hangouts where possible for two years, starting from 31st Jan 2010.

5. This will start on 30th Jan 2010 23:59:59 and end on 31st Jan 2012 00:00:01.

- sin

***

Besides influences from Bas Jan Ader and Tehching Hsieh (art-life synthesis, privacy, relationship/solitude), one must also remember that one of my favourite novels of all time is Soseki's "Mon", in which a man leaves home for ten days to seek satori in a Zen temple.

Believe it or not, the idea started in my university days when I was listening to an old song, Angel Hou's "Two Winters", where the lyrics go "life is quiet like disappearance, but no one would notice and it's the same, after you had left, I carried on living like this, oh this solitude, after two winters..." (video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnquqaGSNCQ)

And I thought it's a very Romantic idea to "disappear" quietly for two years...

And of course, my friend actually did something like that. (She actually "disappeared" for about three years.)

Yes, the idea is not new. No, I'm not trying to "copy" my friend...(even if I am, our experiences will be different, isn't it?)

Suddenly I realise how it all fits together in my life. People coming and going. People getting married. Friends joining or leaving the groups. My art at a standstill. Career lowpoint (at least on paper). Buddhist philosophy. And there is always Rilke: "What you need is only this: vast inner solitude."

I had also spoken about something like that to my L* S*lle friends; I'm not sure if they remember.

So it is not something so sudden after all; subconsciously I have been thinking about it.

For those who know me long and well enough, I hope you would understand me and give me your fullest support in this endeavour.

Do not expect too much; in fact, do not expect anything. I might just "keep myself alive" like Tehching Hsieh -- no sketches, no drawings, no photos, no writings...


Suggested readings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehching_Hsieh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_Jan_Ader