Imprinting06.cda

Gratitude Lyrics. I made this one in 2018. It's text art - made up of names of people who I thought influenced me in my formative years. In reality, this list would be a lot longer.

'Warning: this is an intellectual advert to dive into the Wicked and Wizard of Oz franchise'. 

Act 1:

No place like home.mp3 

 

Role models have the potential to be maternal and predatory, like the sculpture, Maman. Even the political-cultural systems like education, consumption and showbiz follow this pattern that is the familiar home (and the only homes we’ve known), but also as exploitative places.  

Merch sent by the wizard. What he represents was so wonderful, that I bought this collectable cup for £20, so I can put it in my home as some trophy - as a reward for researching so much into Wicked. At least it's not paper but it's the same, and in return, the perceived importance of these items alongside deceit (in Wicked: For Good, madame Morrible represents the media machine - that helped to create and protect the wizard's image. Glinda and Elphaba represent public figures), and this dynamic protects against anarchy. This is a neither a good or bad thing. It’s the never that hides the real in the context of Baudrillard. The hermetic truth is that the wizard is an ordinary man.

Lifting the red curtain.mp3 

 

‘My first role models had clinical depression and liked to jet off, so my internal working model is flocked (with the imaginary collective I long to be with).’ 

 

Might be the other way around, but I think some of these role models [some academics, but could also be applied to something impersonal, like social media algorithms] hate my guts, because I’ve learnt what they’ve taught me, but unconsciously refuse to play the illusory aspirational narrative. In Plato’s Symposium, it’s considered shameful to become caught by the power of role models, or even one’s own power due to the materiality. On some imaginary level, I don’t want to end up like Elphaba in the first Wicked film (musical “clean” version when compared to the original Maguire novel), where she was tricked and framed by people with authority over socio-cultural narratives. A similar trope was in Nolan’s Oppenheimer, where the protagonist was being manipulated and framed (and the film was based on a true story, so it could happen to anyone in real life - even without their own knowledge). A black and white- all or nothing explanation: These scapegoats are too strong-willed to be silenced, see what they're not supposed to see, and resist being bribed with external wealth and power, hence they are dangerous, and a threat to a corrupt system. Real life characters including myself, aren’t as morally idealistic. It kind of becomes a mindset for saviour complex.

 

Reading the yellow bricks.mp3  

 

 

I felt internally angry (deep within myself and not the regular reactionary anger), when a lecturer told me during a group tutorial in 2015, that I was a student of the university, so I’m obligated to say what my artwork is really about - as a sly dig in reaction to me downplaying my cognition out of some fear (which is probably what’s discussed in the paragraph above). Maybe this sly dig was done pre-emptively (after all, the lecturer was an artist too), so I continued to refuse to talk about true intentions - I’m manipulated regardless. Also, on a side note, the algorithm appears to not levitate my work to the masses, but the low view count on the algorithm might be protecting me from the predators that follow from fame, similar to how the lecturer was protecting me from being exploited by the academic system. Do we really have control over our decisions, or are we just prey to forces of the Other? 

 

I’ve been in this moral battle with the bigger world since my first day at primary school, which, funnily enough, was around the same time Bourgeois’ Maman was made, 1999. 

In my next post, I’ll write about spirituality, this imaginary collective - that is a guild for people seeking heavenly love.

Green and rose spectacles.mp3

ChatGPT if useful if you use it wisely. Just don't give into the prompts to share your written work for it to improve it. It’s like having a very close intellectual friend who likes to gossip and listens to hearsay facts, and that’s just the way they are. What is heavenly love? [Defying Gravity is a beautiful song if you listen to what the lyrics are saying]

Act 2: That post-writing, self-reflected under-the-hat analysis at the end-

I have tension headache now. I frequently work with people who speak little English, and when they say they feel embarrassed for their communication skill, because I’ve mastered speaking English to a fluent level- I want to tell them I understand, but I know I can’t demonstrate how I understand with a British accent. What does that make me? And now the system wants research from third generational British-Chinese students. I had an experience where someone told me they only requested to see me, because I wrote I was British Chinese in the PhD proposal. They only want someone who is willing to play along for exchange of prestige, and I was tempted. But my subconscious wasn’t allowing me to use my cognition. It’s a dishonour to have desire to work for a system that behaves like this and masks itself behind Ancient Greek ideals. I can’t do it anymore. It’s like the emerald city: collective illusion within skilled architecture, but red taped and morally deficit. On a macro level, Oz buries the whole land. In the original 1939 film, the escapists’ dream (in groundbreaking technicolour) is more real than the “real”.

 Sometimes I think there’s a deeper rationale why I only produce work about western culture- as a defiance and protective stance. Maybe I want to keep part of myself, for myself. 

Harlow’s monkeys.mp3 (writing this not sober - I feel like my writing tone is more sincere after drinking)

I’m in the process of doing shadow work, I feel like all the unpleasant bits are coming out. I low key feel like I’m becoming a bad person. I have moments where I don’t know who I am anymore. Hope there is a light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t think the roles models I had, taught me this aspect of life well enough. It’s dark, but maybe my actual role models were modelled from empty personas crafted by the PGCE system. The wire cloth monkey is systematic, efficient, and gives information as nutrients. The role models appeared too rational and put together, but at the same time, there is only so much you can visually see in someone. No one is a mind reader. Object-subject problem. Even I appear to be someone who looks ok but a bit angry at times when I have all this going on, but the anger is not presented in a way that is pathological. It’s just presented as a bit stressed and immature. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

I have a question on my mind for a while now, is giftedness classed as neurodivergence? (I think i’m 2e), but I’m too scared to identify with it or seek diagnosis, because when I indirectly suggested that I was gifted to a lecturer (whom I wrongly trusted) in 2014, he insinuated that I was too old to be classed as gifted. And part of me thinks I’m wishful thinking, if I seek diagnosis and I don’t have it, I’m a fraud. Maybe I perceived it wrongly, but people were hinting it at the MA fine art pizza party before graduation, and asked me why I was hiding - but I pretended not to know, because I felt anxious. I secretly don’t like it because it’s a burden. I ruin things because I analyse too much. I just want someone to sit with me and understand. 

I also have another question, how does one reverse sexual imprinting on the rhesus monkeys and the wire monkey that gives it food?

2e autism or ADHD but masked.mp3

There’s actually signs of me stimming, but because I’m so used to it, I don’t see it. I had this intense interest in wicked recently, that I watched the films, read the reviews,  researched the history and symbolism, analysed the songs in the musical, and listened to reviews of the original book. I want to read Maguire’s novel. I bet marketers saw this as a cash cow opportunity. I’ve also been listening to defying gravity on repeat so I can self regulate. But I thought this was normal for me. I don’t tell anyone about it though, because some level I know it’s not normal behaviour. If I told people in 2012, they’d label me as crazy and ostracise me. But I still can’t suffer in open, as I haven’t been legitimately diagnosed [what is the best way of critiquing something that is socio-politically sensitive and polarising in the 2020s?]. I’ve got this imagination that the teachers and lecturers hate me, because I’m not the ideal gifted scholar. Deep down I just want to be loved. I’m forced to be a clown now.

Internalising the broken system.mp3

After I got over being people pleasing (or maybe I’ve internalised it and feel bad for doing something wrong, or that it’s got to the point I don’t want to mask anymore), I found out that I don’t really care about social norms and mincing words. I just get by and do my own thing. I’m not here to be liked; I respect people, and I do mince my words so it’s more palatable. At the end of the day, we are Animals with social contracts and niceties based on the evolutionary model of survival. As long as I’m not actively hurting people, mince my words in a social setting (even though internally I wouldn’t say it like that), then I’m not doing anything wrong. Actually, I think I got it from my parents because they were just flat out blunt all the time (they still are, but only within the family unit, they’re actually nicer to strangers than to their own kids). 

[I write this blog, so I don’t have to be insufferable in real life. There was a time where I used to talk peoples’ ears off, but they didn’t seem to care, so I stopped trying and don’t remember how to talk at length. The energy isn’t concentrated on talking now. Maybe it was a good thing I masked myself with teachers, because I would have been a nightmare to teach if I was myself]. 

My relationship with my role models had the potential to become very good, but it’s soured. I tried to make myself better by writing (tried writing a blog for my final year of BA Fine Art, a decade ago and was one of the contributing factors that led to the psychosis in 2016). It’s only highlighting the I’m not ok, you’re not ok matrix position - and now I just feel bad and think my role models are bad. I think the relationship I have with formal education is beyond repair - I could constantly sense the system and teachers wanting the gifted aspect of myself, but not wanting the neurodivergent aspects. It's not likely that I'll go back to studying or teaching again, as there are too many ghosts. Maybe the relationships with the role models have to figuratively die, so I can walk on my own path. ‘The teacher appears when you are ready. And when you are truly ready, the teacher disappears.’

The hero, narrative and simulacrum.mp3

Seeing Dorothy and her protagonist trajectory from another angle in Wicked: for good, has made me dislike what protagonists represent, because it’s making me interpret the situation as the protagonist is just there at the right place, the right time, and succeeds because it’s convenient for influential people’s agenda in favour of the cultural narrative they are trying to set. Is success really a meritocratic internal locus of control of the individual, are they the author of that success? Or is it framed by the narrative that falls on an individual who has traits that is wanted at the time? They might become the new wizard. 

This is depicted when we see Dorothy throwing the bucket of water over Elphaba in shadow form, that references the trickery in Plato’s cave to the prisoners (the citizens of Oz). They are just accepting the social consensus of her saving the day without questioning the truth, just like how we are accepting the producer’s choice of silhouette and signifiers of Dorothy IN THE HOLLYWOOD FILM. (A place where post-industrialised legends are made)