Cannot_let_go.cda

 

Betrayal.mp3

I've recently decided to stop making artwork for exhibitions because I don't like the disingenuous nature of it. Nevertheless, at the same time, I can't let go. With this in mind, I'll continue making work to do with this line of enquiry and submitting it to shows. (But there is a moral challenge in that the system is congruous with me now rather than going against me, so it would lead to criticism.)

Sometimes loyalty is my greatest strength, but it is also an Achilles heel (or vice versa)... is ambition greed? I'm doing well professionally in the workplace, and yet I feel guilty. I feel guilty for leaving my friends behind. [I still refuse to believe meritocracy exists - I don’t think it does exist because I had a lot of help from family in the past to get to where I am now.] Why are my same-age friends stuck in dead-end jobs and living with parents, whereas I'm a homeowner with health insurance? It's very unfair. And I have friends who have double the salary I earn, but still can’t buy property. 

I’m probably continuing my art line of enquiry for my friends’ interests rather than myself.

Note to self: be very careful of infringing copyright in future artworks - I don't think I've been cautious enough in my previous works in 2025 due to lapses in judgement.- Humorously enough, maybe how I retouch the photograph of the work on my website might be an artwork in its own right, criticising copyright. I'm in a position where I have to simultaneously support and be against the systems.

Monstrous Structures.mp3

"Not knowing" why I made those tentacle structures at university, and only at university. 
In my case it's not a 'roll safe' meme, It's 'role safe'

I might be more sparse with my posts - because I've just recently started a new role, and I'm planning on doing it long-term. This role is quite fulfilling and meets my intellectual needs, actually. But I'm always wanting more, so I want to do well in my art practice too. This could mean being a member of both A-N and Axis Art. I have an issue with the paying bit as a privilege - sure - there are concessions, but it's often attached to internalised shame. Maybe I'm being pettily aware, but that's my problem with it. It's not said explicitly 'you are a serious artist if you are a member of these', but it's an unspoken code of legitimacy. I'm actually more accepting for the general system than the art system - this is a monster in its own right. I can't wrap my head around to how illogical this system is, and have fully grown adults who believe it's the holy grail method. Imagine the employees paying the company to work there - that's what the art world is. 

I feel philanthropy has something to do with this (I could cross-examine registered charity organisations and business entities). But at this moment, I'm not entirely sure how it's connected to the model. I feel strongly about this issue in a way that I can't see myself working formally within it, because it's a conflict of interest. Luckily, I've managed to gain skills in a different field.

It's not hard to see this model being replicated elsewhere. I'm updating my membership list on my artist CV and feeling like a clown while doing it, but others are going to see this and think wow, this is brilliant without realising the tomfoolery behind it. The membership grades subtly become a competition among artists, with 'I can buy a bigger sword, so my sword is better than yours'. It shouldn't be like that, but meritocracy goes from men comparing dick sizes to the symbolic, but it's deeper than a gender issue.

On another note - I think at this point, I better look at examples of funding proposals, so I know the layout and writing style of it. I could use the skills I learnt from performing audits at work to spot checking the key points in the proposal. Sometimes you can manipulate the skill into another context.

I don’t know why, I feel like I went from being emotionally related from Elphaba to becoming Glinda in wicked, why’s that? It’s like I’ve moved from the bad image to a good image in the eyes of this system.

[Why am I so preoccupied with this? I don't think it's normal to be hyperaware and fixated about it - I feel really stable but unstable at the same time. I'm finding myself just randomly googling middle class anxiety] - Actually I think my dad had this problem. When he became a manager he was still helping with a lot of manual labour and wearing joggers to work, and it made a lot of people confused. In his mind, he’s breaking stereotypes of a managerial role, but it’s too institutionalised that it’s not possible.

I remember when I first learnt how to write emails. I was new at university, and wrote an email to my lecturer that I was ill so won't attend that day. He signed off with 'kind regards' in the reply. That sign-off stuck with me since that was when I decided to learn to format my emails, and as a result of that, I usually write 'kind regards' at the end of my emails.

Imposter syndrome.mp3

I think another thing ‘blocking’ me from believing in meritocracy (if it exists), is imposter syndrome. I can’t see the internal qualities of myself that make the external positive things happen in my life. I see my choices as a fluke that my life has become stable. I feel like the previous generations of my family (and even the teachers at my old schools) did most of the work for me to make ‘good’ choices. But when something goes wrong in my life, I blame myself straight away and feel bad about it.

Is it possible we’ve been thinking meritocracy the wrong way? Maybe it’s more group effort rather than thought as an individual endeavour? But where does personal agency sit in this? - is it actually in our control?

Why does it work for some people but not for others?

Personalising_as_an_art_form.cda

 

My former secondary school made us keep a planner, and this habit stuck with me in sixth form, but I stopped when I moved out to go to university (I think I was suffering from homesickness from being far from my family). I started keeping a planner again after my mental health collapsed in 2016, and have kept that habit since. I like keeping analogue versions, because I enjoy the tactile action of writing, and the sound of pages when I flick through.

Why does art have to be outside of sketchbooks?.mp3

One of the first pieces of advice I received on the Fine Art course was to avoid making artwork in the sketchbooks. My criticism is that it made me conceptualise the schematic image of what art should be like, so that it would be accepted into the narrative of the art world. But the counterargument is that it's the course of 'how to function in professional arts', and plus it "justifies" the nine grand as a piece of legitimate institutional information. 

I mean, I guess the end goal is the white cube spaces of the galleries, and making work inside sketchbooks or books is cumbersome to present. Here is the problem - I'm observing that my creativity is split into a. what viewers in galleries would see, and b. the work I make for myself inside books. The latter became non-existent, following a very resentful and bitter version of myself. I've trained myself to care more about the results than the process of art.

I'm slowly trying to get back to creating work for myself.

I've experienced this joy when I was personalising my planner in a mini collage session. I didn't have this much fun in personalising something since my sketchbook on the astronomy theme. I'm slowly feeling more aligned with myself by accepting my limitations (introvert needs), rather than feeling resentful when I was an active artist for having exhibitions.

I just find that making work on a wall or an easel inorganic to me, because I didn't grow up making work on walls: (Maybe it’s temporal-socio). But at the same time, I don't want to make it my mission to make whatever I'm doing, legitimised within the art world. because I'm thinking why? Can't my stuff be validated on its own just by existing? Why does it have to have a system supporting it? 

Reflecting on this as a philosophical idea is empowering, but it’s my preference in doing things without wanting anyone to notice. (But what about the horrifying thought of being an accidental gatekeeper. I haven’t thought about that being a possible implication)

What if - art changes with personal maturity.mp3

I've also noticed that my creativity is becoming more practical with age. I see it flow through when I cook, bake, and make artwork that has a utilitarian purpose (like personalising my planner and diaries), more than an aesthetic one. 

Overhang of existential loneliness.mp3

I sometimes consider it a great shame that I'm not naturally a socially outgoing person, otherwise that creativity might express itself as a form of socially engaged practice - as it's something I believe is more implicitly valued by the art community at the moment, and I kind of feel left out. [In a more general sense, sometimes I think those who are “hypersensitive” to the structures, are those who are in marginalised groups in some form.]

But it's the case of: You can't have your cake and eat it too. I can't seem to appease my introvert needs and sense of belonging.

It makes me think of my history lessons, where we were discussing about the Victorian era, and there was a split between the domestic sphere and the public sphere. I feel like it’s still a concept that exists but at some intangible level, and it’s not necessarily locked within the appearances of gender. That’s why I find an incongruence with exhibitions on feminism within a gallery institution, because the institution is a patriarchal structure, that states something that it’s not - and is using the narrative as visual evidence to deceive (I don’t know how to explain it in a way that captures exactly what I’m trying to express)

Collecting_and_niches.cda

I attended the Collecting Power lecture (online) on Thursday with St Bride Foundation. It inspired me to look through my own collections. I realised my neurodivergent traits often show up on lectures. I had trouble focusing on the lecture, because of excitement rather than boredom. I started looking at my own collections within the lecture and my brain was like, 'let's start a blog post!' That was my attention span gone until the half way break, because all I was thinking about was what to write on the next post.

I think teachers are doing kids a disservice when they just say the child is being disruptive in their lessons due to boredom, because sometimes it might be the enthusiasm the child is reacting to instead of being bored. 

Photos of my collections.mp3

I'm a passive collector, where physical circumstances and exposures influence my collections. I'm not conscious of collecting things, but often end up with the same items collected from different places and life events. These are my less personal collections. I collect cards my friends, family and acquaintances send me throughout the years, but these are too personal to distribute.

I was a very prolific collector when I was a kid, I had a collection of rocks, where I'd collect rocks from different locations when we went on holiday, as well as school trends like yo-yos, gel pens, and crazy bones (maybe I peaked in childhood). I'm more into keeping my home minimal now, with muted colours and bare decor. I think this is a way of detaching myself from a chaotic childhood, because my dad was a in the borderline of hoarding. He was a collector in the sense that his collections were utilitarian and survival, such as collecting sauce sachets, disposable knives, forks, and chopsticks from the restaurants, and the free samples from hotels. And it's not just one or two, he would grab an entire handful of freebies. I think my grandmum on my dad's side used to do that too - my aunty caught her in the act when she was filming a family holiday in the 90s [I so want to analyse but ethically can't]. My dad's hoarding used to drive my mum mad, because she wanted the house uncluttered. She had a small collection of keyrings from her holidays. I think my mum's got a magnet collection now.

My brother collects sounds from the London underground. When he travels to London, he would dedicate his days there to using the underground for leisure, and record what each station, and each underground sounds like. He records sounds from buses as well. He also collects lego, builds his own ideas, and commentates the characters in his creations. [Randomly realising just how eccentric me and my family are] I keep diaries, so I guess I collect my own thoughts. 

I think the quickest way to find out what someone is like, is seeing what their collections are, or asking them what items they would take with them if their home was on fire.

These are some of the tote bags I've collected

I collect bits and pieces from art exhibits, and things like foreign travel tickets and exhibition ticket stamps.

Collected art catalogues, as well as books on the things I'm interested in at the time, so my personal library is eclectic.

My music collection. The previous generation like the action of looking through their CD collection, but in mine, it was the joy of turning the iPod nano 90 degrees and exposing the album artworks to look through. I'm gutted the iPod Classics don't have that feature.

This was actually my friend's collection of Doctor Who cards. We used to talk on the phone for hours after school about Doctor Who, and it ended up costing my dad loads of money on the phone bill. Thinking back to it, I was kind of a leech until my 20s. One of my previous driving instructors said to me his mum told him to pay her rent money as soon as he reached working age in the 70s. It's an example of generational "meritocracy" but "lifestyle inflation" is more a accurate description that masks inequality- maybe generations before a certain decade collected out of survival, with utilitarian collections, whereas generations afterwards celebrated collecting as a marker of cultural taste, consumption and excess. Like the Stanley cups, but the function of the item becomes obsolete and more looked at as a ‘museum’ artefact.

This was my second collection - my first collection was snails, when I was 5, I used to pick them up and put them in my coat pocket. I remember seeing an ad for mr Bean magazines, bought issues 1 and 2 when it came out, then and asked my dad to subscribe me to the magazine. I liked the little facts the magazines have on different subjects. I think it introduced me to
 being curious interdisciplinary rather than within one subject.

Becoming_better?.cda

Update on deleting my old Instagram.mp3

It's been nearly a month since I set my Instagram on deletion, and I feel more positive about my mental wellbeing. That might be indicative to why I felt 'undeveloped' all these years. I'm starting to feel more like an adult. I feel that I can finally leave my social media accounts with high privacy settings alone at peace, rather than constantly changing them due to that perceived personal fable that teenagers often get. Mark Manson was on point in his recent video, It's Time to (Finally) Grow Up, where he highlights that childish behaviour often gets the attention it doesn't deserve.

Update on leaving the art world.mp3

I've noticed further personal happiness when I mentally left the art world. I don't want to slate it entirely - maybe the art industry works for some people, but the system left me feeling disillusioned and fixated on my perfectionism towards creating artwork for others. It's a great shame it didn't work for me, but I want to be healthy at the end of the day, and leaving it is what I have ultimately chosen.

Having the power to act NO, rather than just saying it.mp3

I've learnt that I function better if I set all my social media to high privacy settings, and only let a couple of people in my inner circle. I've also learnt that I find it more fulfilling to make work for myself rather than please the cultural narrative, based on what galleries are selecting for their exhibitions. What left me disillusioned with the artworld is the schmoozing to get on curators' and gallery directors' good side (and for them to put on a show to the public to big you up - but it's kind of empty admiration here and there based on a transactional rapport), and paying money towards exhibitions that show the works. 2026 version of me doesn't want empty emotional calories. 

Structural concern.mp3

Dreams of becoming an art star is the same as love. Love becomes more of a practical thing rather than a romantic thing from 30s and onwards. I'm disillusioned with the system that tricks youths into spending their money and well-being towards empty promises. Historical figures who were considered successful were made to be self-absorbed by people within the system by bigging them up, making them believe they are great. This is the personal reason why I don't wish to teach art. Maybe education used to mean learning and embodying philosophy (I'm all for that), but it's becoming increasingly transactional (maybe it's been like this for a few centuries, and it's becoming more exposed to people outside that elusive circle - gatekeeping isn't as watertight in academia anymore). I don't want to support the system I don’t agree with. (Some things don't change - every time I write about this system, be it a decade ago, 5 years ago, or even now, I still feel angry. I just wish I didn't care so much. One of my goals in adult life is to learn to let go of this.) It does make me wonder though, if ‘society’s mess-ups’ are actually ‘mess-ups’, or are they just martyrs for not supporting the systems they disagree with? Is it not a structural configuration? I remember my primary school teacher criticising the people becoming bin men as punishment in her rant, caused by the naughty kids. She would have been cancelled if she said this today (and the problem with cancel culture is that it calls it out, but doesn't fix anything integral in the structure - like this blog, really - how do we fix something like this without saviour complex?). I'll probably come back to it in later posts, because it's that deep-seated and complex.

Update on health.mp3

My relationship with alcohol is healthier now. I used to drink a lot, and now I drink a glass wine or one pint of beer if I do have any. Having a driving licence has helped massively, because it's making me see drinking as a less attractive alternative than keeping myself and others on the road safe by being sober. I wake up before 6am to start my day, and have incorporated gym into my morning routine, and yoga in the evening if I'm not working that day. I go to bed at 10pm. I would have laughed if someone told me a few years ago what I'll be like now (thinking back to a time when I thought over-drinking was cool), but I'm slowly becoming the person I want to be. It’s conditioning going well according to the consensus. (I like to find the root cause of things) Maybe this healthiness feeling is the alignment with this consensus of older adults. 

Skeptic.mp3

Don't quote me on this, but historically, people would start working at dawn to get the most out of the only light source available before the Industrial Revolution. (Why did just think about Steyerl's sun factory? Rhetorical question). That's why there's phrases such as, 'the early bird gets the worm', 'early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise' exist. Times have changed, and we are living in the memories of the sun never sets, but we still associate early risers with increased productivity (because it's reinforced by what's reported about the elites waking up really early - which is followed by social learning theory - and there is a bias in science where certain evidences are less challenged than others, as well as cherry picking away from outliers in statistical trends. There was a time where doctors said smoking was healthy and encouraged the public to smoke, because of a savvy business man.

The worry is that social media influencers don't necessarily have the in-subject training to say the scientific evidence in a responsible way. They might cherry-pick data to help their cause, which most of the time, is making money). I remember the times I was really productive late at night, so I don't think this assumption of early risers being more productive is true. I'm only adopting this way of living because of my shift pattern.

[I have to plan full days of not doing anything else - to edit my blog, because thinking through these topics and editing ruins my day. And by editing, I mean add to it and make it even more dense.]

7am.cda

Universal feeling of work anxiety.mp3

I've changed the name of my blog to '7am', because its significance in culture is associated with waking up for the new (work) day, but metaphorically too. There's an almost universal dread that comes along with it.  Even the pit in the stomach anxiety the day before. I'm feeling that ugly, and privileged feeling now, after having 2 weeks off work. When I was in my teens, I had a pattern of recurring dreams at the last leg of the holidays, before the start of school. I used to dream of missing the school bus. These dreams morphed into dreams of taking maths tests at work - I had that last night and didn't sleep well. (It didn't help that it's January and Stranger Things finished.) Again this is a privileged statement - but I'm miles away from the MCR concert and seeing the Venice Biennale, so I feel like I'm in barren land.

I made a digital drawing of a radio and merged it with radio waves and 7am. There's a lot of implicit tropes in the creative community surrounding radios as a visual code and 'tuning into information'.

Lesser of 2 evils.mp3

It's the obligation of the external rules that's causing my unconscious to become unease. I don't think we can get away from the universal dread of routines, even though it keeps us mentally in check. I've just changed my work shift schedules too, from 5pm-1am back to 6am-6pm. I think I like or hate them both equally. When I was on the latter shift, I'd find myself preferring the former one, and vice versa. It doesn't matter whether what the job is, what field it is in, and how prestigious it is, I'd end up not liking it as much as I hoped - hoped - only to end up missing it after it's gone. I sometimes think about retiring (and I've tried making art as my main job). But in living in it (irresponsibly - I took a gap year after my first graduation, and my family footed the bill) and emotionally dissecting it, I ended up worrying about existential matters, such as my work identity and legitimacy. Legitimacy matters a lot more than I let on. It's pretty absurd really. And it doesn't matter how many videos I watch of people talking about this feeling, or even after talking to friends, I still feel deeply alone on this. The social consensus might say I'm overreacting, but this is how I feel.

I feel this after every weekend, and it's worse after annual leave, especially one where I spend time with loved ones. I've slept off all my sleep debt on annual leave, but it will come back this week, and I'll have no energy outside work again. 

Camus would have said to embrace life passionately, but I think it’s better to not become attached to life circumstances too seriously, but again, I might be privileged to recognise, and even tolerate with this aspect of life. [It might change in the future when I do finally fall in love with my endeavours, but it wouldn't make this interpretation of life invalid.]

4am.mp3

I slept worse than the night before. I woke up every hour, then between 3 and 4am, I woke up every few minutes. One of my dreams was kind of weird. The dream started when I was interrupted by my former classmate and I took my headphones off. We were in a studio space, and it was a seminar between us two and someone who taught me. My classmate was talking about my artwork of the paint splatters I did directly on the floor and on the wall of one of the shows. I was discombobulated, because I was wearing headphones. She didn’t have to say anything in the dream, I felt her energy. My classmate felt like his energy reminding me of my past work. (It’s the manifestation of the animus and anima again). I apologised for listening to music, but was then puzzled, as no music was playing. Could headphones be a portal? like in one of Lee Bul’s works involving headphones in an installation that connects the past with present. What if me listening to music on headphones in the dream world, is the time I’m awake in real life? It’s absurd to contemplate about, but I’d like to think what if I’m having conversations with these people on a different spatial plane? Maybe I’m being crazy. Got to defrost the car now in real life, or the non-metaphysical. Maybe abstract thought is what saves us from the clutches of the raw chaotic world. 

Side note on good and bad (vs the messy comprehension).mp3

Upon reflecting and analysing on the moralities of key characters’ dynamics in Wicked and Stranger Things - What if everyone has a point of view, and believes their view is the good one? The good and bad are myths of what we were told in childhood about morality? And we’re actually in amoral systems that clutches on the alopecic hope of childhood beliefs? Listen to Wonderful for wicked:for good. This song is self referential. He has a point when he sang about history being the true/untrue - it has a lot of uncredited labour that’s misattributed to key figures. If I learnt anything from the wizard, it’s this quote of ‘nothing bonds communities together like a common enemy.’ Be it in atrocities like wars, or academically in the battle of subjects, where the opposing subject is viewed as ‘bad’. I don’t view it personally - it’s just an observation of humanity. 

Maybe the quote from the wizard (the zeitgeist of the 21st century) is the pessimistic view of bonding communities, what is its optimistic equal where enthusiasm of humanity emanates from? Just curious on that, think we’ll benefit from having a news outlet that gives us positive things on the day (like stories of an ordinary anonymous stranger finding a wallet and returning it to the owner. Not having a name or distinctive ‘brand’ attached to the good deed makes the deed more sincere). I quite liked The New Day newspaper that was out in 2016. I first came across it in hospital and I liked the ordinary narratives the journalists used. It was a shame it finished not long after starting. Could this be attributed to ‘politics sells more’? 

The working impression I’m getting about Elphaba, is that she is naïve (which is the target of opportunist scapegoating), especially when Boq sang about the cowardly lion in March of the witch hunters. He sang that Elphaba didn’t ’let the lion make his own mistakes’. Sometimes you have to let the person make their own mistakes in order for them to learn, even though you have to watch them suffer as a result of their own actions.

It’s interesting how Henry in stranger things was also naïve before he became a vessel for darkness to utilise (but the moral narrative of stranger things is more black and white, compared to Wicked).