Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Arranging Tangerines, presented by Lady and Stater.
Speaker: Conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
Speaker: Your hosts are me, Alessandro Silver and Joseph Wilcox.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I don't know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
Speaker: This week's guest is Lao Wai.
Speaker: Lao Wai is a multidisciplinary artist, former photographer, storyteller, teacher, gamer, cat companion, and more.
Speaker: Born and raised in Hong Kong and currently based in New York, Lao utilizes photography, moving image, new media, sculptural objects, and installation to investigate how history, fiction, personal memory, and virtuality collide in the process of identity formation.
Speaker: Their research and material sources range from personal and historical archives to cinematic imagery and popular culture.
Speaker: Welcome, La Wai.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Hello, Alex.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Hi, Wai.
Speaker: Hi.
Speaker: Hey, does it work?
Speaker: I think I used a Bluetooth to connect to my headset.
Speaker: Can you hear me?
Speaker: I can.
Speaker: Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Speaker: Maybe I have to adjust this.
Speaker: Hello?
Speaker: Is it better now?
Speaker: It's better, yes.
Speaker: Okay, of course.
Speaker: I don't know why the other headset is always not working properly.
Speaker: I think it's a choice.
Speaker: I've been having these issues as well.
Speaker: It's a matter of choosing it.
Speaker: Like on the, I don't know, in Zoom, you see that bottom left?
Speaker: Bottom left?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you have a little arrow key, it lets you choose.
Speaker: If you click it, it selects a microphone.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: So sometimes it defaults to like, sometimes you have a microphone and it defaults to the computer microphone.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I always miss that.
Speaker: I always like, yeah.
Speaker: Thank you for mentioning that.
Speaker: That sounds better.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Thank you for working with my schedule.
Speaker: Well, thank you for agreeing to be on our podcast.
Speaker: Of course, of course.
Speaker: Like we said, it's just a quick conversation about the recent work in the actual show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then kind of about your practice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But first I wanted to ask you about your... How do you properly pronounce your name?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Yeah, like a question why.
Speaker: And then Lao?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And which one, so why is your first name?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you put Lao first?
Speaker: Yeah, I know it's a little confusing for like the audience, audiences in the United States because my artist name, I've been using Lao Wai as my artist name for like almost like the most of my life in the past like 10 years and such.
Speaker: And like, yeah, so I just wanted to make it consistent, you know.
Speaker: And also like it was interesting that like when I was doing shows in,
Speaker: in mainland China, they would have like a different spelling of my name according to the Mandarin pronunciation.
Speaker: But my birth name, which is in English, which is referring to the Cantonese pronunciation, which is Lao Wai,
Speaker: So in the past 10 years, I have all these different names all around the internet and social media.
Speaker: So it was so confusing.
Speaker: I have a name of Lao Wai and a name of Liu Wei, which is the Mandarin pronunciation.
Speaker: And then the traditional Chinese Chinese
Speaker: name and the simplified Chinese name and then Y. Lao.
Speaker: So I have basically wanted like five like different I don't like press names so I just want to make it more consistent.
Speaker: So what is your preference?
Speaker: So this is very in line with kind of having multiple avatars.
Speaker: Right yeah you're right you're right.
Speaker: But what is your preference?
Speaker: Right now my preference would be Lao Wai as my professional artist name.
Speaker: But personally, I go by Y. So you guys can just call me Y. It's interesting that you bring this up because I'm also starting to think of having a fictional name.
Speaker: as my, just to create like a fictional, I don't know, persona, which is like responding to the character that I made as well.
Speaker: So I don't know, it's like, I'm still thinking about that.
Speaker: Like maybe I should just use a name that it doesn't attach to any nationality or it doesn't show any particular sort of identity.
Speaker: Do you think I should like, do you think I should make that another?
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: I mean, it just seems like people have automatically done that to you.
Speaker: So now, kind of like you would take control in this instance and then make the fictional name, right?
Speaker: Because people have kind of changed your name, whether you want to or not, right?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And now you're like, my choice.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: That's very interesting.
Speaker: Well, thanks again.
Speaker: Thanks again for being in the show.
Speaker: I think we're probably going to put this episode out next week.
Speaker: So the show won't officially be out, but the people can still request to see the show if they reach out to us.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: It'll still be in the space.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Until when?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think we have to talk to you guys.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You need your suit back, right?
Speaker: Not that urgently, but it would be great if I can have it back in about a week.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So then that's it.
Speaker: Yeah, but also if there are any others, if there are anyone who wants to see the show, like maybe in the coming few weeks, I'm okay to keep the suit at the space as well.
Speaker: No, we definitely would accommodate your needs.
Speaker: So I mean, even if we don't have to have the suit there, we could still have the video going.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sounds great.
Speaker: The suit needs to work.
Speaker: I miss the suit.
Speaker: I'm kind of like skinless.
Speaker: But what is it?
Speaker: So the name of that character?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Of the, when you wear the suit.
Speaker: What is that again?
Speaker: Oh, so far I named it as the pre CGI body.
Speaker: I should probably like think of another better name.
Speaker: I think this is, this is a little too long for, for most of the people.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: Because, let me see, I had a question here from, oh, sorry, Joe couldn't make it today because Fridays are really busy for him.
Speaker: Okay, okay, it's fine.
Speaker: Thanks for letting me know.
Speaker: He did have some questions, and I think one of them was a relationship to the actual suit.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: He did say, so his question is, how does low-tech production, the fake MoCat suit, but also quirky, deepfakes, chunky modeling, play into your practice?
Speaker: How do you see the significance of this and how would it be different if the production level was really high?
Speaker: Is that of interest to you or is lo-fi required?
Speaker: Oh, that's a really good question.
Speaker: I think when I was starting to be exposed to all this CGI world and the fake AI technologies and such, it was around 2017, 2018, when I was trying to incorporate those elements in my work.
Speaker: At first I'm trying to make it into a really high production looking sort of as an end product.
Speaker: I'm trying to... I was collaborating with this CGI artist in order to make certain CGI images as well as the video.
Speaker: But then...
Speaker: I think since I came here, I started to change my thinking into questioning whether I would have to reach that sort of like, maybe let's say like a Hollywood production level, or can I just keep it as a really consumer level?
Speaker: and as like the end product.
Speaker: And there were a lot of conversation that I had with one of my mentors when I was studying here, who is Matthew Ritchie.
Speaker: He is an amazing artist who's also like having works focusing on the AI technologies and the systems around the world right now as well.
Speaker: And I think he inspired me a lot and also like in suggesting me that if I was doing something which is like fulfilling the same standard or the outcome as most of like the commercial productions are,
Speaker: what is the point?
Speaker: Like, do I have to fulfill that?
Speaker: And then that was the point I started to question.
Speaker: And then later on, I started to play with like all this like really low tech outcome.
Speaker: And beforehand, I was using those applications and software.
Speaker: I just have to like, um,
Speaker: I just have to adjust all this broken data in order to make it more seamless.
Speaker: But at a certain point, I realized that those glitchiness was something that was so contemporary as well.
Speaker: It was really unique at this moment of time.
Speaker: And I also started to realize that years after years, the glitchiness of all this end product that was produced from those applications of software are getting much less and less.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: which means what we are experiencing now, what we're looking at, what we're seeing visually right now is pretty unique.
Speaker: At that point I was trying to embrace all this really lo-fi process and also the outcome as well.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's a smart way to go about it because I think when you do produce at a high... When you have that high production level, the content also reads differently, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You read it from a standpoint of almost like entertainment or Hollywood.
Speaker: The story, I think it...
Speaker: I'm not going to say it buries the story, but it might interfere with the actual narrative that you're trying to get across.
Speaker: A lot of the, or at least the videos I've seen from your work, you do a lot of mining from your histories, from your experiences.
Speaker: To add
Speaker: Hollywood level production levels.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I guess you would have to see it, but I would think it would interfere with the message.
Speaker: I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker: That's just me.
Speaker: Well, it's also in addition, I want to mention, because also I came from like a commercial photography background.
Speaker: I was working in sort of high-end commercial productions in Hong Kong.
Speaker: I've been working in that industry for long.
Speaker: And every product that we were making at that time was like, we're trying to reach this really
Speaker: I love my discord.
Speaker: It's just like all this production, it doesn't actually add much value into that content.
Speaker: As you mentioned, it's almost like fantasizing a model or a product, and it's only for the aim of selling more product or promoting certain things, which doesn't actually, to me, represent that much value.
Speaker: Yeah, so that's why I also don't want to go back on that crap maybe.
Speaker: I mean, that's a great question because we saw that during the pandemic when all, like, if you watch any sort of television that was still being produced,
Speaker: A lot of it had to be done remotely.
Speaker: So you didn't have the luxury of having these high-end studios to do the, to say the Conan O'Brien show or whatever.
Speaker: So they had to do their own little productions in their own houses.
Speaker: And they had to learn from YouTube.
Speaker: Like these people that were been in the industry for years, these amazing videographers and lighting techs, they're like...
Speaker: they had these overproduced things they didn't know how to peruse really simple video that kind of like went straight to so they had to find out from like the youtube channel like the 16 year old in their in their in their bedroom producing the videos they had to go back to that to make content right right right that was interesting yeah go on
Speaker: It's a good reminder.
Speaker: That's true though.
Speaker: I really enjoyed watching those presentations from all this professional TV presenter in a home setting.
Speaker: That was amazing.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Just to finish the questions from Joe, he did ask, how do you approach filming and editing like in Feed 3.0?
Speaker: Do you storyboard or plan your shots first or is it more of a collect video and then you synthesize afterwards?
Speaker: Oh, I think the process was, it was started first, I was filming at different locations and then the script came in between.
Speaker: And then I go like back and forth.
Speaker: So I was like filming and then like, I started to have like a script and then like, I would need to have additional footages and then I have to like film that.
Speaker: And then I go back on like,
Speaker: re-editing the script as well.
Speaker: So it's a work in progress as far as, but you have a main idea, but then you're kind of like, you're changing as the footage comes in?
Speaker: Yeah, I think.
Speaker: And I'm still working on that as well.
Speaker: I guess right now, every work I'm putting up right now is like a little by little, chapter by chapter, sort of like a sequence, not sequence, but it's like the way that I'm trying to present the work right now.
Speaker: So they all kind of like, it's just a continuation?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And then the last question before I move on to my question.
Speaker: Is the avatar we see in the videos, is that a completely fictional character or something in between?
Speaker: Is it you?
Speaker: In which video?
Speaker: I think specifically he's talking about like in V3.0.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: But then the MoCat suit character that you kind of like feature.
Speaker: Yeah, that was me dressing up.
Speaker: But the character itself, are we supposed to imply that it's you or is it a fictional character or is it something in between?
Speaker: I think I was expecting that it could be in between.
Speaker: Some people will recognize that it's me, but then when I realize, when the audiences don't recognize that it's the artist, that would also work as a different...
Speaker: like dimension as well I think both both conversations that I had with uh with the audiences whether they know that it's me or whether or not like those are both like uh really those are both like really interesting like direction and I I wouldn't want to like eliminate
Speaker: any of the perspective.
Speaker: I'm pretty open by people who see it.
Speaker: Because I think that also responds to the reason why I'm using my own body.
Speaker: It's just because I see my body as a device, which carries a lot of content which is...
Speaker: or echoing with maybe like a group of community or like a certain group of people or like people could find like their entry points at different points so I'm like me but also like not me so maybe that is how I see the character I think
Speaker: I completely love that.
Speaker: One of the things I wanted to tell you is how much I relate to your work.
Speaker: It just seems, having gone through the works on your website, for instance, the photo album, I think it's called Here.
Speaker: Yeah, or hear an album.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, I know it's very specific.
Speaker: Again, I think that this is a lot of your work.
Speaker: It's very specific, obviously, to you and to your experience.
Speaker: But I can't help but see myself and my experience in that.
Speaker: And I often... Oh, that's great.
Speaker: I think the specificity of that is always, I think, always lends itself to more universal readings.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because you, I mean, in that particular, in that particular work, you're, you're mining from your past and you talk about your grandparents.
Speaker: So they're migrating from mainland China to, to Hong Kong.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And just, I could imagine how different that must have been for them and just like a rupture, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just to relate to myself, it's,
Speaker: my parents are from the Dominican Republic and my grandmother and my father's side, she migrated to Manhattan.
Speaker: from an island in the Caribbean.
Speaker: I can only imagine how different that must have been.
Speaker: But that happens in the 50s, right?
Speaker: And then she brings over my father and his two brothers, and they have to, and they're teens, and they kind of have to navigate this metropolitan city that's not the Dominican Republic.
Speaker: And what does that mean?
Speaker: And then, like, whatever.
Speaker: Fast forward to now I'm first generation...
Speaker: american but yeah i can i completely saw myself in those images and the i love the way that they're fragments and they're they're kind of like that you don't necessarily focus on the actual image of the person sometimes it's like a detail or or an embellishment or or i love the the photographs of like the um the decorations like of official documents like
Speaker: I think a lot of that's really beautiful but it's meant for anti-forgery right because you're not supposed to forge whether it's like a passport picture or passport or some kind of official document or even on money you see a lot of very decorative like line drawings but it's it's real use is to try to keep forgers from making fake copies of the thing but you point those out
Speaker: That's really great.
Speaker: And thank you for sharing your story, like your family, my migration story.
Speaker: I'm always really interested in knowing how human beings are moving around the world.
Speaker: They always carry a really intriguing history.
Speaker: I'm so glad that I could hear that today.
Speaker: And it was amazing that you were telling me that you could relate
Speaker: to your own family history and all this migration, transitional experiences.
Speaker: That was great because when I first showed that series in the US to the US audiences,
Speaker: I didn't get much responses because maybe at that time, I thought that was too regional specific, but at the same time, I think that shouldn't be because it's also a universal experience as well.
Speaker: And maybe it's because it's an old work and I was mostly showing the Here and Album series in Asia.
Speaker: So the responses I got was really different.
Speaker: I'm so glad to hear what you say.
Speaker: Well, yeah, I mean, the same thing happens in the video with the I am invincible on the screen.
Speaker: I mean, the same thing is the same way I, well, not the same way, but I relate to that
Speaker: For the audience, before I say what I want to say, do you mind explaining what the video I Am Invincible on the screen, the false motion tracking is about?
Speaker: Yeah, that is a two channel video work that I made actually in 2019.
Speaker: But then it was finalized in 2020.
Speaker: I think it's during the pandemic, a lot of like...
Speaker: just a lot of thoughts and like editing like that has been changed and that is a work that is it was starting from a series that I made earlier in 2018 which is called the memories of tomorrows and that is a project that I was focusing how Hollywood cinema from the 1940s to nowadays
Speaker: represent or portray peoples of Chinese design as well as East Asian design as well.
Speaker: Because in all those productions, there's a huge mix of Asians to be seen as just one flat as a whole.
Speaker: But there was so many different countries and so many different cultures as well.
Speaker: And that was a trigger point.
Speaker: And then I am invincible slash force motion tracking.
Speaker: It was a combination of materials that I used for that project.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: And then I use a mobile application which has a diff-fake algorithm that I could just use it to change the facial expression or the line of the character or the movie still that I was extracting from all those movies and all those archives.
Speaker: And I was just recreating their lines.
Speaker: and trying to make like a new sequence of those footages
Speaker: And then afterwards, almost like after a year, I've been like talking with many people regarding to this short video.
Speaker: And then many of them was telling me that like, they didn't know that I was actually performing behind the camera.
Speaker: And it's true that like,
Speaker: they can only see like this character was being altered and then like their face and their like gestures was like I think so weird but then they don't know that was me which is like behind that skin, behind that still image and then that is why I started to think of maybe I should bring my present
Speaker: at front as well.
Speaker: Then that was the time I'm trying to look for like different characters that I can portray and such.
Speaker: And at one point that I was looking into all this making of, um, footages of those Hollywood like CGI, like VFX productions and
Speaker: And it was kind of intriguing, but at the same time really sad to see that, to see all those people who were performing behind the VFX production.
Speaker: They were dressing up with this motion tracking outfit, and then their performance recorded 360 degrees.
Speaker: which means that they have to consider all these different camera angles, which is an amazing performance they have to master.
Speaker: It's way harder than how you would perform just by considering only one camera angle.
Speaker: It's a totally different level of performances.
Speaker: But then at the end, the end product, like you wouldn't be able to see their face or their body.
Speaker: There will always be a different characters or like a different skin that's going to be attached or rendered on top of their performances.
Speaker: And that is like a point that I feel like
Speaker: I somehow could relate to this character a little as well.
Speaker: I think in terms of how we live globally nowadays, we're always being represented by all different external forces as well, as well as our own self.
Speaker: And even through...
Speaker: through all those like platforms, for example, like social media and such, like we're always like creating a different persona of our own bodies.
Speaker: So that is the trigger point that I wanted to just like get into their shoes and just be one of them.
Speaker: And then I make this fake motion tracking outfit and then I've been like dressing this and then going outside and then taking footages and such.
Speaker: Sorry, I think I get lost.
Speaker: Oh yeah, back to the video.
Speaker: And for I am invincible slash false motion tracking,
Speaker: The other part of the video that has this character, which I perform, dressing in this fake motion capture outfit and trying to mimic what was created from the deep fake application and what was created on the other screen.
Speaker: So this is basically what this two channel works is about.
Speaker: I mean, an incredible piece.
Speaker: I've watched it several times and every time I watch it, I get something different out of it.
Speaker: Initially when I saw it, I was, we were doing the studio visit with you at NARS.
Speaker: And I think, I don't know if I got to talk to you about it, but again, back to the specificity, kind of bringing out the universality, the,
Speaker: So Anglo-Saxon playing an Asian character, that happened a lot also with Latino characters, especially in the 50s and 60s, where you had white people doing Spanish characters.
Speaker: Oh, right, right.
Speaker: And it just brought me to that space where it's like you have this...
Speaker: up until then, there's no acceptance of like, even in, I don't know, the original West Side story.
Speaker: So Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican and she's playing a Puerto Rican character.
Speaker: Even her, they actually made her wear brown makeup to make her more brown.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: she's the she's the authentic puerto rican in the story but she she wasn't puerto rican enough for the for the producers so they actually had to make they had to they had to put brown paint yeah so i mean again i completely relate to seeing this uh the otherness uh um and then at one point at the video towards the end the character i think it's a so
Speaker: What does he say?
Speaker: There was a character at the end that's like... I forget what he says.
Speaker: But he's inside the house and he's wearing a domestic.
Speaker: He's like, I changed or something.
Speaker: And he's like, you didn't recognize me?
Speaker: He's a servant, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So is that... Complete 360?
Speaker: First of all, first you were trying... I don't know.
Speaker: It's almost like... I don't even know.
Speaker: it made me think of just the whole implication of colonization and like now now I'm subservient in the actual process like now I'm now I'm one of you like you can you've forced me to kind of like uh into the space but it's it's really really really fantastic well I'm glad
Speaker: I think the ending part is... Also, this character is... I don't know if you recognize this.
Speaker: This character is the same as the previous shot in the video.
Speaker: And then it's also the same as... Sorry, I should make a shot.
Speaker: The last couple, four characters is actually the same actor.
Speaker: It's from the same actor.
Speaker: So he's been performing.
Speaker: All these different types of...
Speaker: stereotypical or like, I don't know, just a different persona that they were being asked to perform.
Speaker: And at that time, like, I think it's also like not that easy for like Asian Americans or like, or Asian to get into like a main role or main characters into all those like early Hollywood productions.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Of course, right now this has been changed a lot, but at that time, I think they realized they were actually performing something that they actually don't want to contribute to be part of building up this stereotypical portrayal.
Speaker: Yeah, but then there wasn't many roles being given to those certain actors and actresses.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But I mean, you could probably tell me more than... You probably know more about this than I do, but the whole Hong Kong cinema, especially in the 80s and 90s, we saw of it, like a lot of action movies and stuff, but there was a whole kind of explosion of cinema coming from Hong Kong.
Speaker: with different representations yeah with kind of like kind of like what you're saying where you're you're taking you're kind of taking control of what you're what the representation is as opposed to waiting for someone to do that for you right yeah it was sort of i was gonna say was that was that part of your your influence as far as like cinematics
Speaker: Yeah, I think that is a lot.
Speaker: That is a lot as well.
Speaker: And I think in relation to all these different regions, different regional movies production, it was really amazing to see how Hong Kong movies are getting to be more distributed worldwide because it's really changing the languages of how...
Speaker: like different audiences worldwide seeing the characters and seeing Hong Kong and people with different East Asian descent as well.
Speaker: I think it's really necessary for all this global distribution to be more freely presented, I would say.
Speaker: So the feed was a feed 3.0.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can you talk a little bit of that?
Speaker: I know we talked about it a little bit in the beginning where you talked about how you kind of like found the script and you kind of like shot a little bit and kind of re-edited.
Speaker: Can you talk a little bit more about it's part of an ongoing series, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and this character is that the first time we kind of fully see the character realized oh yeah i would say this is like uh for the 3.0 it was made after the uh video of i am invincible slash force motion tracking and it was at that time that like after i introduced that character i felt like like
Speaker: I wanted to bring them into real life situations, showing them how they were like when they were stepping out of the stage, just not performing what they were asked to perform, but just figuring out themselves in daily life and such.
Speaker: So that is how I start the video.
Speaker: And just by filming at first, it was just like a fun exercise at first.
Speaker: I was just thinking like, yeah, maybe I should just bring myself out and dress in this, like he said, hilarious outfit and see how all the people are responding on the street or in the subway or different parts of New York and Hong Kong.
Speaker: And, but anyway, once I, the more I've filmed at different locations outside, the more I realized, like,
Speaker: there's a sense of like, I feel like I'm trying to look for who I am.
Speaker: And that becomes like the script that I was trying to develop later on.
Speaker: So in the video of Fit 3.0, you can see like first that will be
Speaker: This character, which is me, washing dishes at home and then getting up from bed and just watching TV and such in my previous apartment.
Speaker: And then they were just going out and then going to the subway.
Speaker: That was like, it's just reflecting, it's just reflecting to what I was like actually, my surrounding at that time.
Speaker: But in the video, once they started to like, once they were in the subway and then after a certain period of time, they did.
Speaker: they were thinking about all these memories that they have.
Speaker: And then that was the point that I was trying to turn that moment into Hong Kong.
Speaker: And maybe that is also reflecting to what my experience was while I was in the U.S. in the past few years.
Speaker: Honestly,
Speaker: this like transnational experiences that has changed a lot and has changed a lot of my thinking of like this sense of belonging has been changing and I think it's still I'm still having this dialogue with myself of like how it goes and also like what
Speaker: I wanted to be or what I'm becoming.
Speaker: And also in relation to what or who I am before or what my past was before.
Speaker: And that was the part of the second half of the video is basically this character was trying to look through their past
Speaker: and then trying to locate who they are.
Speaker: But actually, it's like an ongoing and struggling sort of dialogue as well.
Speaker: Maybe not like struggling, but like, it's this moment that they were confused by where they were supposed to be.
Speaker: So that is what the other half is about, basically.
Speaker: Yeah, because the character, just for the audience who's just listening, is so you're wearing a MoCat suit with a green screen behind you, and you're in the New York City subway, which I got to say, you have to go pretty far to make, to pique the interest of somebody on the subway, especially during commuter hours in New York City, because you could see some pretty far-out things, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't know if necessarily you piqued a lot of people's interest.
Speaker: Did you?
Speaker: No, surprisingly not.
Speaker: I'm not surprised.
Speaker: Okay, okay.
Speaker: But I love how the characters, when watching TV, it's just the footage of a green screen.
Speaker: It's like a projection of a projection, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And then the subtle difference between shifting from New York City to then Hong Kong and then just the questioning, like you're saying, like, is this even real?
Speaker: Like, is this even like, what am I, where am I going, what am I doing?
Speaker: And it's like, what is this?
Speaker: I don't think, especially in regards to the show, the neither here nor there,
Speaker: your work is completely within that confine of constantly questioning between the digital and the physical and the intertwined, like just almost like, um, just acceptance of the inner, the, that the two are intertwined for better or for worse.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And trying to make sense of it.
Speaker: And what does that mean going forward?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It seems like, especially having seen the trajectory of some more recent work, like you even do, there's even, I didn't, I don't see the work, but so the, you had something in Minecraft as well.
Speaker: Oh yeah, that was actually a commission work that I made with a festival in Hong Kong called the New Vision Festival.
Speaker: And then they basically commissioned me and other artists to make a project using Minecraft.
Speaker: So basically we are the concept like deliver a person.
Speaker: But then we have like a team to...
Speaker: build the world according to the idea that we have.
Speaker: And at that time, I'm trying to use references of different Hong Kong movies, as you mentioned earlier.
Speaker: This is one of my other influences as well.
Speaker: And I'm trying to recreate and then connect all this scenario from different Hong Kong movies, which are shot in the same location, in an area called East Kowloon.
Speaker: And I'm trying to recreate that in the Minecraft world.
Speaker: So that is actually what that is about.
Speaker: I mean, that's super interesting.
Speaker: So what, what, what, how did, how was that?
Speaker: So was that experienced through the gaming environment or is that just shown as snippets, like a video snippets of the actual final product?
Speaker: It's true that the actual gaming experience, yeah, they are for the audiences.
Speaker: They will be able to go, if they have a Minecraft account, they will be able to go into the, uh,
Speaker: the game world and then to experience everything from there.
Speaker: Oh, you'll have to send me a link because my daughter, my 10-year-old is completely entrenched into Minecraft.
Speaker: Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker: I'd love to see it.
Speaker: I'm going to send you that then.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I didn't know that.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's... So then...
Speaker: I guess the other questions I had with regards to the piece that you have in the actual show, Lydian Stater, neither here nor there, where you're also wearing the MoCat suit and you're giving fictitious directions, it looks like, to the camera.
Speaker: And then you have an animation on the other side of an avatar kind of fulfilling possibly those directions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and um the other day when you passed by the gallery and you had said to me something along the lines of um the show kind of like helped you see something a little bit different about your possible future trajectory i wanted to hear more
Speaker: I wanted to see if you would flesh that out a little bit as far as like, what was it that kind of clicked or made you kind of like think in a little bit different way?
Speaker: Well, I think that was, first of all, I think it was like mostly in, that was partially about the NFT and then the VR galleries.
Speaker: First of all, like I never made NFT works before.
Speaker: And I haven't had much experience of having a show that has a VR gallery at the same time as well.
Speaker: But this time, it was like, everything was way beyond my expectation because I started to realize, you guys let me make me realize that for the VR work or the NFT work, it could be a component of a whole series of work.
Speaker: Or maybe it could work as a...
Speaker: partial trigger point of other physical work as well, as I never see that could happen in that way.
Speaker: I was always thinking NFC as one entity and then that's it.
Speaker: And also the VR gallery, maybe it could always be just a replica of the actual physical exhibition.
Speaker: It's like some...
Speaker: VR exhibition that I did before.
Speaker: It's just like there wasn't this additional layers or direction that was being added with this physical exhibition.
Speaker: So this time I was really inspired.
Speaker: And then I also started to think about how they could go into hand-in-hand and how they could echo with each other.
Speaker: I think that is something that I never followed before.
Speaker: It was like they wouldn't be able to stand alone, like the physical work and the VR work.
Speaker: They have to come together in order to be like complete work.
Speaker: I really like that.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it works really well.
Speaker: And then to come also, also the opposite happens as well as this orientation of being in the virtual space in the physical space at the same time when you're, when you like the realization of the two at the same, trying to,
Speaker: Yeah, you're trying to grasp the two.
Speaker: And it's like you kind of have a hold of a little bit more of one thing than the other.
Speaker: And depending on whether you're in the virtual reality space, whether you're in the physical space, it's like you're saying, it's like the whole is bigger than just the parts.
Speaker: But then you try to grasp both of them and you can't.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm glad that you have that feeling.
Speaker: It's like, I don't know, it's also like, I don't know, like all these feelings that maybe most people, including me, were experiencing right now is this lost track of many things, but at the same time, like maybe you are still in control, but actually maybe you're not.
Speaker: It's just like always like in this dialogue, you know,
Speaker: I mean, look at us.
Speaker: We're doing a Zoom meeting, even though we both live in the same city, but it was just easier.
Speaker: Even though either one of us could have gotten on a train and gone to the other person's place and sat down and set up the microphone.
Speaker: So yeah, it's like, what is this mixture of reality and virtual spaces?
Speaker: I guess the final questions for you would be, what's in the works for the future?
Speaker: And
Speaker: are these factoring in um yeah what's in the what's in the future for you
Speaker: Right now I'm also basically it's like developing this character but with different forms and platforms.
Speaker: I'm still making like another video works like of this character with the digitized different digitized version of myself and also other people.
Speaker: And that would be like a video work and then
Speaker: On the other hand, I'm building a website with some of our collaborators from Hong Kong that we wanted to try to use the networked space, like a website, to use it as a medium for presenting this character and making different interactions.
Speaker: And that would be, we're still in this early stage, but roughly that would be about giving an experience of getting to know this fictional character through the platform, through the website of different interactives of...
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: So you get more, so it's going to be more, as far as the background from this character, you get like histories and different aspects and different perspectives of the same characters.
Speaker: But still keeping, it's still kind of like anonymous as well, right?
Speaker: This character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right now I'm trying to write like a fake history of this character.
Speaker: And then with some of the materials of my own, but with loads of the materials that I was like downloaded from like the internet, it's like a combination of this real person.
Speaker: But at the same time, at a certain point, you might realize, like, hold on, like, this may not be real.
Speaker: It's always like, yeah, that's in between like a relationship that I'm trying to build right now.
Speaker: It will always be fictional, but like maybe somehow it's not completely fictional as well.
Speaker: Well, that sounds fantastic.
Speaker: I can't wait to see.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll keep you guys posted.
Speaker: Well, absolutely.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's all I've got.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: Thank you for being in the show.
Speaker: Thanks for the amazing work.
Speaker: Thanks for taking the time.
Speaker: But yeah, thanks.
Speaker: And can't wait to see what comes up of this character in the future.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: Arranging Tangerines is recorded, edited, and produced by Lydian Stater, an evolving curatorial platform based in New York City with a focus on the intersection of contemporary and crypto art.
Speaker: You can learn more at lydianstater.co, find images at lydianstaternyc on Instagram, and follow us at lydianstater on Twitter.
Speaker: Thanks to Lauwai for taking the time to speak to us this week.
Speaker: If you'd like to learn more about their work, please visit their website at w slash a slash i slash studio dot com.
Speaker: Big thanks to Tall Juan, who graciously provides our intro music.
Speaker: His albums are available at tallwan.bandcamp.com.
Speaker: And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I don't know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I don't know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
Speaker: I know what to do, I know what to say, I just go.
