“You and I Both” by Jason Mraz… “Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me? Oh things are gonna happen naturally and taking your advice I’m looking on the bright side and balancing the whole thing…”

Dan had bagged tickets for the last show of William Yang’s Shadows, a theatre piece where Yang narrates his audience through a slideshow of his photographs to the music of the Aboriginal people. This show would take us out to the east end of London, so I figured it would be a good idea to kill a few birds with one stone. Not literally of course. It’s just that I hadn’t walked along the south bank of the Thames for a long time and it had been just as long since my last visit to the Tate Modern.

We always have discussions about abstract concepts and those topics that hover around the categories for religion and the supernatural. Dan and I both agree that we’re sceptical of things such as ghosts and UFOs. A part of me wants to believe in those things, particularly ghosts, but a larger part of me dismisses these things as having scientific explanations. It seems that since I am a non-believer, I will be destined to never see a ghost or a UFO, which suggests a psychological canvas. The closest Dan comes to believing in UFOs is a passage in the book of Ezekiel where he describes alien-like beings. It’s debatable and whilst some would say that his observations were of alien life forms and craft, some would say that Ezekiel was describing angels and the Zodiac.

Evolution was another topic that came up. There are some schools of thinking that humans are the pinnacle of evolution. For many years, all evolutionary biologists stood firm on the notion that the evolution of DNA is totally random. Now, the pack has been split with some biologists adopting the stance that evolution may be biased towards a humanoid form. In the vastness of space, it would make sense to consider other intelligent life forms out there in galaxies far, far away. It’s staggering to comprehend that we arrived at the human form we know today over millions and millions of years of mutations, errors and corrections in our DNA. But why did man evolve from ape? Why did we not evolve from something else, like a bird? This kind of implies that there is a hidden system at work, pushing genes and DNA to evolve towards a particular (biped) form. Something equally staggering to consider is what will become of the human form in millions of years. Something could happen on that changes the way we interact with our environment. Say for example something were to happen that would make the sun suddenly glow even brighter. This may eventually pave the path for babies born with subtle differences such as thicker eyelids and further down the line something less subtle like a more complex visual system that has adapted to the change. But it’s not like man can choose which of these differences occur. No, these changes happen naturally, but if they happen in response to changes in environment, then it suggests that something is controlling the way humans develop and evolve. Richard Dawkins fans would say that the gene is the entity that is in total control; that the gene is selfish and will do anything to survive in its hosts. In the unforseeable millions of years to come, would genes dictate the human form as we know it to evolve further to incorporate other features? Perhaps selection will favour things such as elongated limbs and additional digits? It’s difficult to think this way because evolution itself is the driving force by which a species can improve itself and humans are by no means perfect. In a million years, homo sapiens may have additional and more highly developed organs and features, such as a more complex digestive system. I’m sure many socialites and people alike wouldn’t object to a stomach that could process alcohol more efficiently.

Dan and I walked from Waterloo to the Tate Modern. It was a pleasant walk, with a light chill in the air keeping us company for the duration of the journey. The Tate Modern is a huge building and though I’m not certain of its previous life, it does resemble what may have been an old power station. The low almost ultra-violet purple light sitting atop of the building ensured that lost parties could navigate themselves to some questionable art with ease even at night. At the moment, the first thing to hit you upon entering the Tate Modern is the slightly denser air to the outside, for beside the foyer is a large installation recreating a setting sun. A lot of people were clicking away their shutter buttons so I suspect that there may be many pictures of the Tate Modern’s sun installation making cameo appearances in blogs around the country. There was a definitive haze in the air, thanks to the ambient orange glow and the dry ice being pumped into the room. It certainly made for opportunities in artistic blurry photography but I doubt mine hold more aesthetic value than those from Ci’en’s trip last month. People laid sprawled out on the floor in front of the imitation sun, glaring upwards at the mirrored ceiling that created the sensation that we were tapping into an alternate dimension that mirrored our own. The artist had managed to create an exhibit with the power of many lazy beams, for I noticed a few people lying on the floor with their eyes closed for longer than a few blinks. I could understand that myself as I noticed sleepiness slowly creeping into the room. It was like one large chill-out room and the only thing I’d imagine to be missing were peace pipes bellowing out smoke of their own.

The sun installation was the real centre piece of the Tate Modern this time round. The other segments that were memorable for me were the optical and kinetics gallery, which proved that parallel straight lines play havoc with one’s eyesight, and a fragile piece where assorted debris sorted by size was suspended by string concentrically around a central light bulb. The debris came about by blowing up a garden shed and its contents. The fragments of the blast were sorted by size and then arranged around the floating light bulb to imitate the shed at the moment of explosion, with the light source representing the initial spark from the blast. I was pleased to see sketches by Picasso and one of the proponents of modern pop art, Jeff Koons‘ work on show too. You may know his work from adverts for Nike and Jim Beam, but I heard of him because of his equilibrium tanks. These were tanks filled with water, displaying various objects such as basketballs suspended in the centre of the tank. Koons said that the objects represented a floating state of being that was difficult to attain in today’s consumer-oriented society. The suspended objects signified the unreachable equilibrium of moral values in a capitalistic world where life is packaged to portray artificial values. I find the concepts of his work most agreeable because I for one resolve that society is governed by things such as fear and the pursuit of commodities; a herd mentality that is infused deeply into society to the point where we no longer do or purchase some things because we want to, but rather because everyone else does. Even though we desire to be unique, we all want to belong and fit in too. Ultimately, this makes us analogous to building blocks that form a larger construct, which in this case is society and we as blocks are manipulated by the hands of group mentality administered by corporations. The noise from society can be difficult to squelch out with the abundance of powerful advertising and free media, but one can grasp onto one’s individuality by being aware of and questioning repetitive patterns and spontaneous bouts of purchasing. Next time you buy something or decide to do something, why not ask yourself: am I doing this because I want to, or because I agree with someone that I want to? But I guess individuality only stretches to a certain limit. We are all innately prewired to respond in the same way to certain stimuli and this is the very reason why there is such a thing as “human nature.”

Art is about philosophising on some level and trying to walk in our minds the same steps that the artist took. For the very reason that art is subjective, different pieces of art will speak different volumes to me and inspire me in different ways. I sort of fall into the category of person who says “I don’t know what art is, but I know what I like.” The non-abstract portraits are easily identifiable and can be called art easily. Statues of nude lovers intertwined, though not necessarily everyday observations are still plausible concepts that occur in real life everyday and thus can be called art too. It must have been a strange time before the explosion of modern art as we know it. Painters used to be merited on their ability by comparing the likeness of the emulsion on their canvas to their real life models. The same system of comparison was carried out to accurately spot the talented sculptors too. In recent decades it’s become difficult again to sort the wheat from the chaff since modern art has become redefined once again. The emphasis in art has been shifted to have more emphasis on the artist’s relation to his work as opposed to the viewer’s relation to the work. To me, art is only really art if one can experience it and draw from it inspiration and understanding. Classical art, for example the art from the Pre-Raphaelites, is clearly identifiable as paintings of the human form from a period of great faith and religion. With modern art, a blotch of ink can suddenly take on new meanings and significance. When it comes to modern art, I end up spending more time reading the placards describing the art, than viewing the art itself. Modern art is actually a lot more descriptive in a sense because the placards explain what the art represents. But for me, if a piece of art is so far moved from reality that the lay person cannot derive any meaning from it without help from a bunch of text, it’s lesser a piece of art. True art is not that which is explained with words on a placard. True art is that which is explained by the exhibit itself. Using text is kind of cheating because words do not give you a choice. They communicate with you whether you want them to or not. I feel that the point of art is to parallel the written language, having shapes and forms substitute words to communicate with people whether they want you to or not.

We strolled across the Millennium Bridge, which Dan added would have been a more interesting bridge if they allowed it to continue swaying like it did when they first opened it to the public. This sounded like a thought not out of place in the head of someone who would welcome a dip in the river. We spoke about a particular stretch of road on the motorway that allowed drivers to test out the limits in speed of their vehicles. I’ve hit 130 mph on that stretch of straight road in my car, but dare not push it much further since the car starts shaking at 120 mph. Dan has done this in his car and also on his motorbike, which would have me petrified in the same situation. It must be a real rush to experience those sorts of speeds on a motorbike, but the dangers and unpredictability of winds would have me decline any such experience.

We walked to the Barbican in time for Yang’s show. I’d first heard of Yang from his earlier works where he would deliver monologues about his own personal photography. His work had always been autobiographical and being a third generation Chinese-Australian, it had centred on experiences and reconciliations in Chinese culture. The family theme remained intact as he embarked on something new with Shadows. This time round he decided to photograph a few families of indigenous Australians and I have to admit it was much better than I expected. Yang is a well-timed narrator and his humour was subtly inserted in between slides of aboriginal people’s lives. He had with him a musician on stage who played a curious looking instrument that appeared to be a hybrid of a didgeridoo and some other stringed instrument. Yang’s discourse also covered German migrants in Southern Australia and the disdain directed to them during the world wars. He provided sub-stories about his visit to Berlin at a time prior to a unified Germany and the mood turned serious as he explained the effect that the Berlin wall had on the people and how despite its falling in 1989, a psychological barrier continued to exist in the minds of its people. The mood then was lightened when Yang proceeded to talk about the fling he had with a flamboyant German complete with Mohawk hairstyle and lederhosen. This side-story confirmed Yang’s sexual orientation, which I saw coming since he possesses possibly the most clichéd gay Australian accent I have ever heard.

[William Yang’s Shadows flyer]

After the show, it was a walk through Old Street and Moorgate to Leicester Square. Sometimes London can feel like such a huge city and sometimes it can feel so small. The other night, London was reduced to the size of a walnut as we discovered how close the west end is to the east end. It was a peaceful and quiet walk due to the absence of people on the street despite it being about 10 pm on a Saturday. It was strange feeling peaceful too, especially since we were strolling through one of the acknowledged more dangerous areas of London. I don’t know how many miles my feet clocked up but it was good to walk through the city again. Living in a great city with good transport connections makes it easy to take the scenic routes for granted.

[Visuals gallery]

Quote of the day (Chris jokingly commenting on a TV programme on string theory): “There was me expecting string theory to finally answer the question “how long is a piece of string” and instead I get this guy using the old “coffee cup as a donut” analogy.“