Even When Strawberries are Falling From the Sky, We are Sad

"Technology is ethos, not devices" - Jeanne Randolph
In the present day, technology is not the iPhones, iPads, eBook readers nor computers. Technology as ethos is the god everybody firmly believes in (well aside from money I suppose). We are always pushed to become more efficient and productive. What should be applied to the machines are being applied to human beings. We are told, "Do time management, make plans, be efficient, and for god sakes, do not show any emotion! It's nothing personal that I have to fire you." We live in this repetitive, boxed-in daily lives and come home to a boxed apartment. Is this just current phenomena, or has it been like this ever since we discovered fire. I have no idea. One thing for sure is that most people are unhappy with their daily boxed lives. We cannot be efficient and on schedule all the time. Shit happens. We are not machines after all.

Someone very close to me is chronically depressed. Not many people understand her as she seems to have everything. A beautiful place to live, a good job with benefits, lots of fun travels and lots of money. But as my friend once told me, material things are not a path to happiness, I suppose. I thought of printing her a t-shirt that says "Severely Depressed" with a quirky smiley. But I don't think she'll find that very funny. So here it is, an art work instead for her and for all of us who has to run the rat race. We are sad in our boxed lives. And even when good things are happening; even when strawberries are falling from the sky, we are sad.

This art is for the Strawberry Festival at Port Hope with my collective Not an Octagon. It's far (near Peterborough) but guaranteed good time with tonnes of strawberries. Let's defy productivity and eat some strawberries under the hot summer moon.
This Saturday June 26th at 6pm
Facebook Invitation

We Mop!

I am having a group show, "Just Act Natural" in Kingston. My piece here is called "We Mop!". These bunnies look like mops and they are sweeping the forest ground. Yeah, I know. I am not too happy with this work either. However, I just didn't have enough time. *cry* My plan to have a painting & illustration focused summer has been shattered. I'm teaching 4 classes this summer (fun classes, I promise!), working as a research assistant, writing thesis paper and auditing a summer printing class. I also work at my parents' store on the weekends. I'd like to live in a world where I can just happily paint, but what can I say. We all gotta pay the bills. Anyways, here it is. Haters gonna hate.

Here is the info if you in the Kingston area:

Studio22

320 King St. East (2nd Floor), Kingston, ON K7L 3B4

Creative Directors: Ally and Hirsch Jacob

613.842.9895    map   studio22 homepage

Exhibition: June 25–27th, 2010, 1–5pm daily

Reception: Saturday, June 26th, 2010, 7-10pm

You can view my artist statement for the piece.

Shameless Cover

I'm on the cover of Shameless Magazine! I thank the wonderful art director, Sheila for all the kindness. It was an absolute delight to work with her. Shameless is a magazine aimed for teen girls. Amidst of countless fashion magazines that focuses on superficial qualities, Shameless reminds us that there are more to life than just appearance. I love working for this magazine. I wish I had this magazine growing up. All I had were fashion magazines like Seventeen and YM. This issue's theme was on sexual health education in Canada. It is a great issue. Available at bookstores near you. Please do check it out!
My Contributor page!

I liked this spread because of donuts. It is an one-eyed snaked going through a donut hole. I tried to make a sexual innuendo without being too overt. It was very challenging.

TCAF photos! Thank you everyone for visiting my table at TCAF. I know my table was a bit harder to find. But I gave away a lot of free stuff. I hope it was worth it. :D Let me know what you thought of my new comic. Yes, I am totally self conscious about it. It is the worst writing ever, but better looking than most of my comics. I have some new (and hopefully better) ideas on the go. I'll have them published for FanEx this August.

I couldn't go to any of the parties during the festival. It was heart-breaking. I was planning to go. However, I was very tired by the end of the day. I also had to print sold-out comics at home. On the last day of the festival, I had to run to friends' wedding. If they let me in again next year, I'm going to attend all the parties (picture me as a Scarlett in Gone with the Wind while she clinches her fists and go "I promise I'll never go hungry again"). It's too bad I cannot drink. Socializing and friendship seem to naturally come with drinking. *sob*

Lastly, me with Banksy in Toronto! It was very exciting to see his work in my town. This one is a little North of Spadina and QueenW.

Hyein at Toronto Comic Arts Festival

I will be at TCAF! Please come and visit me.

If you mention this blog post, I'll give you a free button. Wow, that was a pure marketing tactic right there. Anyways, come by and chat. I worked so hard for this with very short amount of time (because of school finals and things). However, I got to release a new comic book, "Frequently Asked Question about Threesome". I realized the grammar mistakes after printing. *sigh* Please do scroll down for lots of photos :D (I should really sleep - haven't slept much for past week)

Buttons, I got them!



Stickers! They are only $2 each. Sorry, I cannot give these away for free because I spent so much money printing. *cry*

Shiny sturdy sticker!
I'm on the far right wall of the Second Floor (where web comics are situated). It is a very nice lounge area of Toronto Public Library.
Details:

Saturday May 8th, 9am-5pm
Sunday May 9th, 11am-5pm

@ Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St., Toronto, Canada
416-533-9168
Admission to TCAF is Free.

Here is their website:

http://torontocomics.com/

And here is my related article about TCAF on National Post:

Loneliness Is I & II

Awesome photographer in my class, Josh Morden filmed this for me. Thank you Josh.

Here is my interactive art project!

I wanted to create a way to escape from reality and into the cartoon world. However, my cartoon world is an ambivalent place. Black rain clouds of rain follows you around.

It is programmed with Processing with a lot of time, pain and tears. I am not sure if I am ever going to venture into the digital interactive world. The installation is up at the Graduate Gallery on 205 Richmond Street West.

Here is the info (but you don't have to come. That's why I embedded videos here):

Pretty Ugly

Graduate Student Gallery

Thursday April 22, 2010 to Saturday May 8, 2010

Gallery Hours 12-6pm

Opening Reception: Friday April 30th, 2010 6pm to 9pm

I'd say it is a pretty bad exhibition. I'm glad we named it 'Pretty Ugly'. Look at the write up for our show:

"First Year Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design present... Pretty Ugly

Pretty Ugly is the critique of aesthetic judgment; the interconnectedness of Art, Media, and Design; the rain on your parade; the definition, limitation, and possibility across disciplines; the abject, the beautiful, the tactile, the patterned, the provocative, the theoretical, the suggestion of something else. Pretty Ugly features new work by MFA, MDes, and MA candidates in the Interdisciplinary Master's of Art, Media, and Design program Teresa Ascencao, Anya Chudnovtseva, Joseph Clement, Barr Gilmore, Hyein Lee , Geneviève Maltais, Josh Morden, Alexei Vella, and Lisa Visser."

I have no idea who wrote this, but I am ashamed of it. I apologize to everyone. Sometimes I think of my Masters program and wonder... Other Master students make the world a better place, save lives by curing cancer and AIDS; raise our standard of life with a new technology; etc. But what do we do? We waste oxygen and space.

Anyways... changing topic... I've been volunteering at TVA (Toronto Vegetarian Association) Resource Centre. They are located at Baldwin and McCaul. We do podcasts, and if you want to hear about me making awkward comments about vegan food, here it is!

This week's TVA Podcast

I Love You In the Most Platonic Way Possible

That is a lie.

I am totally defeated by MAC. I was so happy until this morning. Everything was working so well. Then today... Well, let me start this rant from the beginning. There is this programming called 'Processing'. It's a java based language that's easier for artists to work with. It is mostly used for interactive art. Here is a WICKED TED talk by Golan Levin on Interactive Art. He uses Processing. I attended his workshop (but I was already his fan).

So I've been working on this interactive art piece for a while. I've completed it last night. It works perfectly fine on my new PC. What a happy day. Our year-end show is coming up this Thursday. So I thought, 'I'll spend an hour setting things up tomorrow morning'.

WRONG!

After 9 hours at the Grad Gallery today, fiddling with iMAC (and never sat down due to the installation set up), I gave up. AV guy and I even installed Windows. Good god. I'm going to go at it again tomorrow morning. Wish me luck, strangers (especially you, anonymous Viagra salesman who spams my blog comments). Hopefully, I get to show you what I've done.

So far, MAC 9: Hyein 0. But it ain't over yet.

Before I close this post, one last thing; platonic. (Man, that's got to be a wrong use of semicolon. But I'm too tired to look it up) I've never heard that word until few years ago. I always thought it was spelled 'plutonic'. The geologist in me was thinking, 'as in hot rock...?' I just learned that it's spelled different.

Cartoon City at Harbourfront Centre

Mystery Mister Lee

Mixed Media on Wood

18X24"

I was invited to portray my neighbourhood for the Cartoon City exhibition at Harbourfront Centre York Quay Gallery. I went around my neighbourhood taking photos. It is Dundas and Spadina China town area.

Other talented Toronto cartoonists were invited for this show. Among them is Michael Cho! I've been his fan for a long time. It is an honour to be in a show with him. There is an opening for the show, if you'd like to attend. I will be there:

Harbourfront Centre

Friday, April 9th

6-10pm

Here is an artist statement I wrote for the show:

I immigrated to Canada 15 years ago. Before and since, I've been to many beautiful cities around the world. In the end, there isn't anywhere I would rather be than Toronto. With the infinite loneliness of its sky scrapers, with the gritty colours of Chinatown, the dry memories of the summer and the beige slush of the winter; there is no place like here.

Yes, it's basically saying how much I love Toronto. It is not cool to like the place you are living in. Everyone always wishes to be somewhere else. I know. Stores and restaurants close early, very tiny subway lines, it's grayiness (this is what people told me. I don't think Toronto is gray), apathetic people...etc. But I really love it here. There are many reasons: you can walk everywhere, so many vegetarian restaurants, vegan cupcakes, hot hot summer, art supply stores... But most of all this is my home. Something about 'home' that makes you long for no matter where you are.

Lastly, I end this post with pictures of freeze dried strawberries! Freeze dried fruits are some of my favourite things! They are so crunchy, airy and oh-so tasty! I mean, dude, it's astronaut food! ASTRONAUT!!! (no comment on whether or not astronauts actually eat freeze dried food or not) I love it so much I wanted to make them. (they are very expensive) But after learning about the steps and equipments required to do so, I gave up. You need to create a vacuum environment to make freeze dried foods. *sigh* If you are wondering how to make them, check this show out:

Jimmy's Food Factory - Preserving

I hope somebody makes freeze dried soy icecream soon.

We Heart You, Yes You!

I was keep on falling asleep trying to do homework for tomorrow. Constant complaints about my Master's makes me sound like a very gloom person, I know. Seriously, I'm not! Believe me! Just look at the list of these pretentious words (in readings/discussions/classes, etc) I encounter daily basis. It's bound to make anyone gloom. I keep a list of these. Welcome to "The Words I Absolutely Hate" list (there are some phrases as well):

-autonomy

-discourse: it sounds even more repulsive when people actually use it in conversations

-aesthetics

-obfuscates: WHAT???

-in it of it itself: make a round gesture with your hands while say this BS

-idiosyncratic

-metanarrative: wow, just WOW

-metonymy

-disembodied: pops up everywhere without any restrain. Truly putrid, pretentious word

-disenfranchised

-mirror phase

-Freud: I am very sorry. I know a lot of people worship him, but I really cannot take him seriously. Sounds mostly BS. And please stop bringing Freud on every contemporary art work. Is that really all you got?

-ethnographer (when talking about artists): makes me ill

-paradigm, paradigm shift: I thought you can only use 'paradigm shift' in mathematics. However, since language is a floating thing, it's okay to use it now. This pretentious phrase makes me go ape s**t

-discursive paradigm: not even going to bother looking up dictionary

-reflexivity: *sigh*

-polyphony: Good lord

-dialectic: I just LOVE IT when art theories act like philosophy

-anachronistic

-identity: I realized I can throw in this word during any sentence at any point I want. It's a simple no-brainer word, but at the same time, sounds very professional and Post Modernism. Use 'identity' freely, abundantly

-any French words that isn't translated: I HATE these. Thank you very much. 'dans le vrai', 'vis-a-vis' and alike. Wow. Thank you. Not translating whatever that you are saying, makes you sound really smart. Can I use Korean words freely in my theoretical paper without translation too, just to sound intellectual? Oh, what, Asian words don't count? Maybe some cool Japanese words?

All these 'intellectual papers' written on subject of art is very laughable. Yes, and you got it right, I don't quite understand what I read either. I do not think I'm that dumb. I suspect Contemporary Art criticism is trying to legitimatize itself by sounding quasi-smart, quasi-academic. I swear to god... if I hear 'discourse', 'disembodied' one more time, I'll.....

I should stop here, before I spew out more anger-driven nonsense. What I gotta learn is how to love~

Saga of hateful words continues...