Wu Xiao Kang - A Dose of LIES

[jOhO]

i just add one short one hor ;p

reuters and even national geographic have to be very strict on this cos they are in the business of selling their publications. they cannot afford to fool their audience with fake photos and stories.

on the other hand, the xiaokang website was, as kaychin said, tucked away in the internet waiting for someone to stumble on it and pass the the word along. ithey did not attempt to solicit funds for xiaokang right? so if they didn't then i consider this as just a prank.

right.. u have ur point of view as i have mine as other pple have theirs. so yeah.. even shorter one from me:

i disgaree with u, by virtue of my last sentence in the third paragraph of my last post to u.

 

[eikin]

if they came clean in the 1st place then no fun liao right? :devil:

what's so fun about bluffing others about schizophrenia, suicide and claiming public sympathy for one's own artistic agenda?

 

[madmacs]

orr... u mean cheating is only considered cheating when money is involved ?

the other type of cheating i hear about are those about male-female relationships ;p

 

[madmacs]

right.. u have ur point of view as i have mine as other pple have theirs. so yeah.. even shorter one from me:

i disgaree with u, by virtue of my last sentence in the third paragraph of my last post to u.

noted....(even shorter ;p)

 

[jOhO]

really meh? :dunno: i think ppl take things too seriously. even a question about C vs N can erupt into a full-fledged war :sweat:

i really think u gotta look at different topics objectively.... ur C vs N example of pple taking things too seriously is NOTHING like this case lor... cmon man...............

 

[madmacs]

what's so fun about bluffing others about schizophrenia, suicide and claiming public sympathy for one's own artistic agenda?

tsk...i knew i sure kena :sweat:

 

[jOhO]

i don't even remember their names :bsmilie:

aiyah.. if it comes up again it will ring a bell.. at least my bells!

 

[madmacs]

i really think u gotta look at different topics objectively.... ur C vs N example of pple taking things too seriously is NOTHING like this case lor... cmon man...............

that one not related...just an OT statement about ppl taking things too seriously

 

[jOhO]

that one not related...just an OT statement about ppl taking things too seriously

yeah getting OT.. man i'm stuck on this thread.. argh.

ok i'm late for appt.. check back later.

 

[Will03]

argh.. got to go too... check this again when i m home..

 

[Pablo]

haha..i did think of that. :bsmilie:

i'll probably get flamed for this but what the heck. personally i don't find this a big deal. so what if they pulled a stunt like this...yeah some ppl's egos got bruised..is that why so many are so upset? if you look beyond the prank, there is still a message in there. they are not the first to try to fool the internet audience, and they most certainly won't be the last. maybe they are getting it bad cos they are singaporean? ;p

anyway in the link someone (was it eikin?) posted a few pages back, some ntu ppl more or less deduced that this was a hoax with all the doctored pics. i don't consider this anything worse than april fool's prank played by the newspapers in different countries.

I agree with this madmacs.

kaychin, I salute you for coming forward to both relate your position and take what might be thrown back at you :thumbsup:

To those that take it as an insult to art.

Can they say that their own art has been degraded by it,

I would like to see their art........I will give my view on their art unbiased by any of this.

Due to this thread alone I bet that the number of "hits" on that site has risen dramatically.

Reguardless as to what thoughts might have evolved due to the photo's and the story,

I bet there is more awareness/thinking generated about schizophrenia.

To all, a lynching mob is not needed "partitions".

You may disagree and find it distastefull art; I find "Blue Poles"..."Pieces of meat on the steps of parliament" .... "Cans of Heinz beans" ... "A German trench filled with cutlery where dead bodies were" distastefull art.

My view

 

[luddock]

let me state here without any reservation, that your statement that I duped the organizer is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. I have spoken to Shirlene, the person who I was supposed to have duped, and she will back me up on this.

3. I never once told Shirlene that it was real. In fact I was never asked... My recommendation for adoseoflight to be exhibited is very simply this (in an email to Shirlene):

"Check this one out.
http://www.adoseoflight.com/overdose/overdose.html

I like it very much."

So the burden to uncover the truth would be that of the organizers? The fact that you never told the organizers that it was real implies you came clean that the works were all fictional? In the same vein, am I to assume every sentence you've written is a lie because I never asked you if what you've written is real?

C'mon man... it all seems like a cheesy way to worm out of this.

 

[nicholas68]

From the news reports:
1) "Photographer Tay Kay Chin, 41, who selected the pieces to be shown in the exhibition despite being aware of the hoax"
2) "Festival director Shirlene Noordin, 38, who wrote an essay in the catalogue introducing the group, said she was 'really upset' to have been kept in the dark."

I would state that Tay and the collective duped the organizer.

What Tay know ABOUT THIS...

 

[kaychin]

So the burden to uncover the truth would be that of the organizers? The fact that you never told the organizers that it was real implies you came clean that the works were all fictional? In the same vein, am I to assume every sentence you've written is a lie because I never asked you if what you've written is real?

C'mon man... it all seems like a cheesy way to worm out of this.

No. That is not what I am saying.

When I was still going to the curator of MOP2007 a few weeks ago, I was still in charge. And that means I get to decide (mostly) what goes in and how they are shown. As the person in charge, I HAD no problem that Wu Xiaokang was fictional as I have explained before.

When I resigned from being the curator, I told the organizer she is free to follow up or dump the three choices I recommended. When she decided to continue with my choices, I show up at one of their meetings to give them my best and to encourage them to work with the organizer to put up a good show.

After that, there was no more contact between the organizer and me.

It never occured to me that I needed to tell her what I knew about Wu Xiaokang but all this while, I was OK with it.

 

[nicholas68]

Wah lau, you think mine is very powerful meh?

Sheesh, now I wish Student is around....

Student where are youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

Snaper need you, pls come out...

 

[eikin]

No. That is not what I am saying.

When I was still going to the curator of MOP2007 a few weeks ago, I was still in charge. And that means I get to decide (mostly) what goes in and how they are shown. As the person in charge, I HAD no problem that Wu Xiaokang was fictional as I have explained before.

When I resigned from being the curator, I told the organizer she is free to follow up or dump the three choices I recommended. When she decided to continue with my choices, I show up at one of their meetings to give them my best and to encourage them to work with the organizer to put up a good show.

After that, there was no more contact between the organizer and me.

It never occured to me that I needed to tell her what I knew about Wu Xiaokang because all this while, I was personally OK with it.

i didn't know there was a change in curator. does this mean that you would have let the show go on without saying anything about the authenticity of the works if you continued to work as the curator of MOP2007?

 

[luddock]

When I was still going to the curator of MOP2007 a few weeks ago, I was still in charge. And that means I get to decide (mostly) what goes in and how they are shown. As the person in charge, I HAD no problem that Wu Xiaokang was fictional as I have explained before.

When I resigned from being the curator, I told the organizer she is free to follow up or dump the three choices I recommended. When she decided to continue with my choices, I show up at one of their meetings to give them my best and to encourage them to work with the organizer to put up a good show.

After that, there was no more contact between the organizer and me.

It never occured to me that I needed to tell her what I knew about Wu Xiaokang but all this while, I was OK with it.

Kaychin, you should take responsibility for the role you played in creating this situation and stop making lame excuses.

It's very unbecoming of you to try to shift the blame in this manner, instead of standing by your original choice and the unfortunate judgement regarding the subterfuge.

 

[kaychin]

i didn't know there was a change in curator. does this mean that you would have let the show go on without saying anything about the authenticity of the works if you continued to work as the curator of MOP2007?

i have explained the situation in previous post but in summary, I was given the choice to leave just a few weeks before final production began bec the organizer said they can't pay me any more.

After I left, Shirlene, who used to be a curator at SAM, took over. In the past, our roles are very seperate - I only take charge of the creatives, she takes care of the money and the rest. I do not know if she appointed a new curator after I left.

As to your question: I extended an informal invitation to them to exhibit when I met Robert in London in March. We never got to discuss details with the group on how to do it other than saying all the 36 images must be shown. The last time I met Song, the other member, I was there to say goodbye. But I have indicated before that this cannot go on forever and at some point, they must come clean.

Robert had personally became very tormented by this because he could no longer distinguish what is good or bad photography because things he considered medicorce (such as Wu Xiaokang) kept getting accolades while things he really like kept getting rejected.

In the end, I told Adeline the truth and asked her to give them a chance to come clean. The result was yesterday's article.

 

[redstone]

Deadpoet around? Student?

 

[Wisp]

I spoke to Adeline a total of no less than one hour and many things were said. Let me put in context what I had said before the quote above. Paraphrasing myself:


when I first saw it, I was very very affected. but upon subsequent viewings, I had my suspicions. But it doesn't matter to me whether Xiaokang is a real person or not because I believe a schizo patient is capable of doing something like this. As an art work, I do think it is quite chilling. Before the petition and all the recent events, the Wu Xiaokang presentation was very quietly sitting in cyberspace, waiting to be discovered; 'It is a quiet mourning for someone, done tastefully. It was well put together and thought out.' People who stumble upon them by accident have a chance to experience it for themselves and decide if it was real, false, etc. I know there are people who liked it and was moved by it even though they knew it was not true. With the petition, they have gone from passive to active lying and I am totally against stunts like these to promote themselves.


And again, no, I don't see myself as so powerful as to be able to dictate what the media write. Adeline did not misquote me. When you give an interview, the risk is always there. But thanks to the Net, I get a small chance to tell my side.

This is not a matter of depicting a conceptual piece of art. A conceptual piece of art I don't recall includes the fact you have to lie or to promote that lie.

Now, the fact is a person like you have already set aside these pictures, knowing the whole story aside for an exhibit. This itself is an act of promotion. You may not mind it, but it is still pretty much ethical to let the public know this side of the story before anything else, and you should have done something about it or at least voice it out that it's a hoax.

Is lying an art?