The lost meaning of blogs and the lost meaning of art

It has been a number of months since I last posted here. The reasons are varied, mostly due to the fact that my mind has been battling the realms of commercialism, of blogging, of marketing of my artwork, creation of the artwork and of sales, so it's a mish-mash of different thoughts and directions.

In an blog I submitted to my alivenotdead.com profile, I said that blogging was becoming a form of self-marketing, self-promoting vehicle to toot one's own horn, and the that original 'journal' or diary was getting lost. I felt that there was no where for me to pour my guts and my Soul to. I remember the days when I would be at home with my pen and book writing out things that only I would read and later recall. I then later started to write these thoughts into a personal journal. Back then, it was my geocities homepage that I created. It felt 'right'. My boring outpourings of grief and loneliness felt private and I still have those pages saved in my original html. Then, this thing called blogs came into the picture. Personally, I am not sure if it's really such a good thing, because now people can respond to them. But in a sense, I am not sure of the reason why. I just want to record my thoughts throughout the day. Good and bad. What I notice about the alivenotdead blog, is that it is for artist promotion, so I feel I have to write things in it that promote my work, my art, my aspirations. But do people want to hear about my sorrows and griefs as a human person. My gripes on the art industry? I think not. So here I am back on my personal blog, to an audience of a lesser number, moreso: me.

Independent artists are popping up everywhere on the map, especially here in Hong Kong. I remember when I first started up Meli-Melo Artist Alliance back in 1999 that we were one of the first groups to create a grassroots artist community wanting to do something creative in super stressful Hong Kong. And now we have an enormous number of young individuals both here and in Asia making it's wave. There is this bandwagon feeling about the art and about the production thereof. So I began thinking that maybe I'm just one of them? With nothing that particularly interesting to offer. What will make my work relevant or meaningful. I did some rather perculiar drawings made from pencil and a scanner, and photo manipulation. It was almost 'meaningless' to me, although intriguing and colourful to the eye. I also created some drawings made from scans of high fashion jewelry in a Christie's catalog. I call it appropriation and manipulation. It's kitchy art. I hate it in a way, because it feels so UN-meaningful. What is going on with me? Remember DADA art? Well, my name of the artwork is KIKU.