It is the problem of “choice” that we are always faced with.
-Koki Tanaka, July 2008
What do you want to eat for lunch today? I am feeling like to having some Indian, but Chinese sounds nice as well, so let me think… There is this new Indian restaurant that opened last month, and it should be nice… many people are talking about that.
Finally, I decide to go to a Japanese restaurant right around the corner, next to the flower shop – in order to have some California rolls. I am passing by and I do feel like to having some. I love California roll even though it’s an American invention and is sort of a fake Sushi, because I’ve hated row fish since I was in elementary school. My friends and I went to a pond to fish and we got some small fishes, but they smelt really bad on my hands. I just remember it to be one of the bad stories about row fish, but there may be something more than that -- but I have no idea -- this will entirely be another story.
Where do you like to go for a swim today? The Danube River, or some indoor swimming pool perhaps. I don’t think it‘d be so good to swim outside. I think swimming indoor may be better. Then somehow I end up going to a movie theater. There I see the new Indiana Jones. It’s okay even though Harrison looks a bit too old. Spielberg must have done a really good job focusing on how to put together that many action scenes as it seems be running smooth through the end. What an entertaining movie! I am really happy about it.
Well, at times I just forget about the question I’ve had in mind . Then suddenly another question that is not even related to the initial question, or a question I’ve never even thought about before and just suddenly occurs to me “pops up” in my mind. And yet, I still think it is sort of a good sign for doing something new.
I think this can be said not just about our everyday life, but our art practices, projects, exhibitions, and whatever else we do. There are so many possibilities we are granted, but we have to choose one of them in order to somehow reach our “goal.” And we are fixed into a belief that there is only one goal and all the other places you get to are purely wrong. But wait a minute, is there only one goal really? No, there are so many possible goals before even thinking about making choices. When we get some kind of an outcome, we tend to believe there is the only one choice you are entitled to make, and we don’t even think for one second that we have other possibilities -- but we do. We do always have alternative ones and we can go through this process over and over again, even though we might have already chosen something before.
So, what do you want to eat for lunch today?
*it is the occasion for writing this text for the catalogue “Recycling the Taipei Biennial, 1998-2006,” Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2008.
Yes, our lives are complicated, you know.
- Koki Tanaka, 2006
And I can say that reality of life consist of abstract things and moments. Let’s think about it. What did you have for breakfast this morning? I had a peanuts butter sandwich with banana and a couple of coffee. Of course, I can remember it but those things are not real anymore. That is memory of my breakfast. I just reconstruct the past at the very moment of now. Even if you are eating something right now, you cannot catch all the reality of that food. If you can taste it, you just feel the taste from your tongue and mouth. But the food has many different kinds of aspect. Let’s say, peanuts butter could be material for painting, banana could be trap for making people to slip on and coffee could grow beautiful flowers. We could find out alternative way to view our everyday lives even we are having banal breakfast same as yesterday. In the very usual moment, we could see something new at the same time. There are a lot of abstract things and moments waiting for us to brake through to a new perspective.
If we face the reality of life, I think we can deepen our understanding of the world. I always try to look for that kind of moment in my life.
