These are a few of my favourite things Zine

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Figure 1. Sit down, have a biscuit.

HJY:  So I’ve been thinking about algorithms over the last couple of weeks, and about how we find meaning in random things. 

SMB: Like chance encounters? 

HJY: Yeah, like chance encounters – but is it chance or fate? –  with objects or things that you’ve seen. I’ll look at an object and think I’ve seen that before! 
And then you try to read some kind of meaning to it, as if it means something bigger than me just seeing the same object twice... Like I’ll look at the clock and it’s 2.27pm,
and then I glance again in a couple of days and it’s 2.27pm again. 
And, you know, I’ve realised that every relationship that I’m invested in romantically… Nivea is somehow involved.



SMB: What, like product placement? Or serendipity?

HJY: Yeah, maybe both! Or an algorithm! But I don’t know if me noticing this sort of thing is good. Is it a recipe for love, or for disaster? And now that I've noticed it, is it countereffective?!

KK: So you’re trying to see a pattern in an uncertain environment. Are you seeing this filter through to your paintings?

HJY: Well, yeah! But it’s hard to make work at the moment. I feel like I forgotten how to do it. I’m trying to approach things from a different perspective – give myself some space from painting.


 Figure 3. attempt at painting

So I’ve been trying things with HTML. And I’ve been thinking of Zen gardens and enlightenment windows.

SMB: What are enlightenment windows?

HJY: The particular one that I'm thinking about is Creating an Enlightenment Window by 植物男子 Asu. I’ve been trying to make one! It’s a wall with a small section cut out in the 
middle, and you look into it and there’s a tiny garden in a box. It’s amazing! This is what I’ve been obsessed with for the past weeks since the virus, heaps of aqua-scaping and tiny little terrariums.
Sort of creating a tiny garden that you can totally control. People put so much effort into these things! And that’s a way of having some sort of control in your life.

KK: A tiny box in which you can have complete control, and then the rest of your life can go to hell.

NRP: Maddy, you’ve been working differently too. 

MM: Yes, I’ve approached found materials so differently. There’s been that sense of germ, and for a while there, when no one know how long the virus would stay
on objects for, there’d be an uncertainty about whether I’d come into contact with something that would endanger me when I approached an object. So instead of picking 
things up I started taking photos of them. 

I started doing these fantasy drawings of how or where I would put the objects together in an imagined landscape.

SMB: I love the idea of a fantasy sculpture series, and of translating your practice to the digital realm. Do you think that you’ve shifted your obsession from found material to these digital drawings?

MM: I think my obsession has shifted or clarified in the sense that I’m now obsessed with a fleeting moment and that precarious nature of the material. Putting it into this digital realm
fells like capturing a fleeting moment of a thing or object before it deteriorates and disappear. So I still feel that I’m obsessed with ephemeral materials but it’s more about the moment
that they have now. That’s been a recent shift.



NRP: So, ironically, the digital might be a way in which you can preserve these fleeting moments?

MM: Yes, which is in part a contradiction, because the work is not about the digital at all. And if the digital image of the object outlives the actual object itself, I mean, it’s a 
complete contradiction, but it’s also a reflection of this day and age. So just embrace it rather than hide from it!

This whole period has made me shift how I think about my work,and I’m coming to terms with the fact that I may just have to accept a certain amount of digital.
But what have you been working on, Kaijern?

KK: A piece of writing, loosely structured on mythological stories around hubris. And lots of little drawings, things that I don’t want to put too much weight on. Drawings without
purpose or set outcomes or expectations.

NRP: That sounds so freeing, in a way.

KK: Yeh, it’s been a while since I worked like this. There’s been a lot of bad drawings. But that’s okay, it’s fun.

HJY: Do you generally plan a lot with your paintings?

KK: Yes, I plan everything. So it’s nice to step back and allow space for… what’s that word… poetry. Or something.

SMB: Giving yourself some breathing room…

KK: Definitely. And I feel like it’s really important. Sometimes I’ll only allow myself to consume things that I feel are relevant or beneficial to my practice or ideas, but all truly importantly 
influences come from unexpected places. So it’s important for me to step back and stop thinking so much.

MM: You have an interesting way of setting up alters in your work.

KK: Well, my practice is already about obsession, and fabricating belief structures in order to maintain a certain sense of sanity or illusion of control. And alters and offerings;
they’re an interesting practice that has prevailed throughout time. There’s a tendency to imbue objects with a certain power or see things as more than what they perhaps are.

NRP: One of the lovely things about your work is how you situate ritual in everyday objects, sort of bringing the alter to the home, to the everyday.



KK: That was always very important to me, because I didn’t want my work to be just about religion. It’s more about religion and similar things, and what they actually provide
and why we are drawn to them. So it was always important to keep it broad and embroiled in the everyday.

But how does obsession relate to your practice, Nina? It’s at the root of your practice, yeah, because you have this devotion to horses?

NRP: Yes, but I was thinking before that the work I was making doesn’t have many horses in it. I’ve been working with this imagery of the Pergamum alter, so I’ve been thinking 
about the alter as a place of sacrifice, and how that all relates to obsession in the sense of honour and worship. 



It’s a different take on obsession to what we were all talking about. Not so much about care, more about worship. It seems less wholesome, somehow.

I also took photos of myself wearing my adidas pants, and I sandblasted the logo onto glass with the Pergamum frieze behind it. I was thinking about how fashion 
and global capitalism relate to obsession and hype, and how they so prevalent in trends and logo culture.

SMB: Did they sacrifice a horse on the Pergamum alter?

NRP: An ox, I think. But have I mentioned my daily horse-girl routine? I’m applying methods of equine care to myself in order to become a horse girl so that I can understand 
the psychic function that pairs horses and girls together. And because I’m obsessed with horses. This is what I do daily: 

I eat oats
I brush my hair
I spend time in my garden
I go for a walk or a run
I shower
I eat carrots
Lights out

KK: So good…


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ tea break ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




MM: How long have you been working on these collaged sketches for, Skye?

SMB: It’s something that I’ve done for a while, as a thinking process. This year I’ve approached them as drafts for paintings, but there’s something about the precarity of them which I’m beginning
to see might work better not in a painting but as something else. 

NRP: How do you see your collages as relating to obsession?

SMB: I am by nature quite obsessive and right now I see obsession as a way of maintaining my own sense of space and time. I write these crazy lists, follow them to the tee, and, when
I sit down to work, I have to listen to:  sparse ambient, a cyber-punk city vibe. That’s where my imagination seems to be hanging out a lot at the moment, anyway.

KK: Yeah, you have this ongoing interest in sci fi, but it seems like a lot of your work emerges from arcane ancient realms, is there a link there? Fantasy worlds?

SMB: Fantasy and sci fi genres approach reality in a way I really like. They approach the terms of reality as not fixed , and I like that approach and technology can feed
into that, I guess. We’re all using zoom now, and we expereicne zoom as the way that we see people now, but really it’s a program that’s been designed by some people and the conditions
of our reality have been created by this corporate thing…. I don’t know…

But the self is always being remade or something, everyday you get up and you’re a different person, but that’s good because we’re not static and not stuck. It’s like inertia
is, well… not death, but…  Actually, it is, it’s kind of like nothing.