Thought Residencies

My name is Milton Lim and this is my seventh thought residency dedicated to the wandering minds. During my undergraduate psychology classes, like many other students, my friend Mateusz and I would have a ritual of cramming, sometimes hours before our exams. It always seemed like he was worse off than I was, but maybe that' s just my hindsight bias. One of the days in desperation, I said "why are we so lazy?!" and he remarked, "HEY, it takes EFFORT to be this lazy." I wouldn't choose those words, but I like that empty space was framed as a conscious decision, similar to meditation but without taking itself seriously. I like to think that he knew the necessity of carving out room to be inspired, for his creativity and his passions. Or we were just lazy.

My name is Milton Lim and this is my Sixth thought residency going out to the gamers Like a lot of other people, I've been thinking about Virtual Reality. A game developer acquaintance of mine, once remarked to me that most people perceive VR as a simple extension of video games, however most video games operate with the principle that you move across a large map or area to achieve your goal. VR on the other hand, often offers limited physical space, wires connecting you to a computer tower, and real-life obstructions, making the same topographical movement extremely tricky. Certain games and developers are working on ways around this —creating in-game teleportation mechanics, room-based systems, and walking controllers, but at the end of the day, my acquaintances' assertion was that VR is not about progression via locomotion. That the more innovative or successful video games moving into VR will relinquish this fundamental game mechanic, in order to reimagine our approach to conflict, obstructions, and goals.

My name is Milton Lim and this is my fifth thought residency going out to my fellow otakus I grew up watching and continue to watch a lot of Japanese animation; I consider anime both a pastime and a passion. The video essayist behind 'Every Frame a Painting', Tony Zhou, once did a video on Satoshi Kon, the man who created Paprika Paranoia Agent, and Perfect Blue among several other influential animated works. Satoshi Kon once stated that he preferred animation over live action, saying that live action cuts too slow for his style of editing. Tony goes on to show two clips of a bag being thrown in someone' s face, one live action and one animated —and the animated one completes and is perceived in fewer frames: it reads faster because there's less visual information. I think that lesson, beautifully illustrated for me, the range of differences between perception and cognition.

My name is Milton Lim and this is my fourth thought residency. Dedicated to the ESL community I'm currently taking part in the Block A program at Playwright' s Theatre Centre, it consists of weekly writing workshops. When I participate in the act of writing, I sometimes think of my friend Tyler Russell, Executive Director/Curator of the Centre A Gallery, and the time he asked me why I only create work in English. Why I directly/indirectly support linguistic colonization as part of my practice. At the time, I didn't have a better answer than the fact that my only operative language is English, but since then I've been examining isolated components of language in an attempt to by-pass it, for example looking at the visual or the written instead of the aural or exploring only the affect of second person narrative. The option I've been avoiding is that I learn a second language so that my artistic choice is not one so seemingly based out of necessity.

My name is Milton Lim and this is my third thought residency. This goes out to the rebels. Today I met up with a friend who is visiting from Hong Kong. We talked about the recent transgressions that occurred during the swearing in of new pro-democracy members in Hong Kong's legislative council and the subsequent denials of their oaths. I think about the ripples of the umbrella movements still resonating in these actions. I think about the overlapping of the underground and the public. I think about the voices of democracy. I think about Canada's 2015 Federal election and those rallies to get Harper out. I think about Trudeau's fleeting promises, in this case specifically proportional representation. And I think about the desire for effort to match outcome. I think about the values of getting rude and being loud in just the right places.

My name is Milton Lim and this is my second thought residency. This goes out to my parents. I've been thinking a lot about how we carry people and ideas with us. My mom used to tell me: "if you love someone, make sure you tell them you love them every time you say goodbye, because you never know if it will be the last time you see them." I like to think that it is not just about the meaningfulness of saying I love you, but about the repetition and the reminder, a safe guarding and a just in case. Tonight we close "King of the Yees", and we say goodbye to a show that has all of us involved thinking a lot about our families, and for anyone who knows Chinese culture, sometimes you don't have to say I love you, sometimes you show it in other ways: (a song begins to play) this is the sound of us saying goodbye. (song continues with sound of warm voices talking)

My name is Milton Lim and this is my first thought residency. This first thought goes out to all the torchbearers I have been thinking a lot about what diversity in the arts feels like the usual feelings of an uphill battle, of hurt feelings, of misunderstandings, of people struggling to have their voices heard, fighting against being made invisible. I am currently performing a show called "King of the Yees" at The Gateway Theatre in Richmond BC. The piece was written by an American playwright named Lauren Yee, directed by Sherry Yoon and it features 5 Asian-Canadian performers. I think all of us in the cast knew that the show would feel special, if only because of the nation-wide discussions around diversity and seeing more people of colour on stage. But I think the most surprising thing was that we didn't know what the process would feel like. One of my cast mates Donna Soares once remarked to me that this show feels easy, that our task wasn't to do external research like other shows but a lot of inward reflection instead. This opportunity to bring our own lived experience into the studio and seeing it paralleled so directly in the world of the show has felt so rewarding and affirming. We've been laughing telling stories and connecting to a part of ourselves that we don't often get to share while doing plays. I don't often do character acting as part of my practice, so to have all of this within a theatre setting feels refreshing. There is still a lot of work to be done but it's nice to know that this is also what diversity in the arts can feel like.

RANSCRIPT: Hey, I'm Jajube Mandiela. Thought 14. VR (virtual reality). So I don't know much about VR. I have, one time, put on those goggles and experienced something that was like a video game, 360-degree camera style, and been like "what's happening?!" and then I have also seen a VR music video I thought that was really cool. But this whole virtual reality, I'm thinking, is TV, though, really going in the direction of being so real that it's just reality? We already have theatre, isn't that as real as it gets?

TRANSCRIPT: Hey, I'm Jajube Mandiela. Thought 13. It's a secret. So. Two years ago I joined snapchat, and I was doing a show on the farm, and I had a lot of free time, I loved to send snaps and watch snaps, and there was something about it, it made me, and it reminded me of theatre that's so live, it would disappear, it's not meant to be kept, other than screen grabs, but I won't get into that, but, but it - it was that element of it's only there when you watch it, then it's gone. And it's got me thinking of - that since then, ever what if there is a new genre of theatre and was snap chat theatre? They merge together. Don't steal my idea.

TRANSCRIPT: Hey I'm Jajube Mandiela. Thought 12. Dub Theatre. This past summer I realized that Dub Theatre is a home grown Canadian theatrical form. Dub poetry originated in the Caribbean, and then in the 90's is when the first dub poetry script was ever staged by our founding artistic director, ahdri zhina mandiela, and yes, it's also been done in England after that, I don't know much of it…if it's been done in America but Dub Theatre continues to this day, done by several people and it's a thriving, growing, Canadian genre.