Singa Menjelma Di Selatan Nusantara

The other side of the Country.

Almost 80% of the MRT user in Singapore carries portable music player, such as small cute thumbdrive MP3 player to Apple's iPod. In 7-11, they are selling it like selling curry puff, it's no longer a luxury. People are moving so fast and still, feel that humanity in each of them, (whatever I have said).

I met few yet most nicest people in town while I was at 'Temasek', namely Roger Tan, the owner of Shuffle Art, who brought me to so many nice places on the way to the opening exhibition of Design Taxi at Hills Creative Arts that night. Besides able to see and touch John Leigh of Karborn.com, Tokidoki, Basso & Brooke's artwork, I had the privillage to meet some of Singapore's finest creative such as Shaun & Irie of Neighbor, Creative Director of Hills Creative Art, Alex, FFurious Team, and friends like Regina, Gerald & Agnes of JunkFlea (Nice to see you guys again) and few others. A thousand appreciation goes out to you guys for having such good time and get to know you guys better in person. Mucho gracis amigos!

All Night...
Now, that's not all. E9's team; Irene, Henry, Vivian, Siew Ling, Agnes and Jason took me to a nice dinner at ThaiExpress in Singapore Plaza. It was a great opportunity to know them closer as they are so fun and cool to chill with. After dinner, I went to India Street to meet up my graffiti buddies, ARTVST. These guys are truely awesome and really find myself hanging out with comedians! To Lutfi @ KillerGerbil, thanks for introducing ARTVST. It was a great honour. Zack, thanks for sharing yor stuff with me, Zul / Lil Pink Devil, really 'lalok' one... so dem funny la!
So much fun and hope to see you guys again this September.


Didjital Nusantara partlayin'


Peter Hassan & Markiza (wife) performin' blues


Perez posses for Shieko's illustration


Aishah with her performing arts.

NotThatBalai? or going to another balai?
It was nice.. even thought I miss the opening ceremony on Friday night, I did came by the place on Saturday. The review was ok... but as usual, few 'confused' artless visitors still want to 'arrest' our commitment and effort. Whatever... at least I managed to catchup with COA, Art-tech, SWS, Orkibal, Perez, Rooty, Uncle Sam and few other nice fellaz. Aishah, your performance art was indeed American ;). It open my enthutiasm in art (especially installation!).
Well, apart of all, Shieko & Orkibal work's has been selected and published in New Straits Times & TheStar (click here to see)... and thanks for carrying Digital Malaya's Didjital Nusantara (again) to the press. Cheers!

Interlude
Sekian lama sudah ku tidak melepaskan luahanku di jurnal ini dalam bahasa Melayu. Bukan tak inginkan, sebaliknya penguasaan bahasa ku terlalu klasik untuk mencatat segala rintihan harian dan kehidupan peribadiku di jurnal digital ini. Tapi, sejak menggulungkan getah lembut pada tetikus melayari jurnal digital si Awan, aku bersemangat untuk merelakan minda dan hatiku berpesta bahasa.

Mama,

Ku harap perjalananmu di timur Nusantara,
dibekalkan doa tulus ikhlas oleh ananda,
dan ku harap moga Allah akan sentiasa disisimu,
melindungi dan menceriakanmu,
Mama, minta maaf diatas kekasaran ananda,
yang membuatkan hatimu terluka,
bukan kehendak dan nawaitul ananda untuk menjauhimu,
cuma titian masa dan komitmen ananda yang menjarakkan kita,
Pohon maafku wahai bonda.

To My Dearest Love

Miss you and love you so much. I am very fortunate to have you around and really glad you manage to get a job. Remember, never forget our relationship and love and don't let anyone take or steal our love. We've build to much and please don't loose this relationship we have. Be good and always keep your loyalty with me. I'm yours and you are mine.

This is for you; the title is Intralogi Cinta.

Intrologi Cinta

Mau kulepaskan dan sampaikan suara cintaku wahai kekasih,
ingin kugenggam nilai cinta dan kasihmu ini didalam sanubariku,
agar terus mekar dari terbitnya suria hingga tidurnya suria,
Mimpi-mimpi yang kulalui amat indah,
walaupun cinta kau kini nian jauh dihati,
amat ku rindukan mesra belaianmu,
walaupun ku tau dihati kau tetap mencintaiku
masa pantas berlalu, keluhan jiwaku ini menjerit memanggil kau,
Apa yang akan terjadi nanti wahai kekasih?
Hanya kita saja yang bisa tau segala-galanya.



_

* cinta takkan terlepas walau ditemui, masakan takkan kulupakan tarian kita dikala waktu kau bersamaku.

Smokin' Friday: Not That Balai...

Well, workin' is really an obligation, but when it comes to weekend, you have the entire two days to yourself, to do whatever you want, or maybe starting from Friday night.. This weekend, I have a choice; either I can take a hot shower, use body scrub, dip my leg in a bucket with hot water with rosy (rose) aromatherapy and sleep all day long. But the fact is right after finishing my work in the office on Friday night, I was rushing to meet up with Shieko, Perez, Orkibal, Sona and Drew who had recently got back from Australia. Well, I managed to arrived home around 9 pm and show my dad's company logo I had designed. Then I grab one spicy chicken which Abby bought from KFC and went of to pickup Orkibal and all of us went to Lost Generation Space at Jalan Permai, Taman Seputeh to setup our artworks.


More pics can be viewed at Shieko's fotopages.

We had graffiti on the wall of the nice house there, and had work continuously until Saturday evening. I was exhausted. We went to have our break at Burger King. I was so hungry I ate two cross potatoes, fries, one fish burger and one double cheese burger. At home, I ate my mum's laksa, which is so hot and nice....


Today, just finish doing an interactive piece for my first ever video installation for NotThatBalai exihibition. I just realized one thing that I'm happy to achieve, that is to do an interactive multimedia (Flash) with limited of time. Not like my final year back when I was in UiTM, I spent months and months just to do a normal piece of flash presantation, but since you are able to meet datelines regularly, you are able to develope a product so spontanously yet gives you the quality you desire. I guess it's all come to the effort and experience you have gain before plus with friends you hang out with...

I am very please to found out that my mentor, Hasnol J Saidon also will be featuring his work there. It's the year where I start back to become an artist, well, just for the weekend, and on weekdays, I never have the time to do my personal stuff such as art & digital designs... I was fully commited on my work and hope I can focus more. That's why I don't update digitalmalaya.com for a loooooong time! But just now I manage to do a splash for DMP...and hope I can buy my weekend time with DMP and my artwork...



I would also like to congratulate my dear friend, Riz Ainuddin & his wife, Raz, for their first daughter today. I'm so happy for him and his family and wish his family a blessful success and health.

Well, meeting up my friends tonight in Ampang for short yumcha, and will be a designer again, starting 9-6 pm till Friday. Yikes!

...................................................................................

Sayang,
Never say 'I hope you still love me" because I told you before, no matter what happen, my heart stays forever with you. It has always been.. we are so far apart, but my life is so contented because I have you.
I love you so dearly... and hope you pray for our 'happiness' and always try to find the best way to keep us together. I miss you.




____
* waiting for you to dance with me again my love.....

The Versus: Art Communicates

Art defines as:

Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
1. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
2. The study of these activities.
3. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value

Art communicates. It creates a relationship between an individual to another individual. We play our role as an artist to gather, communicate, assemble and inspire more artists, more talents, so we can create strong communities in the art industry.

However, people here in Malaysia abuses art. They try to set borders and limitations. Others who acclaim that they learn art and graduated overseas think different. I know few individual (artist) that shows their ‘art discrimination’ or ‘art racism’, who only select artist and individual who only graduated overseas to showcase or exhibit their work in an art gallery. It’s very obvious that ‘they’ wanted to form a different collective to dish out and put artist in hierarchy.

I am very concern about art education. It seems that our local education system would still think that art is redundant. That’s why we won’t able to see people around us who understand and appreciate art. And that is why our clients are born ‘artless’. For example, art education in America or western country is different. They (art educators) will teach kids in their kindergarten or junior not only to draw, but to understand art, how to see colors, learning the harmony of colors and even learning the history and the artists. In Malaysia, even if we have art education, art teachers who follow syllabus only teach student how to draw landscape drawing, portrait and simple subject matter which somehow doesn’t develop our art skills and our techniques.

Where thou art shall ‘stay’?
When I was a kid, long ago in our channel, we are able to see TV shows like Sesame Street, Art Attack, documentary of art, cartoons and illustrations that carries attention. I don’t see any local school have drawing competition anymore. I don’t see any school kids going in lakes or park in groups with their teacher to draw anymore.

Now, when I ask school kids on who are their favorite ARTIST, their answer was so simple; ‘Siti Nurhaliza’ or ‘Mawi’. I went berserk. That wasn’t the answer I seek for. I thought they would know who is Dato’ Lat, Ibrahim Hussein, Syed Ahmad Jamal, or at least Imuda (local comedian/actor who have crazy illustration works). I sighed, as to realize that the perception of ‘artist’ has changed forever. ‘Artists’ mean ‘recording artists’ to them, entertainers.

It’s one of the point why I wrote is post is because I see so many people are so judgmental and negative over Graffiti Art, which they consider as vandalism. It’s because they are not art-educated, neither in school or their family background. It sucks.

Study Case: Entertainment Industry
What Happened?

Let see what went wrong. Today, in Malaysia, is all about entertainment. It’s absolutely bullshit especially to see the Malays took it far to serious. Parents would rather spend their money to buy a VCD or DVD and let their kids watch uneducated movie such as ‘Sembilu” or “Cinta Fotokopi” which drives kids to negative mindset and turn them into love pigeons, who only cares about getting hookups with guys. Parents would spend hundreds of Ringgits buying ASTRO so that they can watch redundant program such as the lousy reality show, “Akademi Fantasia” who portrays local Malay (Muslim) untalented ‘pop-idols’ who spend their life doing useless activities, and doesn’t portray local ‘so-called-idols’ who doesn’t pray and full of fake dramas. It’s pathetic.
I still can’t figure out why it’s such a buzz to support untalented people who can barely sing well. Even the blind old man in Puduraya near Plaza Rakyat LRT Station (near the famous Kuala Lumpur bus station) can sing and play good music. Real music fades, popularity increases. It’s funny that all these recording artists in Malaysia actually didn’t do so well. They are so popular but their album sales are only less then 30,000 units. It’s a sick industry. Everyone can tell. And that is why Indonesian recording artists sells more albums rather then the local ones, because they are lack of quality, only try to be glamour which can only last a minute.

So what does our politician do? Do we really need to blame the government or we ourselves need to play the role in order to make sure our young generation understand and learn how to appreciate art? We will see.

.............................................................................



It was indeed a blazing hot Saturday. After me, Daniel & Lekan (Dap) sent our dearest friend, Gaby & Cristelle (from France) at the KLIA airport, I went to sign on some documents and papers later with my papa at the Bank in Masjid Jamek. I reached home at 11:30 am and fetch my friend Azhar a.k.a Orkibal to join me for our UBU Graffiti session in Bangsar. Once we’ve arrived, we met Ghostfinger & Rooty.

In the Afternoon, I met the graffiti artist involved in the project on top of the roof of UBU/COA/MalaysiaKini building. We set our marks and all of us went to have our lunch at the Mamak (Indian-muslim) restaurant nearby.

With Beastie Boys playing loud on the roof top (thanks to Shieko for providing the CD), we started our graffiti with style, where Perez gets to shoot us an intro video using his expensive videocam, art directed by Shieko. The scene was like a Hotlink ad. Damn, it was hot. We were all dehydrated.

Joining me is Rooty, Tha-B, Ghostfingers, and the spectaculars like Orkibal from Artvts, SWS (Sembur With Style) Team; Shieko, Iwaz & Sona (Drew @ GhostOne is still in Australia), and last but not least is our fellow DMP member, Perez, with his first stencil of his logo ‘Perezoldschool’ :P We had so much fun and it was a successful event for us. The place we did our graffiti art (legal ya'all!) was at the rooftop near Putra Bangsar LRT Station. So you will get the chance to see our work behind the 7-11 store, of course at the roof top.

Checkout the graffiti pix at my fotopages:
http://muidlatif.fotopages.com

Thousand of appreciation goes out to UBU for providing us the space, and to the great Graffiti artists involved. It was a great pleasure hanging out with you guys. Perez, sorry that we didn’t have the time to see your premier showcase of your video works later that night, but thanks for sponsoring us the 100Plus isotonic drink! Yeay! I hope you are feeling better now.

I would also like to thank everyone who came by and see our works, friends like Akira (Sifoo.com), Rafil, Bell, Gerek & the gang, and the participants of the event.



Gaby & Cristelle
My new friends, which I forever enjoy your stay here in Malaysia. I will miss you guys and hope to see you guys in France in near future. There’s so much to talk about and catch up. Gaby, thanks for the wonderful words that hold the strength to let my love grow for my sayang. I never realize how much love is. It’s really in those loves songs. Lekan, thanks for introducing your crazy-cool buddies. Much love from me, baby.

Visit our photo album at: http://www.moedlatif.com/misc/gambar/gabycristelle

To my Sayang,
I miss you so much. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve did to hurt you. I was being so self-centered which I shouldn’t have. I will let myself be more positive. Thanks to my friends who had supported me and carry many beautiful words and advice to keep me stay happy and alive. I love you. Loving you is amazing. I wish you upon success and prosperity back at Mauritius. Je viendrai pour vous mon amour..



* dancing with cans... that's right...

As the days goes by....

Catching a bad fever is not what I have in mind. It’s been 3 days and I’m dying to eat nice food and do ‘normal’ things. I have to sleep early (in my term, 1am). I miss hot and spicy food. I felt so vegetarian right now (Abby, not Vegetable tau...)

Anyway, I’ve my mind is getting more hair-wired, apart of settling my previous debts due to my previous %uc&up company back in KLCC who still haven’t paid their employees for almost 2 months, they still owe me 1k. My parents said to forget about it and move on. It’s been tough, but thank God if it’s wasn’t for freelance, I might not be able to sit in front of the computer today. I make RM500-2000k per week, however, on 24th of June, I decided to work on a 9-6 basis job. At least, I have the chance to receive permanent and stable income.

I’m not sure what my life is heading, but I’m taking it positive. I’m now working with a Singapore based company which I found very remarkable. I still trying hard to fit in and trying to find ways to improve myself and learn more new things around.

My dearest and sweet love
The person who I misses most my dear Sayang. It’s been awhile, and challenges is getting more serious everyday. We are able to talk on the phone and SMS. Just that. I miss touching my sayang’s face and those beautiful kisses. Miss walking on the streets of KL with my sayang.. it’s been hard and my sayang always told me to be strong. I’m trying to balance myself. I pass numerous things but my heart, still carry and burden me with clueless emotion which somehow rampage to scream out loud. Dear God, I love you for showing me the sign to stay strong.

Workaholic?



Exhibitions, yes. Graffiti, yes. Being a part of guest photographer for DailyMalaysia (Thanks Shafina!), last weekend I spent my time with my Singaporean Graffiti Artist, Killergerbil, Phuek, with them are their dearest love. Seing them makes me jealous and envy because I wish the love of my life is here with me. Anyway, it was also nice to see Orkibal, Rooty, Alfromeow, Shiekster, Sona or SWS, Tha-B & girlfriend. We had fun chatting, sketching and did few throwups in Sri Hartamas & Bangsar. Next week we will have a graffiti event in Bangsar, YES LEGAL one. Can’t wait to try out my new graffiti illustration on my new character, Papa Afro and a touch of oriental, like the one I did at Wondermilk, Uptown Damansara. Let see what happen next week.

A very good news



Thousand appreciation goes out to Carole Guevin of Netdiver. Getting my portfolio site in the portal has been a privilage, to be listed with the world's greatest artists, illustrators and creative minds. Yeay!

Heard Jamiroquai’s latest work? A-must! Now, adding in my jukebox is Café Del Mar Volume 12 and Anthony Hamilton. Sleeek! Oh, yeah! Went to Bon Odori last Saturday. It was wicked. Checkout the pictures here. Arigato!





* dancing in weakness, fever and stress….
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