Parinot Kunakornwong & Corina Schaltegger

Isn’t it strange when there’s a definition between ghost and angel? Both of them somehow are quite invisible, but divided by religion and suggested ideas of good and evil. In Buddhism there’s a believe about the ghost that it’s a condition when the soul doesn’t know what sort of existence they’re becoming after death.
Back to Western idea about ghost, I don’t know what sort of belief about after life of how one soul becomes a ghost and the relationship to evil. However In fiction I kinda like Casper the friendly ghost I saw when I was really young though.

To think about death, here I post one of the photos of my trip to my friend’s funeral. We’ve made a plan to meet up again in London, but sadly he passed away and I got to meet him again in his hometown with his lovely friends and family. This is a photo of the wake. I looked out of the window and saw the quiet garden out there.

That day evoked so many feelings and questions again on one’s existence in this digital time when every moment could be easily recorded and we seem to think we know and like someone quite dearly from the digital images and our encounter online.

Anyway, after this post I would like to take a break from this project for a while due to the work I have here. And hopefully we’ll get to meet in real life next year.

Parinot
3 Nov 2017

Well, coffe and toilet are not far away from each other.

So you are closer to my timezone right now. When I talk about this morning, it was also your morning. This morning on the way to the studio I came by a bridge and saw this projection of the surface.

Then in the studio something had happened with the clay.

This on the bottom of the bowl.

and the clay has a crack now. Looks a bit like your angel but mirror inverted. Once a person I know told me she can see ghosts, like normal people when they are around. It’s uncommon people tell that about themselves here. I didn’t really know what to say. And I wasn’t sure if I should tell here, beacause the person told me in private. That’s the strange situation with this conversation. It’s really personal but public at the same time.

Can you explain me the difference between angels and ghosts?

Corina
22 Sep 2017

I’m amazed how this still carries on. Perhaps it’s your coffee machine alike that keeps it awakes. The machine looked like a toilet tank though :). I wonder how eroded clay would form into a big drawing underneath.

This time my studio isn’t the same since I’ve been back in rainy cold London and trying to keep up with its overwhelming pace.

Here in front of my flat in the middle of the rain, this angel mysteriously emerged on the floor . Who knows angel or ghost is everywhere if we look carefully enough haha.

Parinot
19 Sep 2017

 

Hi Parinot

Not the end yet. Here is something for you. This is a construction I made out of two plastic bowls. It simulates a coffee machine. Trying to make a canyon into a piece of clay by making water runnig slowly over the surface of the clay. That was the idea I wanted to try. The voice you hear in the background is the TV talking about conspiracy theories.

Corina
15 Sep 2017

 

 

Haha I thought the house was eaten by a blob alien. I could remember seeing BBC documentary about cave painting. As I could recall that the cave painting, perhaps not the one you have mentioned here, was done by a shaman when he’s in trance and depicted what he saw from the other world. You can see more from the link here.
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXejMO8x5qk’

Oh this is gonna be the last post for our session! During midnight I captured my screen as a mark of the end of our session. However in all the post I used the time of your timezone :).

I also painted my own version of wisent as I’ve never seen the real one. I try to think of it regardless to any preconception, but only the one you said it looked like bison. I guess this is the homework I do before your students.

Parinot
3 Sep 2017

 

 

I have not even seen The Exorcist. I don’t like horror films.

The pictures of the waiting room reminded me of a cave. And the video of a searching torch light. Very special caves I once visited in France. ‘La grotte de Font-de-Gaume’ with paintings from Cro-Magnon people and ‘Les Combarelles’ where there are drawings scratched into the rock. Visiting them was really like a dream. Very few people are allowed to go in the caves beacause breathing can damage the pictures. So you go with a small group and a guide. Not much light is allowed neither. The guide let the figures appear one after another. With a little spotlight she retraces the lines that were made around 15000 years ago from another person. Especially in ‘Les Combarelles’ there are hundres of drawings next to and also on top of each other. So great drawings that also include the rock as existing volumes and lines. It’s not sure why these drawings were made. Probably some spiritual purpose, as they were obviously not made to look at. The important thing was to make them.

Here I show you the entrance of the Cave ‘Les Combarelles’,  A drawing of a wisent (like a bison) which I tried to do like in the cave. It fits our conversation abot cows. I used ochre from that region in France. And a picture I got as a present from a student. Back home I wanted to teach my students how to draw a wisent because they just had Stone Age toppic at school.

Corina
3 Sep 2017

 

I hope it’s not the power of that child from The Exorcist that tricked your mind that time! I was waiting for the train as well while I made this video of my phone trying to record its own reflection and light on the chair. It perhaps turned out to be the video of your dream while taking a nap on the wrong train.

Parinot
2 Sep 2017

Today I experienced something supernatural too. I wanted to go home from a wokshop I had with kids in the museum. Told you about the paradise exhibition. My thoughts were far away, listened to music and ate a sandwich at the same time. I walked automatically to the platform, stepped into the train and sat down. That platform and time my train always waits. But today It just went to berne instead of lucerne. Here I am now in the train, moving instead of sitting at home. I dont’t understand.

Corina, 2 Sept 2017

 

It’s strange how your soft touch drawing got me to think of The Exorcist child and her possession. At the same time I was thinking what the body would be when you left the negative space. Then again I walked back home and thought that I wanted to create the body of a Thai ghost, Krasue, from the images I took while I was walking back home. So I combined these images with The Exorcist child in the background of the police booth across the Erawan Shire I told you the other day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasue

  

Krasue story is so interesting. It’s such a vulnerable ghost. She seems to be like an ordinary woman in the day time. On contrary during the night her head and some inner organs would leave the body and goes to hunt for chicken in the farm and also eats stools and dirt.

 

Parinot
1 Sep 2017

 

So funny. Yesterday a friend cooked corean food and we watched music videos of psy. I can relate to that hairstyle. You see a drawing of child-me as The Beatles.

Corina
1 Sept 2017

 

The sign means nothing. It was just a dance movement like Gangnam Style. In Thailand people use more industrial device or more advance technology so they use less and less buffaloes. Your cows had very cool hairstyle so I made this collage and matched them up with the Beatles mop heads since we’ve talked about ‘Real Love’.

Parinot
31 Aug 2017




In your slow motion video the buffalo seems somehow scary. Because of the eyes (one sees a face, no hand anymore) and the slow movement. Kind of the opposite impression the shaka sign should evoke.

I wonder what that paddy field sign means. Is that a political message? Or the explanation why the buffalos are walking down the street? Or does it mean that they have no place to stay because they were dumped from their lover?

In german, a stupid person is called not buffalo but cow. However, it’s only used for women. At the same time the cow is kind of a symbol of switzerland, a stereotype. Especially here in Lucerne, where a lot of tourists come for a visit, I see the cow on cups, postcards, chocolate, key chains… Even next to the city wall live cows. Today I went there to look at them an find out if they seem scary too. But they looked very peacful and relaxed to me. It was raining very heavy but they din’t mind. They din’t look stupid neither.

Corina
31 Aug 2017


That sign made me think of this old song from mid 90s, ‘เจ้าทุยอยู่ไหน’ by Thai singer, Peter Corp. It’s a trend at that time, or now as well, to have Pop stars who are mixed race, mostly Thai with white European or white American. And the record label would invent a certain sort of dance for the audience to follow the singer easily in the concert. This song also has that too.

‘เจ้าทุยอยู่ไหน’ means ‘Where is the Buffalo?’. In Thai language buffalo refers to a stupid person. As I could understand from the lyrics that the song was simply about a person, who was dumped from a lover, and thought of oneself as a stupid one. To see the video now again, I noticed there’s a strange scene that the buffalos held the signage saying there’s no more paddy field left for us.

Again I reappropriate this source as a dialog to your hello. You can see the original video in the link below.
‘https://youtu.be/Dz__yZfJ-w8’

Parinot
30 Aug 2017

Brain and hands… best moments are when the connection works.

Hands can also speak. My brothers thought me this hand signal. A gesture which is common in the surf culture. I can still not do it properly, here I’m practising. As I found out, it’s called shaka, comes from Hawai and symbolises the perfect wave for a surfer. But it’s used in many situations to say hello or to illustrate a great moment.

Corina
30 Aug 2017

Such a funny drawing device and it seemed to draw brain neural network. Isn’t it amazing how sometimes this kind of device could somehow crack the natural code? or visualise sound?

Now I wonder what you’re up to in the studio as you have made a drawing before about things you took to the studio and this new idea.

Talking about drawings, I’m thinking about hands, the role of hands and my gratefulness to hands. Most devices in the world requires hands to utilise them. Most labours in the world also require hands and as well art objects mostly somewhat created by hands or somehow started by it. Here I made a short closed up video of my own palm, the part with no hair.

Parinot
29 Aug 2017

I walk around with my headphones on all the time. In the Bachelor I made a performance with two friends who are musicians. I put coom on glass. Then glued a thin wire on a membrane out of a plastic bag. At the end of the wire I put a hair of a brush. We put the membrane in front of a speaker. They played music and the hair on the wire made a drawing. The sound waves made it move. You writing about the beatles inspired me to do that again with ‘Real Love’. Unfortunately not played live.

In the morning, thinking about your post, I had an idea for something i want to try out and spend some studiotime with. Thank you.

Falling out of the bus sounds like something really displeasing.

Corina
29 Aug 2017

I saw the video of that fly struggled to leave before I walked back home. I wasn’t so sure what I should do and the rain started to pour. On the way back I listened to The Beatles’ ‘Real Love’. It took me back to the memories around this area especially this intersection of Erawan Shrine; so many personal and collective memories relating to this place.

I remember falling out of the bus around this road when I was 13 asking God to save my foot. At the same place many years later mom and dad prayed at the same shrine for me while I was applying to university. Many years later there were many major political events around here. Perhaps here we are now somehow like that fly, just need to keep going.

Now more rain keeps pouring, the dark road shines on. I try not to forget these memories and feelings.

Parinot
28 Aug 2017

This drama happend when I ate lunch today. The fly could escape.

Corina
28 Aug 2017

I would save that surprise until we meet :).

Quite a very dark image for a little camping cookbook! I guess that’s the first warning to the reader not to enjoy too much camping on the pond and also don’t forget to take the pills.

Those dots in the back also make me think of the bubble wrap I have in my room. So I made this kind of 5 mins sculpture over my chair to depict the poor guy after he was eaten by an alligator in that pond.

Parinot
27 Aug 2017

On the internet it should be easy to find out if it’s really my face. I didn’t know what I should do now. Post a mad emoji, search you on google and post your face, tell you that I don’t like oreos, brush my teeth daily but with elmex toothpaste and eat, of course, not many pills?

I understand what you mean about faces in images. Most of my drawings don’t include people. Maybe beacause I feel not good looking at people for a long time. I noticed that you took a moment with closed eyes for the montage.

I send you this scan. In search of something I went through my bookshelf and found this. It’s a book from 1984, from Gisela Allkemper and Wolgang Hölker. It’s called “The little camping cookbook”. The page you see is the beginning of the chapter about camping on streams and ponds, which I enjoy to do. As you mentioned vulnerability.

Corina
27 Aug 2017

 

I think face draws so much attention in the image, and sometimes I try to avoid this attention since it would mask over what I prefer to suggest in the image. At the same time it’s hard to capture people precisely in the image as representation can be too vulnerable.

I guess I think of fate as something controlled by higher power, could be karma, but randomness doesn’t have any agent in charge.

Wow I finally see your face, if that’s really you. And you become another image in the digital world that I’ve just manipulated :p. You see, how vulnerable representation is?

Parinot
26 Aug 2017

 

 

 

No surprise you mentioned Hockney. I took the photo in california. You posted one picture of the taxi, where the driver’s face is just light, and also the working aliens have light, no faces. That’s why I wondered if that’s the way people appear to you:)

I can clearly see the face. But this thing is not alive. It cannot breathe. I have no idea about fate, I cannot distinguish fate and randomness. I’m thinking about what you said about the image and the viewer. A person, especially in the digital world is like an image. And the viewer, or other user in this case, creates meaning from the image.

Corina
26 Aug 2017

 

That image looked like Hockney’s painting. I don’t know what you mean by people’s face, you mean in this photo? I’ve tried, somehow couldn’t find one.

I’ve read Michael Craig-Martin’s book, ‘On Being an Artist’. There’s a chapter I found quite interesting. He said that the possibility of translating something as a picture relies on capacity of the viewer. He added that the viewer of the representational image wasn’t a passive receiver otherwise it would be seen only as coloured shape. And here I blow an emoticon up and wonder if you could still see a face, or perhaps faceless of the digital age.

From face I’m thinking about fate as well. How many people have we met in our lives? How many faces have we seen and could recognise in the lifetime according to the capacity of the brain? I strongly believe how we meet other people isn’t just randomness, but there’s something that gravitates people together. Nowadays the logic must be beyond apprehension when people across the world could meet and connect so quickly. The next question would be how meaningful could it be? What would this encounter lead to?

Parinot
25 Aug 2017

 

 

Just woke up from a dream. Your picture made me think about this photo. Do you ever see people’s face?

Corina
25 Aug 2017

You’re on the way to the studio. I read your new post, while I was walking back home and saw these guys trying to open the manhole cover. I guess my mind works like Pinterest sometimes.

By the way, does it feel like the moment from Sci-Fi movie when alien approaches?

Parinot
24 Aug 2017

Devil’s wings seems to consist of leather or skin rather than feathers. They fell out. But yours have no wings at all.

Recently I began to use a really old writing pad again. Because of lack of paper. We collected sheets with diffrent pictures back then. But never wrote something on it. The drawing is from today. My packed bike. Made a transport to my new studio.

Corina
24 Aug 2017

Talking about going through old stuffs, I also went through some of my old drawings I did when I was like 11 or 12. Like any other kids at that time, I was a big fan of Japanese manga and video game.

You mentioned about paradise and Expressionist painter, here I found the devils. Isn’t it strange every time we think of paradise we somewhat look above to the sky and the representation of angel somehow combined with bird feature.

Parinot
24 Aug 2017

 

From my bedroom as a child the door to the attic leaved. A small place with a lot of stuff. Suitcases, boxes, stored mitlitary stuff from my father, toys we got to old for, my mother’s collection of glove puppets… When I woke up at night I was so afraid because I thought there are ghost living there. Whenever I lost some item, I was sure the gosts have taken it and that they would put it back after some time.

Nowadays I’m rarely awake late at night because i get really tired and like to sleep long.  But the days I go to work, it’s almost night when go to the station by bike. I like that ride.

I send you two photographs today and some thoughts about an exhibition. One photo I took in the morning at the station. The other one shows a drawing which I’m gonna post on Instagram. A feather I found on the ground.  To the exhibition I have to say that I work in a museum. Today the curator explained the new exhibition. It’s called “Back to Paradise” and shows expressionist paintings. He said without that honesty and truth, without showing unhappy things the expressionist painters found themselves into, there is no Paradise for them. If you’re not in paradise, you need that realitiy for your imagination of it. If you’re in Paradise however, there ist only Paradise.

Corina
23 Aug 2017

 

I could recall that midnight in London could be so quiet, sometimes there were more foxes than people. On contrary, it’s so different around where I live in Bangkok. There’s always someone around all night.

I have a habit of going for a walk during the night. It sometimes reminded me how I was fooled by the ghost story some grown men made to get their children to sleep when I was really young. Also in Cinderella after midnight fantasy falls and everything turns back into the dull reality.

Here I walked around and had an intention that I would take the photo of the first person I met at midnight. The person turned out to be this taxi driver. I couldn’t even see his face.

So many people are awake here!
Parinot
22 Aug 2017

 

You captured a nice time with the 23 seconds. Must be because your time ist exact. Mine as well, by the way. I checked it.

That midnight changing point is fascinating. Ending and beginning in one. But just in our head. I wanted to do something around that time as well. So yesterday (your today) shortly before midnight (at yours probably a unnoticed moment) I made this video. I send it to you about 12 hours later. It’s the view from my window, my home. You wrote about time and clumsyness. Looking at the video I thought time appears clumsy when there is no movement. Video, movement and time interest me very much.

Someone else is awake, you see?

Corina
22 Aug 2017

 

When you said about travelling, I was supposed to be in London by now, but I have changed my plan.
There’s something precarious about time, timezone, and how today changes to tomorrow in each timezone. Here I’m trying to capture my screen around the changing time to the next day from Bangkok time as I’m still in Bangkok.

Note: There’s a little clumsy part how the time happened to be at Uttaradit here instead of Bangkok.

Parinot
21 Aug 2017

 

I once threw a message in a bottle from a ferry into the sea. It was found by someone and answered some weeks later. We sent each other a few letters. After a certain time, the conversation stopped. I didn’t aswear the last letter. I don’t know why.

Last month, I’ve been travelling trough europe again. I wore flip-flops all the time. On my feet, i can still see the mark oft he straps. In france the flip-flops broke down and I had to buy new ones. The supermarket had only those which you can see on the picture. They show the must-sees of the region Normandie, the rock coast at Etretat, the „Pont du Normandie“, boats from fishermen, the „Mont-Saint-Michel“. By wearing them, the colour faded where my feet touched the picture. Now there are some white and black gaps.

21. August 2017