<TIME TO PRETEND> (2024-2025)
Time to Pretend
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then pretending to be something we’re not could simply be the utmost resentment that smiles – to dream of illusions, rancid yet organic. Time to Pretend is 3rd Wave’s latest experimental excursion into the deep time of relations between visual arts, science (sometimes fringe and even pseudo) and technology to engage the students to question our serial-produced realities, to challenge the poetics of failure where confrontation with and digression from social norm occurs.
This horror of the real is now a world where we suffer the total saturation with information where unlimited amounts of data, at our finger tips at all times, backfires at us as a perpetual reminder of a danger that we do not know enough, only at the huge expense of confusing knowledge with understanding. Is it still okay to pretend things are okay? Can we avoid the seemingly inevitable cancellation of tomorrow? Whether you’re an engineer, manager, actor-activist, ecologist, actor, or huckster of ideas, maybe it’s about time to pretend you’re something else.
Come this fall 2024, Time to Pretend welcomes participants to finish it off once and for all, to be definitively done with all that has happened and what has failed to happen, to offer a different kind of divergence where finite transcendence ends but a new, infinitizing start awaits. Some say the value of art is its ability to take us away from here, to which 3rd Wave will add that the act of pretending to be something else may be seen as an underlying human condition to adopt and impose institutional fictions, of structuring thoughts and behaviours to make others believe: to pretend is also a form of play, of story-telling, growing out of observation and experiences of the particularity and fantasy of individual and / or collective lives and histories. The programme seeks to elicit an imaginative response through swapping the roles of participants, i.e. artist to conduct scientific research and experiment, financial consultant to produce genuine work of art and using arithmetic computational data to map human creativity, etc. Through these diverse synergistic conditions, 3rd Wave invites you to bring your own memories and desires into play in order to develop and rearrange the myriads of potentially volatile and unpredictable fallouts.
Warning: All participants will be required to take part in learning musical instruments and notations to cover MGMT’s Time to Pretend in various genres, working with an experienced producer to deliver the renditions in studio recording sessions, where filming also takes place. Failure is not an option.
《扮得及時》
獨自在高峰
高處未算高
浮雲在冷笑
暗示前無路
如果盲目的模擬仿效是一頂由頭笠到落腳的高帽，那麼自己假裝是自己就可能是一項用手倒立登上珠穆朗瑪峰來自我鞭屍的偉大壯舉 -本末倒置顛倒夢想紅白即藍死不足惜雖恥猶誠。《扮得及時》係3rd Wave再一次對視覺藝術、邊緣甚至偽科學和街頭掩眼法之間深層關係進行無利可圖的實驗性探索。旨在引導參與者批判質疑這個失控膨脹的現實，挑戰現世一眾行屍走肉遊魂野狗，為離經叛道的詩意另賦新詞。
活在當今空處無量的現世中，懷抱着對資訊的欲求不滿，認知與理解的界線已經一早血肉模糊。我們是否還可以假裝一切安好？能否避免看似注定取消的明天？無論你是工程師、經理、勣极家、生態學家、演員還是騎劫創意小販，要扮得及時已是刻不容緩。
2024年的秋天，《扮得及時》誠邀各參與者了結所有已發生和未發生的事情，衝破無量之有限，成就法空觀之非我無餘涅槃。有人大熱天時話藝術的價值在於能讓我們抽離醜惡的現實，3rd Wave則後捅多刀，直言扮嘢可以被視為人性昇華的一種不明文的潛規則機制，以肉身能用之實，構建思想之虛，行服人之為：扮蟹亦是一種遊戲、敘事的形式，源於個人或集體下意識對生活和歷史的妄/幻想，身體力行的觀察和欲拒還迎的體驗。是次計劃志在透過交換參與者的角色大洗牌，或以藝術意識條鐵進行科研實驗、或用經濟學財務原理衡量藝術的所謂價值、或用數據演算程式來人工模擬創造力等，務求引發不可收拾超越常規的結果。3rd Wave邀請各路英雄，攬實自身的記憶和慾望，來上演一次撳錯掣兜錯路兼著錯鞋的終極實驗劇場。
警告：所有參與者都需要生心理準備學習苦練樂器，以唔同風格演繹出 MGMT 的金曲《Time to Pretend》，並在經驗豐富的監製指導下攜手於錄音室進行排練、演奏、拍攝及錄音環節。只許假裝成功沒有真失敗，扮蟹雖是一個模擬但混水摸魚偷雞摸狗從來不是一個選項。大家記住要扮得及時。
Dates: Creativity Course from November 2024 . Final graduation exhibition in June 2025 at the Catalyst.
OPEN DAY: 6th OCT 2024 at 15:30 at 3RD WAVE, 186 Upper Station Street, Sheung Wan, HK. RSVP your place by email: ace.frederiquedecombe@gmail.com
Fee: Applicants will be required to honour the tuition fee of HKD$ 18,000 with a refundable amount of HKD$ 5,000 upon successful completion of the programme (full attendance, completion of all assignments, presentation of your work in the final exhibition in summer 2025).