Above: drawing by a member of Headway East London (May 2018) that represents their wandering mind.
The following is the audio and text of the audio description (7'30") by wonderful Jenni Elbourne of I Run and Run, Let Out an Earth Shattering Roar, and Turn into a Giant Octopussy. This was developed by Jenni after viewing the tapestry and chatting with Kai. The AD was commissioned by Unlimited and premiered at the Unlimited Festival at Southbank Centre (September 2018), then at the Bush House group show (October-December 2018).
Welcome to this audio description of the tapestry I Run and Run, Let Out an Earth Shattering Roar, and Turn into a Giant Octopussy by Kai Syng Tan.
The text on display in the exhibition space reads: Does your mind wander? Where does it go? What do you see? How far is too far? What does mind wandering enable you to do? When does it become disabling?
Come look at and touch a tapestry art called 'I Run and Run, Let Out an Earth Shattering Roar, and Turn into a Giant Octopussy’, which is perched on an 'invisible loom’. This is one of the various outcomes of We Sat on a Mat and Had a Chat and Made Maps! #MagicCarpet, a practice-led research project weaving science and art together.
#MagicCarpet is a 1.5 year project by artist Dr Kai Syng Tan in collaboration with Professor of Psychiatry Philip Asherson, both at King’s College London. The project draws on research on mind wandering as well as how it relates to visual art and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Commissioned and supported by the Unlimited programme, which celebrates the work of disabled artists, with funding from Arts Council England.
The wool and cotton tapestry is 2.9 metres long by around 1 metre high, and took ten weeks to weave on machines at Flanders Tapestries in Belgium. It is displayed on an acrylic stand and can be touched by visitors with care and guidance. Some sections are woven in relief which can be felt on the surface of the tapestry.
First impressions of the tapestry. Busy, overwhelming. Many details bursting forth. Images overlap, interrupt and crowd each other. Text splatters the spaces, neatly typed and messily handwritten, though all, in fact, precisely woven. Sometimes legible, sometimes blurred or distorted by the texture of the woven surface.
An intense pinkish red reaches across from the right – the flailing tentacles of a an octopus whose bold colour stretches across the whole tapestry. Tentacles twist and turn in on themselves. On the right its body is obscured by a collection of green road signs reading RUN, Detour, digression. The Octopussy’s face is like a Cheshire cat: long whiskers, purple cheeks and aquamarine eyelids. On the left, tentacles blur into a cacophony of overlapping details, literal and abstract images emerge from behind and wrap around one another.
A bombardment of graffiti’d words, typed words, boxed words. Images of a yellow disk, a pixelated Mickey and Mini Mouse, and a figure in green who crouches over an iPad. Almost every inch of tapestry is filled with tiny details, leaving it impossible to take in as a whole.
A murky looking banner of white graffiti’d words on a greyish background stretches from the dark bottom left corner towards the Octopussy. Part of the tapestry’s title can be found among the crowded text. I run and run and let out an earth shattering roar, turning instantly into a prehistoric Chimera, a beast of an octopussy, itself a hybrid of a giant octopus….. The word Chimera is much larger and forces the other text to shrink into the tight spaces around it. More words fill the dark banner, with tiny scrawls squeezed between the larger words: Pulsate, Impulse, Disorderly, Fix. They run in all directions, repeat and in places are infected by the oozing pink colour of the Octopussy’s tentacles.
Immediately above the banner, a large yellow circle stands out just left of the tapestry’s centre. On it, a Regency-style portrait of a woman with her hair in two buns bears the title Ada Lovelace, 1815-1852, and the caption Portrait in Watercolour, possibly by A E Chalon, circa 1840. Radiating from the disk, a series of black lines lead to individual smaller circles. Some are like old-fashioned typewriter keys with T1, T2, T3, T4 stamped on them. Others are plain, some filled with colour, some just outlines. Further text in both modern typeface and graffiti-style overlaps with these images. In purple type: thinking, processing, pixel, programming. In red type: Jacquard Loom, 1804; Analytical Engine, 1837. In handwritten scribbles: intertextuality; writing between the lines; stream of consciousness; edge of reason; wedge of cheese. This large area near the centre of the work is fringed by the woven image of pink carpet tassels, obscured in many places, but on closer inspection creating a kind of ‘rug within a rug’ effect. The figure in green crouches on the edge of this mat; a calm and literal image amidst much abstraction and chaos. Her long, dark hair is adorned with white text; the word ‘Mindful’ rests on top of her head.
On the far left, a cluster of overlapping green squares, like post-it notes, reading: Touch Zone, Zone of Contact, Zone of Conflict. Another cluster bottom right: sense here, feel here, sniff. Higher up, two clusters of red, pink and purple further encourage visitors to touch the tapestry.
Two corners feel distinct and separate from the rest of the piece. Bottom right, a pink gibbon with a long, outstretched arm, and a My Little Pony with sparkling mane and tail, sit on a black and white backdrop; monochrome in contrast to the colour explosion everywhere else. Here the text has more breathing space: Monkey Mind, You are the Universe. 2016 Trump. 2019 Brexit.
Top left, on a shelf of delicate pinkish white bubbles, a black cat with an open wound in its side. Text reads: They open cat’s swollen belly and discover Seagull who has eaten a bunch of lego bricks which weigh her and cat down. Upon being tickled, cat and seagull jump back to life, hissing furiously at the time lost.
The text on display in the exhibition space reads: Does your mind wander? Where does it go? What do you see? How far is too far? What does mind wandering enable you to do? When does it become disabling?
Come look at and touch a tapestry art called 'I Run and Run, Let Out an Earth Shattering Roar, and Turn into a Giant Octopussy’, which is perched on an 'invisible loom’. This is one of the various outcomes of We Sat on a Mat and Had a Chat and Made Maps! #MagicCarpet, a practice-led research project weaving science and art together.
#MagicCarpet is a 1.5 year project by artist Dr Kai Syng Tan in collaboration with Professor of Psychiatry Philip Asherson, both at King’s College London. The project draws on research on mind wandering as well as how it relates to visual art and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Commissioned and supported by the Unlimited programme, which celebrates the work of disabled artists, with funding from Arts Council England.
The wool and cotton tapestry is 2.9 metres long by around 1 metre high, and took ten weeks to weave on machines at Flanders Tapestries in Belgium. It is displayed on an acrylic stand and can be touched by visitors with care and guidance. Some sections are woven in relief which can be felt on the surface of the tapestry.
First impressions of the tapestry. Busy, overwhelming. Many details bursting forth. Images overlap, interrupt and crowd each other. Text splatters the spaces, neatly typed and messily handwritten, though all, in fact, precisely woven. Sometimes legible, sometimes blurred or distorted by the texture of the woven surface.
An intense pinkish red reaches across from the right – the flailing tentacles of a an octopus whose bold colour stretches across the whole tapestry. Tentacles twist and turn in on themselves. On the right its body is obscured by a collection of green road signs reading RUN, Detour, digression. The Octopussy’s face is like a Cheshire cat: long whiskers, purple cheeks and aquamarine eyelids. On the left, tentacles blur into a cacophony of overlapping details, literal and abstract images emerge from behind and wrap around one another.
A bombardment of graffiti’d words, typed words, boxed words. Images of a yellow disk, a pixelated Mickey and Mini Mouse, and a figure in green who crouches over an iPad. Almost every inch of tapestry is filled with tiny details, leaving it impossible to take in as a whole.
A murky looking banner of white graffiti’d words on a greyish background stretches from the dark bottom left corner towards the Octopussy. Part of the tapestry’s title can be found among the crowded text. I run and run and let out an earth shattering roar, turning instantly into a prehistoric Chimera, a beast of an octopussy, itself a hybrid of a giant octopus….. The word Chimera is much larger and forces the other text to shrink into the tight spaces around it. More words fill the dark banner, with tiny scrawls squeezed between the larger words: Pulsate, Impulse, Disorderly, Fix. They run in all directions, repeat and in places are infected by the oozing pink colour of the Octopussy’s tentacles.
Immediately above the banner, a large yellow circle stands out just left of the tapestry’s centre. On it, a Regency-style portrait of a woman with her hair in two buns bears the title Ada Lovelace, 1815-1852, and the caption Portrait in Watercolour, possibly by A E Chalon, circa 1840. Radiating from the disk, a series of black lines lead to individual smaller circles. Some are like old-fashioned typewriter keys with T1, T2, T3, T4 stamped on them. Others are plain, some filled with colour, some just outlines. Further text in both modern typeface and graffiti-style overlaps with these images. In purple type: thinking, processing, pixel, programming. In red type: Jacquard Loom, 1804; Analytical Engine, 1837. In handwritten scribbles: intertextuality; writing between the lines; stream of consciousness; edge of reason; wedge of cheese. This large area near the centre of the work is fringed by the woven image of pink carpet tassels, obscured in many places, but on closer inspection creating a kind of ‘rug within a rug’ effect. The figure in green crouches on the edge of this mat; a calm and literal image amidst much abstraction and chaos. Her long, dark hair is adorned with white text; the word ‘Mindful’ rests on top of her head.
On the far left, a cluster of overlapping green squares, like post-it notes, reading: Touch Zone, Zone of Contact, Zone of Conflict. Another cluster bottom right: sense here, feel here, sniff. Higher up, two clusters of red, pink and purple further encourage visitors to touch the tapestry.
Two corners feel distinct and separate from the rest of the piece. Bottom right, a pink gibbon with a long, outstretched arm, and a My Little Pony with sparkling mane and tail, sit on a black and white backdrop; monochrome in contrast to the colour explosion everywhere else. Here the text has more breathing space: Monkey Mind, You are the Universe. 2016 Trump. 2019 Brexit.
Top left, on a shelf of delicate pinkish white bubbles, a black cat with an open wound in its side. Text reads: They open cat’s swollen belly and discover Seagull who has eaten a bunch of lego bricks which weigh her and cat down. Upon being tickled, cat and seagull jump back to life, hissing furiously at the time lost.