I am collecting quotes (possibly as fodder for a voice over?)

Whilst looking up dazzle images I found this classic:

'No one would believe that I should be cleaning toilets but here in the West with talent like this, I'm an Artist. Yes, the entrepreneurial spirit infects the ambitious, the driven the savant, even the dissolute. As a morality tale, Razzle Dazzle Sea Scape works to deliver a sense of wonder while grounded to the rhyme of history and the rhythm of the brush strokes. Finding Chi in a meditation of light and shadow is the essence of communication, the meaning of life, it's what makes me look to the next work that makes me so spiritual.' - Randal

I've been looking at the film 'My Geisha' staring Shirley Maclaine, where a western actress 'blacks up' by wearing the white make-up of a geisha to fool her husband (a film director) to put her in his version of 'Madame Butterfly'. The quotes are fantastic ('Deception was never so much fun!' - on the poster). I also came across a short Russian version of the film and a few other weird versions - one where someone is filming the screen as the dvd plays, in order to sell it. Creates beautiful, extreme colour effects.

This also lead me to the pheneomena of 'blacking up'/'black face' in Japanese culture, specifically, the subculture called 'Ganguro' ('face black' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganguro). It is said to have started with an obsession with Michael Jackson and Naomi Campbell (!), who blurred the race divide and flirted with 'being white', (suposedly).

I am immediatley drawn to such blurrings, misconceptions, crossings, scenes of revealation and concealment, where all that is usually revealed (through a specific employment of an aesthetic) is an ethical dilema, yes, but usually (and more worryingly) a kind of racist stereotype and caricature based on a mis-understanding and mis-portrayal of the 'other'.

I can't yet figure out to move images about in these posts so will post them separatley.

- Alex