I’ve been thinking lately about a feedback loop, process ∞ engage. It’s a duality that seems to have quietly taken a place of prominence in my practice – in my life as a whole for that matter. That ambiguos ∞ squiggle is an infinity sign implying continuous, ever-changing oscillation between two polarities, and when I envision the loop, “process” takes place on the left. This is the site of mind-nourishing acts like reading, researching, listening, reflecting – acts of taking it all in. Engage, on the right, encompasses acts of giving it all back, putting it all into practice. It is communication by way of exhibition & publication, presentation & discussion. Perhaps each end of this loop is never completely devoid of the other, but I would argue that instead the two ends are mutually exclusive: it is the speed of folding, not the concentration of act, that changes.

There are times when one travels the loop almost too quickly to distinguish the ends, like when making new friends, shooting new projects… driving, even – ProcessEngageProcesngagerocengaprage – and there are periods of exclusive partaking in one end and not the other. There are times when you feel like you are struggling to crest a peak on the rollercoaster of process, fighting against gravity and waiting to be flung into acts of engagement like debris in orbit.

I’ve been thinking about these processes a lot lately, and if your eyes ever wander to this blog you may have noticed a recent absence of engagement. I’ve been processing a bit too much, and over the course of the next few posts I will attempt to bring us both up to speed on recent events through a little engagement. Retro-blogging has always held a certain appeal for me – possibly because of the leisurely separation of polarities afforded by it – so this should be fun.

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In November I flew to the island of Oahu for a family wedding. I’ve never felt any pressing urge to visit Hawaii – the destination was chosen by roughly triangulating the starting points of family from Japan, Korea and Vancouver and picking a central point that featured dry land – and from (literally) the moment the party landed our trip was fraught with difficulty. Don’t worry, everything is fine, but… travel insurance. You don’t need it until you really need it.

In the hours spent away from the waiting room of a Honolulu hospital we were able to see the sights and sounds of the city: the unnerving street-side negotiations of Waikiki sex tourism, the political economy of beach-towel real estate, and a commercial packaging of culture the likes of which I haven’t seen since the 2010 Winter Olympics. On the plus side, we took in a North Shore surf competition, the Pearl Harbour memorial (I had no idea the Arizona was still visibly leaking oil), and one wonderfully understated beachside wedding (congratulations T & S). Above are some of the visual highlights.