Happy Bobbing Valentine’s / Lunar New Year

Today was my last day working for the National Heritage Board, a government agency that manages national museums in Singapore.

It has been a fun year, constantly meeting new people from all walks and working on a range of initiatives. I’m especially thankful to be able to see what goes on behind-the-scene and get acquainted with the folks – curators, conservators, directors, programming teams, facilities managers and all other people – that make museums happen.

I was already a museum geek before I joined NHB but the important roles museums play are even more certain for me now. So I’d like to take a page out of critic Lee Wengchoy’s book for an observation – that Singapore ought to beef up the museums’ curatorial muscle, be it art or anthropology.

Accessibility and acknowledgment are important but it’s also my thought that we spend comparatively not enough on educating and cultivating museums’ “meat.” Good marketing makes for the sizzle but it is the steak that feeds.

Fortunately there’s a fair bit of exciting things to look forward to – thanks to the establishment of institutions such as the National Art Gallery and international exchanges such as ones between the Peranakan Museum and France’s Musée Guimet. Now that the hardware (structure) is in place, it really is about the software (content). To use a crude analogy, we shouldn’t have a(nother) cultural equivalent of ION Orchard – spectacular exterior architecture but with the same Prada and Zara stores.

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I am taking a break from work for a while and will see what is out there. And I now have the time for some overdue light reading. Auf Wiedersehen.

Okie, Stephie and Dottie, this is way-er overdue. Here are a couple of photos taken at the two parties that tied me down at work – a private Halloween’s event at the MINT Museum of Toys and a late night party at the Singapore Art Museum. The two parties ran a week apart, both on a Saturday night, and they were gooooood.

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:: Halloween’s at MINT Museum ::

Dottie, Me, Stephie, Matt

Shermeen came as Minnie Mouse! And Strawberry Nabilah brought along two Macs.

Andrew and Msxi drew caricatures for the guests.

Goth Chick and Ganguro Girl!

Yup, Darth Vader and Bumblebee Femme are dating.

What’s Halloween without some devilish prodding and poking?

- Kudos to Gwo Wei for these photos taken at MINT Museum. The party Polariods are already on Facebook here.

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:: PYT Party at Singapore Art Museum ::

I stayed dry while Denise Keller was goofing. I think she was mocking me.

First they painted.

Then they made out.

DJ SidAbitBall went old-school with Nintendo Game Boy consoles.

The party.

Merci beaucoup ladies!

SidAbitBall in action.

I uploaded a bunch of Polaroids taken at the Art Museum party on Facebook. Amazingly I stayed sober through both parties. Clearly I’m not doing it right.

When I read that Claude Lévi-Strauss had passed on, I dutifully posted the news on both my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I received one response on Twitter:

I didn’t receive any comments or “likes” (very odd I’d say, to “like” the passing of Lévi-Strauss) on Facebook. However something transpired over the next day that made me post the question “Are Asians hug-deficient?” The responses came swift and steadily:

Two things to note. Firstly, Asians are evidently indeed hug-deficient and it seems we should do something about that, maybe hold free hugs days or perhaps charge money for each hug. In any case the need is there, simmering beneath our polite Asian surfaces and serf-faces. As Lévi-Strauss’ fellow Frenchman and contemporary the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan would have it, there buried in all the resounding “YES!” resides the erupting of the traumatic Real when Ejin Tan irrepressibly puts it “hug me.”

Secondly, as the father of modern anthropology and a central figure in humanities, social studies and philosophy I trust that Lévi-Strauss would have something to say about Asians needing hugs but only expressing it on Facebook. The late gentleman might also have something to say about the scoreboard:

Death of Lévi-Strauss – 0 Comments, 1 Tweet
Asian Hug-deficiency – 2 Likes, 8 Comments

RIP, Monsieur Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Actually don’t. I’m just kidding. It’s been about two weeks since the Mid-Autumn Festival party at Hua Song Museum and I’m happy to say that everyone had a good time. Overheard: “Mmm… mooncakes…”

With happy guests I’m confident of positive publicity for the museum and for whichever museum I promote for that matter. I do wonder, though, in today’s age of super-speed twitting what will pop-up whenever I do a search for blog entries and image postings. It is part and parcel of my work to constantly keep myself updated of whatever floats up in cyberspace but I want to try something new. Rather than uploading a few choice picks after trawling through whatever I find relevant about my Mid-Autumn’s party, I’m putting up hyperlinks to ‘live’ searches for the name “Hua Song Museum” – the venue of the festive event.

A play on Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, these links will give you the latest hits on the three currently most pertinent social media channels:

• Google Blogs Search
• Facebook
• Twitter

There are some really decent photographs in some of the guests’ Facebook albums and a fair bit of blog chatter and tweets too so have fun surfing. Mmm… mooncakes…

There are several myths about the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mooncake or Lantern Festival. Whether you think the Festival commemorates the overthrowing of the Mongol rulers of the Tang Dynasty or romanticizes about the goddess Chang’e and her lover Houyi the Archer, the nocturnal celebratory mood is a good excuse to party.

As part of my youth outreach project, I am organizing a Mid-Autumn private party at Hua Song Museum. The museum is a center that documents the Chinese diaspora, migration and cultures worldwide, so it’s an apt place to gather some friends and down mooncakes with brews of Chinese teas. Feeling refined on a Friday night is a good way to start the weekend.

Invitation design by yours truly. Somehow I felt the need to go all NASA on a decidedly Asian festival.

I first heard Metric’s ‘Gold Guns Girls’ on Entourage. And then I found out Mike Shinoda did a remix, for use as the soundtrack for his art exhibition Glorious Excess (DIES). Matching choice since ‘Gold Guns Girls’ is about our disappointment with everything material while the exhibition is about the excesses of celebrity culture and media.

‘Glorious Excess (DIES)’ is running from August 29 to October 4 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. So I dug some more and discovered his short film for ‘Glorious Excess.’ The film also gives insight as to how Shinoda works in creating the paintings and artworks.

See the full short film of ‘Glorious Excess (DIES)’ at Mike Shinoda’s blog here.

All the gold and the guns in the world
Couldn’t get you off
All the gold and the guns and the girls
Couldn’t get you off
All the boys, all the choices in the world

New World is phunk’s second solo exhibition in Singapore after their show ‘Universal’ in 2007. The exhibition is a collection of prints, sculptures featuring a new world that is presented in the form of an uncanny theme park. And oh, there are also some little bomb sculptures (referencing the atomic bombs from the second World War) and a large inflatable ‘bomb’ marked with the Chinese character for ‘love.’ :phunk’s mastery in graphic design (the four-man design collectives goes by the name :phunk studio) is clearly expressed in the execution of the prints. But there is something beyond good design and clever visual illustrations in ‘New World.’

Is ‘New World’ grotesque? But look how adorable and likable everyone is…
Is ‘New World’ beautiful? Uh uh sure the illustration are of cutting edge but there’s something inherently diabolical about aestheticism of the dark…

‘New World’ is being touted in the exhibition press release and marketing literature as questioning the divide between graphic design and fine art. Little surprise here with :phunk studio’s repute as one of Singapore’s best design collectives since creative successes, ascending Maslow’s Hierarchy, inevitably find the drive and affordability of pursuing greater satisfaction by getting involved in the arts. Parallels can be seen elsewhere, for instance in the seemingly unrelated industry of mechanical watchmaking where the stalwart name of Rolex has become associated with the arts – no doubt through its tried and proven fine technical skills.

Viewing the exhibition of New World prints and sculptures at Art Seasons Gallery, to want to claim that design has made the graduating leap to artistry is apparent, but the claim is also a gimmicky one. The “is it design, is it art” debate in a competitive market such as design inevitably comes off as a cliche – because everyone else is using it. When graphic design software and technology democratizes the ability to create visual illustrations, when every designer is creating art on his or her desktop, nothing (created in this manner) is art.

To show this I borrow from theorist Frederic Jameson’s seminar text “Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” First of all, it has to be noted that Jameson writes from a Marxist perspective, situating the context within the advancement of capitalistic organization of our economy and of our lives. Although Marxism may not be the end-all be all answer to everything, it being critical of capitalism makes it valid in this case (as with the tension between the economic successes of :phunk to Rolex against their artistic expressions). Jameson looks at our culture through the relationship between society and the economy and we can see how this relationship is a both a source of constant creativity and tension (“is it advertising, is it art”).

The set texts of postmodern studies generally agree that post-modernity is marked by the failure of a singular meta-narrative, an end-all be-all theory of how the world is, that there is no one absolute truth. Instead there can be many truths and each relate differently and are shifted according to our individual interests – everything can be a truth. To this extend, it is notable to highlight Jameson’s notion of the loss of “critical distance” in post-modernity; simply put, Jameson is saying that in a postmodern world where everything is critical, then nothing is critical.

For Jameson, the postmodern world is one where modernization is complete, where “it is a more fully human world than the older one, but one in which ‘culture’ has become a veritable ’second nature.’” It follows then that if everything purports to be “cultural” then nothing is “cultural.”

By that claim, if everything is art, then nothing is art. Visually arresting images once qualified as art simply by the technical prowess of the creators, but now there is no lack of skilled illustrators, photographers, and designers. What then goes into the works that qualify them as art? Oscar Wilde said “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist.” For Wilde then, the role of artists is an intellectual one that sees the world differently – to represent our world differently. The continuous advent of different art movements, theories, and corresponding markets is testament to the continuous need for art and its practitioners to think differently from their predecessors and contemporaries – to carve out their own space. Artists of today bear the weight of having centuries of art history in techniques and movements, and must represent the world entirely differently. This explains, in part, the shift to Modern Art in the 1960s, where art became not directly representative in the artwork. No longer able to break new grounds in art techniques and execution, contemporary artists look at breaking new definitions and concepts of what art is. The minimum challenge we ask of them is to make their art coherent in their argument.

How is ‘New World’ new?
The artists’ notes for New World writes that the exhibition is a new take on old collected memories, a re-imagination of memories of their childhood visits to Haw Par Villa, the now-defunct New World Amusement Park, and their fascination with Disneyland.

Famous cyber-punk writer William Gibson once wrote that Singapore is “Disneyland with the death sentence.” Singapore is building a theme park right now (Universal Studios)… along with the rest of the world, theme parks are coming up everywhere as the world becomes globalised. A lot of universal values and themes are exported, shared and celebrated thru this globalised process… in a way the modern world is becoming more and more like a giant theme park… Theme parks are designed for entertainment, escape and education. They are for people of all ages, race, wealth, class ad culture.

“To all who come to this happy place – welcome.” – Walt Disney

The ‘New World’ is an imaginary “Global” themed / amusement park. It is a theme park inhabited with various emotional themes. The series of artworks visually explores the inner world of the modern society. What are the universal themes that we all understand and celebrate?

- artists’ notes for ‘New World’

:phunk articulates through their comic half-tone signature graphic design and illustration – blending various influences (Chinese mythologies, Japanese manga and otaku subcultures, Hong Kong comic and pulp fiction, and Western popular cultures) into an universe that is both welcoming and menacing, and definitely satirical. It is :phunk’s world of the uncanny memories and the world plays by their rules.

William Gibson’s classic (it’s been referred to over and over – check Wikipedia!) article in Wired magazine branding Singapore as “Disney Land with the death penalty” resulted in a ban from the government. While construction of the Universal Theme Park is currently underway in Singapore (not to mention the upcoming casinos a.k.a. “Integrated Resorts”) :phunk deliberately brings this up to confront the explicit endorsement of the building of the theme park and the implicit burying of Gibson’s criticism.

Where William Gibson writes that Singapore is a “relentlessly G-rated experience” :phunk plays with the illusion of living a life through G-ratings, in an innocently brutal way. Superficially fun, splendid in color, beautifully lulling us into the theme park – only to blatantly exhibit a macabre “Alice in Wonderland” quality in all of the art-pieces. Never mind if we may die – we are having fun! The anxiety of their play works because it tugs at the unspoken anxiety we all universally bear in growing up and staying grown up. Branding the word ‘love’ onto a bomb doesn’t make the bomb lovelier. It makes it all the more terrifying because of our adult and vested belief in love. An innocent child who doesn’t know better (of which by better I mean by adult understanding) will however happily hug and play with the lovely bomb. In such a way, this may be the best satirical move against any government’s semantics. (You don’t want to call a spade a spade? Ok…)

Where Good and Evil Co-exist
‘New World’ can be a few things. For one we know :phunk studio is made up of Jackson Tan, Alvin Tan, Melvin Chee and William Chan. And we know through their work they have become synonymous with the breakthrough of Singapore’s, and by extension Asia, design industry. Now ‘New World’ stops design work for work’s sake in work-obsessed Singapore and instead declares “we should play” and disregard the work ethos. In a way, the luxury of pursuing the arts only after achieving financial success is perverse to a nation wanting to cultivate itself as a arts and renaissance city yet this perversion is entirely acceptable in industrious Asia. Seen this way, ‘New World’ can be a pointed remark at the contradiction of how official party lines constantly harp on making art accessible but yet art rarely pays off in this money-conscious part of the world.

‘New World’ can well be a commentary on Singapore’s state of government and the nanny approach towards entertainment and work. In nanny states, there is the constant hawkish lookout for ‘bad people.’ The exhibition literature writes: “The multi-media collection of artworks collectively illustrates a dysfunctional tale of an apocalyptic society where good and evil co-exist.” But in our living reality, good and evil exists – so rather, a world where good and evil does not co-exist is probably the world that is dysfunctional. We are trained to see our world through Singapore’s sugarcoated lens in areas from government policies to commercial design and advertising, to never speak of the bad. ‘New World’ is not really new in the sense that it is a old world represented, so to draw from childhood influences with which we are familiar forces nostalgia upon us – we want to re-connect with these images, these once-enjoyable memories of play. But as a re-imagination, as a re-presentation, there are meanings we were never taught to want to enjoy. We ask what do we do with these memories? Because if ‘New World’ is a reflection of ourselves in our most innocent state, our own censorship alarm bells must be ringing.

It is easy to glance over ‘New World’ and celebrate merely yet another graphic design and commercial success of :phunk. To do so is not surprising but it will also fail the point of the exhibition. As we enter more competitive and difficult times, and as more nations contribute to the globalization of everything, if we cannot even imagine how the world looks beyond the contradiction of good and evil, where else can we go on from here? At the very least, ‘New World’ has already subverted our understanding of the world marked by polar opposites (good vs. bad) by allowing the beautiful and the grotesque to be equally represented in our memories – memories which we constantly sweep to be clean and good. To return to the argument “is it design, is it art” is to fall short and fall back into the capitalistic need to account for everything with a marketable value.

When I asked Jackson Tan at the exhibition opening if there were any particular piece which he favors, he explained that :phunk started out as a band in art school. Following the quartet’s realization that they may not be as musically-inclined as they wished (his words, not mine!), :phunk concentrated on design and infused their band ethos into their work. “We work like a band, and we think of our work as compositions. So we do not look at any single piece here as a standalone because we see it as a song. We don’t say we like one song – we like the entire album.”

And visually outstanding this album is.

New World runs till 29 September 2009, at Art Seasons Gallery, Singapore

Go here for more unduly long reviews

Funnyman Craig Ferguson explains why society sucks. Apparently it’s because the Mad Men of Madison Avenue of the 1950s began to market to the youths, next the rest of society followed suit to deify youths and fast-forward to today where we have created the Jonas Brothers as a result.

OMG. Epiphany. My target market at work are the youths.
*cringe, roll, sob.

In other unrelated news, I have just started watching Gossip Girl to better understand the youth psychographic. It’s cool, I can handle it.

* cringe, roll, sob. Rinse and repeat.