The Four-headed Hydra
Adeline Kueh, Kray Chen Kerui, Patrick Ong and Paul Hurley
Adeline Kueh, Kray Chen Kerui, Patrick Ong and Paul Hurley
The project serves as a metaphor for our quest for the multiple selves in relationship to the pocket camera & the time of selfies. It looks at the allusion to the Greeks' obsession with the ideal self and how notions of performing the self may be unpacked from within a kopitiam.
The Most Beautiful Day Of My Life
Gilles Massot and Moses Tan
We started working by considering the duality contained in the subtitle “the power of image – the image of power” and developed the idea of a video installation in which the same scene would be looked at from two opposite angles. This duality hints at the question of reliability of information: who is representing what? Furthermore the video is only a simulation: a projection on a blank TV screen and a mirror reflection of the original ‘broadcasting’. In the complex relation of image to power, what you see is hardly ever what you get.
We then had to choose a topic for the visual material. We eventually decided to work with the imagery of the traditional British academic gown. Highly representative of a specific cultural context, this gown is now widely adopted by countries of the formal British Empire for historical reason as well as beyond, as a result of the omnipresence of American cinema and the related cultural imperialism. The gown itself is an image of power, symbolising the new status of the graduate. Interestingly enough, and mostly in the context of developing countries, this image of power also results in an expression of the power of image: the studio photograph of the graduate in full outfit, possibly surrounded by his family. This photo is typically lavishly framed and hanged on the wall of the living room to signify the family’s newly found social status through the child’s academic achievement.
The duality from which the work was first developed was eventually expressed by enacting such graduation scene as both a photograph and a video, contrasting stillness and faint movement. And the studio brought out of context, into nature. From the power of image comes the layer of photography (and videography) and the power it gives to the subject. By contrasting studio photography with a backdrop set in another space, this ‘power’ is then collapsed and the trick revealed.
Lastly the title refers to the emotional construct associated to the documentation of such important moments in life, be it graduation or wedding, the moment, a construct that needs to be immortalized to lend it its full meaning.
Lastly the title refers to the emotional construct associated to the documentation of such important moments in life, be it graduation or wedding, the moment, a construct that needs to be immortalized to lend it its full meaning.
Better Than
Hazel Lim, Wulan Dirgantoro, Maria Clare Khoo and Raymond Wu
The project is a play on visuality and desire through popular imagery. Employing the language of graphic advertising of ‘flicker pictures’, the project looks at the relationship between the seduction of image, consumerism and the body. Within each movement the image changes because the eye is tricked into seeing different images as the angle of sight changes. Thus viewing is not merely passive because these images are also designed to make viewers scrutinise the them with more than normal intensity.
The project also look at the multiple meaning of the word ‘image’: pictures, photographs and reflections occur outside the body; yet, visual perceptions and memories, as well as dreams and hallucinations occur inside the mind. The dualism of subject/object (or internal/external) that intersects within the image and viewing is represented through humor and kitsch in this project.
Lady 7
Ian Woo and George Liu
Lady 7 is a still -life envisioning of invention and desire. Using elements and symbols from the technetronic life, it proposes seductive transmissions between retina and the body. Lady 7 is also temptress and spy, seeking information in the form of liquid desire. Whose mind is she tempering with? And perhaps more importantly, whom does she work for?
Lady 7
2016
Mannequin, Schematic Diagrams, Eyeball Models and Wires
Dimensions Variable
2016
Mannequin, Schematic Diagrams, Eyeball Models and Wires
Dimensions Variable
Endgame
Jeremy Sharma and Ng Wugang
Jeremy Sharma and Ng Wugang
Jeremy Sharma's photographic work is part of his ongoing Endgame series depicting the last moves of famous or key chess matches in history. Ng Wu Gang presents an illusion of time that navigates through the subjectivity of authorship and medium. He creates an alternate reality while being unable to distinguish the borderline between the trick and the truth.
For their collaboration, Wu Gang will re-interepret part of Jeremy's Endgame series.
For their collaboration, Wu Gang will re-interepret part of Jeremy's Endgame series.
Karpov vs Kasparov or 'The Brisbane Bombshell', (1985, Moscow)
2016
Digital Archival Print on paper
84 x 59 cm
2016
Digital Archival Print on paper
84 x 59 cm
Deep Blue vs Gary Kasparov, (1997 New York)
2016
Digital Archival Print on paper
84 x 59 cm
2016
Digital Archival Print on paper
84 x 59 cm
The Alan Smithee Project
Lina Adam and Victoria Tan
Making a reference to the invention of cult personality Alan Smithee, the famous and non-existent Smithee is a name made up to allow key personnel such as the producer or director to replace their own names with that of his (Alan Smithee). This would allow them to emancipate themselves from the creative work for whatever reason. While it is common for authors to use a pseudonym, it is uncommon for authors to use one for the purpose of disavowing a major creative work.
In 1970, John Baldessari and a few of his friends famously disowned their early works in an art event titled "The Cremation Project". The ashes from these paintings were baked into cookies and placed into an urn, resulting in an art installation that consisted of a bronze commemorative plaque with the destroyed paintings' dates of birth and death. However, this action differs to the Alan Smithee phenomenon in the sense that the latter completely emancipated to any connection, authority and liability to the artwork.
Lina Adam and Victoria Tan
Making a reference to the invention of cult personality Alan Smithee, the famous and non-existent Smithee is a name made up to allow key personnel such as the producer or director to replace their own names with that of his (Alan Smithee). This would allow them to emancipate themselves from the creative work for whatever reason. While it is common for authors to use a pseudonym, it is uncommon for authors to use one for the purpose of disavowing a major creative work.
In 1970, John Baldessari and a few of his friends famously disowned their early works in an art event titled "The Cremation Project". The ashes from these paintings were baked into cookies and placed into an urn, resulting in an art installation that consisted of a bronze commemorative plaque with the destroyed paintings' dates of birth and death. However, this action differs to the Alan Smithee phenomenon in the sense that the latter completely emancipated to any connection, authority and liability to the artwork.
In printmaking tradition, after an edition is printed, plates used in producing the edition can be erased or defaced with lines to ensure that further reproduction is not possible. This ensures the integrity of the edition. This practice is usually carried out in the presence of observers or witnesses and accompanied with a certificate of proof. This puts into question the importance of authorship and production of artworks.
Is there a need to transfer the authorship to another? Is it not possible to just throw the work away, to abandon or destroy it?
For The Great Lubricator, we approached artists based in Singapore and invited them to offer their unwanted artworks towards a depositary of rejected works. These works will be presented under a singular fictitious artist that we have imagined.
Is there a need to transfer the authorship to another? Is it not possible to just throw the work away, to abandon or destroy it?
For The Great Lubricator, we approached artists based in Singapore and invited them to offer their unwanted artworks towards a depositary of rejected works. These works will be presented under a singular fictitious artist that we have imagined.
We think that the purpose of the Alan Smithee phenomenon is that the work will continue to exist under a pseudonym despite being rejected by its original creators(s). We hope that in our presentation of a fictitious artist in this exhibition, that this phenomenon is being felt and experienced by the viewer looking at the work.
Within Vein
Wang Ruobing and Nadiah Alsagoff
‘Within Vein’ consists of two artworks: ‘Prick and Prune’ video by Nadiah Alsagoff and photograph ‘Transfusion’ by Wang Ruobing.
‘Within Vein’, a term borrowed from intravenous infusions or drips, explores the human experience of power, fear, love and death through the living ornaments - plants. In ‘Prick and Prune’, the living ornament is the cactus covered with sharp modified branches – thorns. Drawing from her daily experience working with plants in a retail nursery, Nadiah records her performing the actions of touching the threatening thorns of a cactus - a bleeding invitation with fear and fascination. As for 'Transfusion', the living ornament is an old tree. The photograph captures the resettlement of the tree being transplanted from its original place to the city centre of Chengdu (China). A drip with essential nutrition is attached on the tree to ensure it would survive in the new environment. This is a common practice in China, that the ancient trees are transplanted from countryside to the city, to beautify and increase the cultural value of the site at expensive cost.
The cactus and old tree 'Within Vein' visually through the documentation of physical pricking either voluntarily by the artist Nadiah or forcefully by the China landscape designer. They challenge the habituated eye and engage the viewers in conflicting emotions of desire and revulsion.