- Will we augment reality?
- Will we see with our body?
- Will we embrace death?
- Will we kill cinema?
- Will we kill the film school?
- Will we create the perfect love-child of Beuys + Warhol+ Kahlo?
- Will my (mis-)match-making app have run its course?
- Will we create digital wealth?
- Will we grasp the true purpose of the internet?
- Will we celebrate the visionaries?
- Will the art school up its game?
- Will schools up their game?
- Will artists fight state funding?
- Will artists fight big tech?
- Will curators curate spaces for healing?
- Will we look out for one another?
This keynote lecture was commissioned for and premiered at Singapore Art Week through the art collective Inter-mission themed ‘Looking into the present and future conditions of image making and discovering where media and technology can take us’. Other invited artists included: CECILE CHAGNAUD (Paris), CHONG LII (Singapore), JAKE TAN & ERNEST WU (Singapore), RAFAËL (Brussels), SUNG NAM HAN (Tokyo). TASMAN RICHARDSON (Canada), TOH HUN PING (Singapore).
What could or should 2050 look like? How can we mobilise technology to work with our bodies and minds to create sights/sites of artful intervention? Will we augment reality? Will we see with our body? Will we kill cinema? Will we kill the film school? Will we rid digital poverty and create digital wealth? Will we celebrate the visionaries? Will the art school up its game? Will artists fight big tech? Will artists be finally appreciated (and properly paid) as not just makers of art objects, but makers of change, thought leaders and creative problem-solvers? Apart from ‘curating’ perfect ‘insta’ posts and another blockbuster art show, will curators be tasked to refocus on healing and guiding – which are the original meanings of ‘curating’ — and use art to heal culture wars and bridge social divides? By the next generation, will schools stop failing or boring people who can’t sit still, and teach across the arts and sciences, to create the next generation of Leonardo Da Vinci-s, whose dyslexia and ADHD are behind his prolificacy and polymathy? Will we finally look out for and look after one another? Drawing on and extending a keynote lecture that painted a vision of a neurodiversity-led future that Tan presented to 130 Royal Society of Arts Fellows last summer, this new performance-lecture is a love letter to cinema and raises a few questions to invite us to think about a post-pandemic future that is more inclusive and creative.
