Tag: video art
I make, programme/curate, perform in and with, research, produce, teach and programme lead film and moving images. My repertoire is wide-ranging, encompassing analogue film (Super 8, 16mm) to video art, classical and Avant Garde cinema, experimental, art installation, VJing, laptop orchestra, loops/memes et al. My first moving images made at 18 on an enormous VHS camera won a Panasonic video award. Other recognition since have included San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Award 1999, Official Entries at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2001, AHRC Film Award 2019, Annecy, Bucheon, Ottawa International Film Festivals 2016. I have been called ‘a media artist to look out for’ (Art It, a Japanese publication, 2005) and ‘one of the foremost video artists in Singapore’ (Contemporary Art In Singapore 2007. Eds Nadarajan G, Storer, R. & Tan, E.). My installations have been seen widely, including New York Film Anthology at Museum of Modern Art New York in a Japanese Experimental Cinema Programme (alongside the work of video art pioneer Toshio Matsumoto 2004), on the streets (such as large, 6-storey high projections as part of the Closing Ceremony of the South East Asian Games in Napidaw, Myanmar 2013, or as a mobile video-guided walk in Singapore 2008), as live performances alongside ‘laptop orchestras’ (including at pompidou and Tokyo Fashion Week 2004) and so on. Collaborators have included Michael Tebinka (Sweden), Kleopatra Korai (Greece/NY), Christophe Charles and Videoart Centre Tokyo (both Tokyo), Bertrand Lee and Philip Tan (both Singapore). Commissioned think pieces and research studies have included the creative non-fiction film, the Southeast Asian cine-essay (as part of a Southeast Asian Film Programme I was commissioned to curate at Cinema South Festival next to the Gaza Strip 2007), the cinematic performance lectures using the good old PowerPoint (in an 2021 journal article) and more. I’ve also been jury member, mentor, expert member and more for Delhi International Film Festival, the Singapore Media Authority of Singapore (2007-2012) and more. A film I made with two colleagues has also gained cult status for forever, because it became the first film banned officially under the hitherto unknown ‘political films act’ in 2001, and because it featured a cult opposition political figure.
I was juror for the prestigious Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF)’s New Asian Currents in Japan. There will also be a showcase for my films, during which I will show How to Thrive in 2050 (2021, commissioned for BBC Culture in Quarantine) and Chlorine Addiction (2000, which was at the NAC in 2001 too, as well as multiple international showcases including Transmediale 2001).
This new short film was created at the invitation of a design pedagogy event by European consortium FUEL4Design: Future Education and Literacy for Designers as International Respondent. A performance-lecture version was created as Keynote Lecturer for Deep Meaningful Conversations of the Design Management course, London College of Communication, University Arts London.
How To Thrive In 2050: 8 Tentacular Workouts For A Tantalising Future! is a new short film I made in Spring 2021. This is an art manifesto calling for a creative, equitable and ‘neuro-fantastic’ future by an Octopussy. The World Premiere is on BBC Culture in Quarantine Autumn 2021
On human being’s love-hate relationship with technology. Oxford University UK 2009, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea and Art of Things: Singapore Open Media Art Festival, Singapore 2017.
Official Selection, Arts and Humanities Research Council Research in Film Award 2019 . Premiered at the South London Gallery on 5 June 2018. Toured at Southbank Centre, Science Museum and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (Singapore) amongst others.
Here are two films by two extraordinary award-winning filmmakers: Kleopatra Korai (NY/Greece) and Bertrand Lee (Singapore), commissioned for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 5th ASEAN Para…
What’s the riskiest thing you have ever done? What do you dream of doing but dare not? Do you dare share something that you’ve never told anyone else before? Go on – what’s the worst that can happen?
Trailer for a Sisyphian permanent commission in Singapore at the heart of the Arts and Heritage District, since 2010. 29-minute video cycle on the Circle Line with 29-chapters and 29 riddles that came on each evening 19:29, starring ‘Desyphus’ who swims perpetually in the looped line.
Run run run! Run into difference. Embrace flux. Don’t let things come to standstill. Don’t take things lying down. Mock/knock the toxic status quo. Let us surge forward, hand-in-hand.