As performance artists, Why do we do what we do? How do we define our multiple communities and how do we relate to them? What is the relationship between performance art and our everyday lives? What is the relationship between the physical body and the social body? This discussion centers on the cultural significance and educational aspects of performance art practices and its extension into the social life; which seeks an egalitarian model to assume artistic responsibility and autonomy in response to the artist’s immediate social environment.
Speakers:
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Bruce Quek‘s art and writing are driven by a fascination with the complexity of highly-networked urban life. He observes our technological society with a sense of cynical humour, and reframes commonplace experiences to heighten their internal absurdities and contradictions. He focuses on producing disquieting experiences by posing questions from unexpected perspectives.
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Ian Woo is an artist and musician influenced by forms of abstraction and the sound structures of music improvisation. As a musician, Woo performs and distills rhythmic patterns with the bass guitar with an emphasis on a sonic palette that suggest atmosphere, form and presence. His work can be heard in the music of ‘Qianpima’, an ensemble which he has composed, performed and recorded with from 2015 to 2021. In the realm of visual arts in 2018, Woo has produced incidental music for the painting installation ‘Emotional Things’ at the Esplanade Tunnel and the the short film ‘Five Rehearsals of a Wedding’, directed by Kray Chen. As a performer of improvised music, Woo is a frequent collaborator at the Choppa- experimental music festival from 2008 till 2017. His most recent work can be heard in Angie Seah’s 2021 performance work ‘Shadow has no name’ which pairs the sound and riffing of a bass guitar coming from a large kiln with that of objects, voice and body.
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Jason Lim was born in Singapore in 1966. His repertoire of works encompasses ceramics, photography, installation art and performance art. He has organized and created various platforms for alternative art practitioners to meet and collaborate. As a performance artist, he has been invited to present performances in more than 30 countries. Lim’s artistic projects, residencies and travels have been recognized, supported and awarded with numerous grants and awards from the National Arts Council since 1994. Jason Lim has initiated and co-organised many performance art projects and festivals which include “Future of Imagination”.
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Noor Effendy’s performance art research examines the vulnerability of the solitary male Malay-Muslim body to the gaze framed within the contemporary performance space. Inspired by the world of bondage and the relationship between flesh and machine, Effendy’s work often celebrates the problematizing of gender, sexuality, power, lust, and consumption, located at the margins of otherness. Effendy had worked at Teater Ekamatra (2001-2006) and The Substation (2010-2015), and is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Fine Arts Programme, School of Art & Design at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
Moderator:
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Eunice Lacaste was born in Manila in 1989 and grew up in Singapore. She is a PhD student at the Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design, and Media and is currently researching on how digital technologies are implemented on art practices in Singapore and across the region. As an educator and an emerging cultural researcher based in Singapore, she intends on mapping digital exhibition spaces and the practices of looking at screens in contemporary art within the Southeast Asian context. She had participated in cultural projects with the National Gallery Singapore, the National Library Singapore, the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in South Korea and more.
This panel is presented by Islands Time-Based Arts (ITBA).