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[n-jamil]

Creative Showcase: Artists in Action

We have come to the end of ACM001’s Creative Play sessions with a Creative Showcase from my fellow classmates. Wrapping up the entire course and our learnings, this session’s recurring theme was centered around risk from the perspective of 5 various artists in the field. My key learning points from the entire session can be categorized into – risks with art creation, risks of being an artist, and risk management with audiences.

Risks with Art Creation

I loved how all the artists collectively shared the same sentiments on, embracing risk instead of fearing it. When learn to reframe the way we look at risk this way, it then naturally creates room for failure. This is where the art manager comes in to facilitate; create room for artists to fail, explore and then relaunch it with a refined idea. 

Separately, the fear of risk is also closely tied to the challenges posed by achieving set KPIs. The pressure to meet stringent KPIs can restrict artist expression, preventing artists from experimenting and exercising their full creativity. This results in rather easier, safer pieces but not compelling or challenging to create. Thus, achievable KPIs can help to balance the need to meet these requirements while still freeing up room for artists to explore their interests.

Risks of Being an Artist

In general, the arts is a risky industry to begin with, considering its uncertainties (where the pandemic does not make things any easier), and especially for some artists, freelancing piles on to it. This inherently sparks the concern of precarious labor (job and money security) and precarious employment (financial risk). Hence, this leads to the importance of collaboration of multiple stakeholders and the provision of resources in the arts ecosystem among artists. Cultivating good relationships as well as forming support systems within the community, helps to share this burden of risk. 

Additionally, for emerging artists, these interactions help to provide opportunities for participation in the art scene and getting their name out during their infancy stage. The arts manager then comes in to play a navigating role in communication with stakeholders and representing the artists in their early stages. Individually as an artist, risk-taking is also important for one to move with the time and improve on one’s own works, in order not to keep stagnant.

Risk Management with Audiences

When it comes to real-life art experiences as well as digital experiences (in the Covid-19 climate), self-improvisations are key for artists to manage risks with audiences. This refers to anticipating audience reactions during the experience and tailoring their performance accordingly. The same applies when displaying art in a public space and mitigating working with audiences, together with their interests.

All in all, I personally felt that this session was definitely insightful – refreshing to hear from different artists, their experiences and just the general inner workings of the community. 

[n-jamil]

Creative Management: Lighting

For our third Creative Play session, class was a workshop on lighting held at The Theatre Practice, 54 Waterloo Street. Marissa, a freelance stage manager and lighting director patiently talked us through on how the element of light is fundamental in building the audience experience. This also gave us an insight on understanding more about the role of the technical crew within a production. Personally, this session helped me deepen my appreciation of lighting, as an audience who favours theatre productions.

Purpose

Marissa eased into the workshop by highlighting the purpose of lighting which was to generally illuminate, evoke certain desired audience emotions and bring focus to certain areas on stage. During rehearsals, ‘blocking’ takes place where the details of every scene and positions of all performers are worked out, to ensure all elements on set works in harmony with one another. The lighting designer plots and programs the lights – considering scene focal points, angles, placements, quality and quantity of light. Lighting designers also utilise rehearsals to try seats in all parts of the house, to ensure that plotting from mid-point in the auditorium ensures an acceptable level of light balance for both front and back rows (Reid, 2002). The sound and design team will then also come in to support.

Positions

Marissa then shared the different positions of light like front, top, back, side and bottom. As we tried it for ourselves (mercilessly blinding each other with our iPhone backlight: it was fun), we explored how each position helps to achieve a certain purpose. For instance, the placement of back light further away from the subject helps to form more of a silhouette; seeing less of the subject’s features. This helps to enhance the mysterious mood of a scene. She also introduced us to ‘high cross’ lighting mostly used for dance productions to accentuate specific parts of a dancer’s body and ‘shin buster’ lighting which illuminates a dance from head to toe without any shadow on the floor. Apart from the main goal of achieving a sculpturally lit subject, light rebalance; balancing the selected area to a brighter level than the rest can help to concentrate audience attention on the appropriate action area (Reid, 2002).

Types

Various types of lighting are used to achieve ambient light, build energy of the space or dramatic spots. These variations can help produce subtle or dramatic changes. Some controllable qualities include intensity; brightness, and distribution; overall quality based on angle, harshness and texture of light (Dunham, 2015). Marissa introduced us to some such as ‘flood’ light, when the light fills and spills in a space, forming in more diffused shadows at the edges. ‘Bounce’ light also creates a broader, diffused light by using another surface to bounce off the light. In contrast, we also have ‘focus’ lights that have edges that are sharper.

Emotions

Timing and colours of lighting can help create an atmosphere to influence the mental state of the audience, particularly controlling their emotional state during a production (Reid, 2002). According to the mood, lighting and other design areas will respond and create the moods for specific parts throughout the production (Dunham, 2015).

For instance, lighting ‘fade’ and ‘snap’ both bring different dramatic effects to the scene with delayed or immediate reaction time. Colours also help to bridge these emotions, such as:

Yellow: depicting the time of day (various hues for sunset, sunrise, morning glow)

Light Blue: a dream, happy mood

Red: sensual mood, rage

Purple: jealousy

Generally a naturalistic production aims for accurate detailed realism, where lighting aids in maintaining a logic like in terms of the sun and moon (Reid, 2002). Marissa then experimented with a combination of random colours, such as pairing orange and purple to show us how it portrays common narratives or specific scenes we see in movies like a dodgy deal happening in the corner of a street. However, I found it interesting how Marissa brought up this point that I never noticed earlier, whereby she said:

“If the show is not naturalistic, you can decide on your own colour theme and how to introduce that language to your audience.”

It got me thinking about some of the previous theatre productions I experienced (as an audience), or even my favourite musical films like La La Land on how they introduce distinct colour palettes to achieve this unique language of their own. I almost forgot that art does not limit creativity (with the typical colour language above) but rather encourages the new.

In the second half of the workshop, we got to do exactly that – apply these new learnings, experimented with lighting and create within our teams. Pre class ideation on the soundtrack and object of choice, together with the overall concept; marrying all the elements together came quite intuitively for my team. We started by deciding on a central theme, then built on it by putting a character to the chosen object and the type of mood the track evoked. Hence, a storyline was formed and everything naturally blended from there.

Colour tints chosen and timing for the sequence were solely based on the emotions of the track. We took confidence in the judgments of our senses – if it looks right then it is right (Reid, 2002). In the end, the lighting sequence truly turned out better than we expected. [Due to the limitations of Tumblr, I have posted a video of my team’s work in the post below this ☺]

However, we did make a mistake (only realising later on after other teams did it) for a small segment where we should have pulsed the coloured lights to accurately portray the intense emotion instead of leaving it static. With respect to the other teams, I loved how simple yet thoughtful the pieces were! Pieces that were more simple were personally the better ones.

With reference to in-class concepts, I understand now where the element of lighting lies within the four umbrella processes when dissecting the audience experience. In terms of resonance, it personally brings out emotions and allows the audience to immerse themselves within the experience. Additionally, lighting triggers affective broadening where one is provoked to access different feelings or feel differently (Hoe, 2022).

Overall, prior to the workshop, I came to realise that I was surprisingly never fully aware of lighting in a production. It was something within the bigger experience that I was unconsciously influenced and affected by – which truly shows its power in building that atmosphere. Hence, this week’s learning journey was definitely an eye-opening experience.

References

Dunham, R. E. (2015). Stage lighting: Fundamentals and applications. Taylor & Francis Group.

Hoe, S.F. (2022, February 12). Block Two: Practices | ACM001 Session Five: Understanding the Conditions of Creativity in Singapore - From Cultural Value to Cultural Industries [Powerpoint Slides].

​​Reid, F. (2002). Stage lighting handbook. Taylor & Francis Group.

[n-jamil]

My team’s lighting concept based on the journey of a romantic relationship that turned south.

[n-jamil]

Creative Experiences: Refuse

In my previous post, I shared about my main learning of being increasingly aware of the presence of art or when experiencing art in general. The past 2 weeks of lessons have then introduced me to the tool kit on the ‘How’ – how can I reflect to deepen my understanding, how can I analyse my audience experience in the presence of art. 

The arts to be experienced, rather than merely gazed at

With the arts main purpose to be experienced, technology can be an aid that helps facilitate one to directly ‘inhabit’ into the arts. Audio-visual components like light and sound can help enable this experience (Hoe, 2022a). 

This segways into Week 6’s visit to Refuse by The Observatory. Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Refuse is an inter-media exhibition about music, mushrooms and decomposition by a Singapore-based experimental band called The Observatory. My group and I were fortunate to have Yuen Chee Wai, one of the members of the Observatory to patiently walk us through the exhibition.

Circularity

The primary idea that stood out the most in my mind during the arts experience was the circularity of the whole exhibition – it was astounding. As the artist-guided tour went on, I found myself reeled in (impressed over and over again, just when I thought it could not get any better) by the depth of every art installation, the amount of intentional thought and meaning embedded throughout the exhibition. I definitely resonated with the art experience through amplified energy of increasing enthusiasm and feeling invited to learn more about it (Hoe, 2022b). Circularity was achieved through various key aspects,

Inspiration – The exhibition focuses on waste materials; things that people do not perceive as valuable and often take for granted. In this case, felled trees and fungi are the central muse to the exhibition. With the purpose of refusing things together, the exhibition aims to create something more from the unwanted.

Ideology – From the inspiration above, the Observatory used fungi as a non-human collaborator as it essentially composes while decomposing. The idea of a non-human as a collaborator was definitely very new to me. It was my first time witnessing an artist equally crediting a non-human collaborator and highlighting its significant contribution to the central theme of the exhibition. And I truly loved it.

“We need to rethink certain concepts and lose this anthropomorphic lens on nature or trees, in order to understand what they really do.”

When sharing about how we (as humans) need to recalibrate our work and understanding, Yuen drove home the intended ideology of the exhibition whereby humans should lose this anthropomorphic lens on nature or trees. He threw out the thought of: What if fungi have always been making sounds? We just don’t know of it and are perhaps now merely facilitating it. This also aligns with the use of a non-human collaborator and The Observatory’s band ideology of attempting the unattempted (Ho, 2020).

Self-sufficient Circuit – The exhibition finessed recycling and decomposing within each art installation, or even across various installations. It forms a circuit that becomes a self-sustaining ecosystem, directly powering energy from one to another. This energy can be converted into various energies like light and sound. I also particularly like how Yuen perceives these circuits as playlists, controlling these movements themselves.

The Unseen & Unwanted

Apart from being highly visual in nature, Refuse was an art experience generally reflective of the politics of everyday life (Hoe, 2022b). With reference to the exhibition’s inspiration earlier, Refuse draws attention to the irony – while we pride ourselves for being a Garden City, trees are being axed for the reasons of manicure, safety and development. Hence, the exhibition proposes that we find ourselves on the forest floor, seeking resilience in the singular mushroom that survives and thrives. Refuse brings forth the symbolic value of shedding light on the unseen and unwanted, and giving it the credit it deserves. Refuse spotlights the fungi as the focal point of this exhibition – usually overlooked but is everywhere, where its spores are invisible yet vital to human life. Most importantly, it perpetuates a universe of destruction and regeneration; rot and beauty; of life force and ephemerality (Tang, 2021).

Audience Experience

It was my first time at SAM as well as experiencing an artist-guided tour. It was truly enriching, understanding the artistic process that drove the entire exhibition. This allowed me to appreciate each individual installation and the entire exhibition as a whole on a much deeper level. The artist-guided tour helped me contextualise my meaning-making of the art experience. However, keeping in mind that the arts experience is co-produced by the audience, I do acknowledge that this is only achieved with my own inner experience and subjective state (Hoe, 2022a).

During the tour, I also reflected back on my first impressions. While I recognised the central theme of the exhibition and how it was used to convert other forms of energy, I was unable to interpret much. The absence of installation descriptions made it difficult for me to understand the exhibition (referencing the conventional layout of an exhibition). While I am fortunate to have an artist-guided tour, I initially felt it was such a shame that without the installation descriptions, the general public is unable to fully understand or appreciate Refuse in its entirety. I wished that there was a map or a recommended sequential route for the art experience, that would help the audience connect the dots easier.

However at the end of the tour, Yuen mentioned that the setup was intentional for the art experience. In terms of way finding, it is constructed in such a way that there is no particular route for one to best appreciate it.

“I want you to imagine yourself walking through a forest or jungle, and in that way we became our own mixer of sound.”

The intended use of multimedial channels based on audiences’ sense-making allows one to decide to focus on anything or any sound (Hoe, 2022b). The artist wanted to keep it open-ended; for one to get lost in the experience, walking towards installations when it slowly unravels.

Creative Production in Singapore

In the beginning of the tour, Yuen shared about the inspiration for Refuse when both SAM and the Observatory were going through numerous counter proposals. He underlined their refusal of composition; the expectation to write and compose tied to their music identity. They insisted on not being fit in a mould, and doing what they do in the best way they know how. This then became one of their main inspirations for the exhibition.

At their core, the Observatory takes on the main ideology of openly trying, experimenting and allowing room for failure when it comes to their art. According to them, it allows them to deliver interesting and adventurous projects; it is a lot more exciting to play when there is a space to change or evolve  (Ho, 2020). As per Hindle (2019), “What looks like a failure is often just the beginning of something else, often something more interesting.” And this clearly holds true and comes through their work for Refuse. For instance, its installation on mushrooms growing on the guitar using mycelium, was based on trial and error where they had to figure out the conditions to make the wooden guitar suitable for growth. Installations were built and changed as it progressed, even based on failure. This aligns to the exhibition’s focus of relinquishing control to a non-human collaborator.

Time – Having said that, Yuen shared that time was the main challenge of the artistic and creative production of Refuse. With a timeframe of 2-3 months and most installations being the first of its kind, all experiments were a gamble due to uncertainty. As much as they were open to explore the unknown as they unravel, the Observatory needed to keep the exhibition date in check and consider if their deliverables are ready by then since it is a commissioned exhibition by SAM. Hence, it was a limitation that resulted in some compromises of the eventual outcome, where experiments were curbed to ensure enough time for mushroom sprouting and for installations to be prepared on time.

Stakeholders – Compromises were also made due to the limitations of stakeholders like SAM, as its commissioner and the public as its audience. For instance, SAM finalises the decision for certain details like the type of wood used, including its size and structure for the exhibition, together with certain positioning of the exhibition. In terms of audience, while artists create art for themselves, the audience are still a main consideration for the art experience. Thus, the art should be accessible to the masses accordingly.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Refuse for all it was – all its intended and unintended perfection. Hindle (2019) sums it up best, “We should not dictate the means or outcome of an artist’s vision. We are here to support.”

References

Hindle, P. (2019, July 2). Why artists should be allowed to fail. Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artists-allowed-fail 

Ho, K. (2020, October 13). The observatory is alive: Deciphering the unleashed chaos of its current iteration. Life In Arpeggio. https://www.lifeinarpeggio.com/blog/the-observatory-interview-haino-keiji-authority-is-alive-local-experimental-bands-singapore

Hoe, S.F. (2022a, February 9). Block One: Pathways | ACM001 Session Four: Creative Text to Creative Programming - Making Meaning as An Audience in the Singapore Art World [Powerpoint Slides].

Hoe, S.F. (2022b, February 12). Block Two: Practices | ACM001 Session Five: Understanding the Conditions of Creativity in Singapore - From Cultural Value to Cultural Industries [Powerpoint Slides].

Tang, F.K. (2021, November). The Observatory Refuse [Exhibition Catalogue]. Singapore.

[n-jamil]

Creative Intersections: In The Year of Tiger

We see public art but rarely perceive them

When I think about public art, I am reminded of 'When the odd ones out get in' by Kray Chen – 13 least versatile tiles of the game of mahjong, displayed beautifully as a hoarding around SAM's building on 71 Bras Basah Road – considering that it was one of my recent experience through ACM003. While I adore the idea of art bringing life and more meaning to everyday spaces, I have to admit that ‘public art’ rarely gets the recognition it deserves from us. We see public art but rarely perceive them. Seeing is merely just looking, but perceiving takes on a deeper concept of digesting and analysing. Hence, people see the same but perceive differently.

According to Felski (1999:15), the everyday is defined as “the essential, taken-for-granted continuum of mundane activities” that frames our day to day existence. Although I saw the hoarding almost everyday when I head to the school library, I never really took time to give it a second glance – until class. For most of us it is inevitable to miss what is in front of us, especially when we are mindlessly wired into our everyday routine.

First Impressions

Based on its e-booklet as a first touchpoint, my initial impressions of Creative Intersections were ‘vibrant’ and ‘cohesive’ – the first few words that immediately came to mind. The art activation was centred around the traditional Chinese Year of the Tiger and Singapore’s connection with tigers. The graphic design of the e-booklet and down to the choice of colours came through in truly embodying the vibrant energy it aims to evoke. Considering that it was a mall-wide art activation, I loved how it collectively brought various forms of art in one space; stringing artists and brands alike. Creative Intersections also took it a step further by integrating all through storytelling – a special fictional narrative by local writer Heather Teo. 

As someone who personally appreciates themes, Creative Intersections followed through its theme and was portrayed to be well thought out. The e-booklet was very promising; both cohesive and comprehensive. Hence, I had naturally set the same expectations for the art experience. I was looking forward to seeing the installations in person and found myself taking note of a handful that I surely needed to visit. Additionally, as I have never experienced art in a shopping mall space, I visited Creative Intersections with an open mind.

With no sequential process to my visit, I merely went to those that were open (that day) on various levels. Upon reaching each store front, I was always first on the lookout for the Creative Intersection poster within the vicinity. 

Expectation vs. Reality

E-booklet Descriptions – The Creative Intersection posters in-stores were exactly the same to the ones in the e-booklet. It caught me by surprise, as I (unknowingly) expected the in-store posters to provide more in-depth details – such as the artist’s process when creating the art piece or a deeper explanation to the installation. I believe this expectation arises as I make reference to a typical art exhibition, where each art piece has elaborate details as compared to the description in its programme booklet. Apart from seeing the installation in person, I felt rather disappointed as it did not provide me any additional insight or enhanced my experience, beyond the e-booklet.

JD Sports x Josiah Chua – Right at the entrance of the store, Josiah Chua’s artwork was situated right beside a wall of shoes. The installation appeared to be much smaller in person, as compared to the e-booklet. Surprisingly despite its prominent location, the installation was easily dismissible by the public, where customers walked right past it without batting an eye. The artwork seemed rather disconnected – out of place, as if it was not related to the store at all.

The Nature of Space

In Week 1, we briefly talked about the transient nature of space based on the two videos shared in class. Similarly, PPP Coffee x Adam Tie and Love, Bonito x Kristal Melson were two interesting collaborations that had contrasting perspectives when it came to the use of space for their public art. Oddly enough, it was an installation I enjoyed the most and enjoyed least, respectively.

PPP Coffee x Adam Tie –  Coffee and poetry was a genius pairing right from the get-go (although I know I am probably biassed, as I am a huge fan of both). The poems were displayed on several iPads, situated right at the exit which was concurrently in front of the cashier counter. It was hard to miss. Be it someone waiting for their order, leaving after their payment or someone who was leaving the place; everyone would see it. I liked that there was an intentional flow for the customers to experience the art installation, while ensuring that it is not jarring or disruptive to the customers’ usual coffee space. The use of prime space, ideation and execution of the installation fit well to the customers’ everyday routine.

Love, Bonito x Kristal Melson – In contrast, the art installation at the Love, Bonito store was situated in its backroom. With navy curtains draped at its entrance, it seemed uninviting from the outside and was definitely easy to overlook. I doubt that most customers knew it was open to the public. The backroom was a huge empty space with the art installation as its centrepiece. Apart from the artwork’s description on the e-booklet, I did not understand the intention or purpose of the space. In my opinion, it was not effectively used to encourage customer footfall and impressions to the art. Perhaps it was meant to be an “easter egg”, for customers to stumble upon in the store.

Roundup

Overall, I would describe my experience with Creative Intersections as underwhelming. Despite its integrated theme, the various installations within the stores did not feel as connected. Since there was no sequential order or trail, it was hard to see that the installations were part of a bigger story in the mall. This shows a gap between the ideation process to the execution. Also, the art installations were rather hidden and took some effort to find (I still remember my reaction when I found the installation at LiHo, after circling the area for quite some time – refer to the picture below), while others made me feel unsatisfied when I left the space.

Upon further reflection, it seemed like it was the exact learning experience I needed – to understand that it takes effort and even feel uncomfortable when finding each installation. Blanchot (1987:14) explains it best, “It is the unperceived, first in the sense that one has always looked past it; by another trait, the everyday is what we never see for a first time but only see again.” Studying everyday is difficult as it is obvious but elusive. Hence, we need to consciously take a closer look at our everyday lives and denaturalise them (Hoe, 2022). Perhaps with this experience, I can be more aware of experiencing public art more organically in the future.

From a macro perspective, I do acknowledge Singapore’s efforts in growing art audiences and public art is certainly a great opportunity to encourage local artistic production. 

Based on the sharing, Deborah highlighted that considering most artists do not really like working in malls, they had to choose those who understood the need for crossovers; comfortable with their art being more open ended. In my opinion, it is rather sad that artistic production is somewhat compromised to meet the interests of a wider generic audience, as a common denominator. However, considering space and context-specific limitations of the mall, it is indeed necessary.

As a curator, Deborah shared that was interested in engaging with different perspectives, where she does not feel the need for everyone to fully understand the art installations. As long as everyday people engage with the art, it is enough. In contrast to gallery spaces, it can be intimidating. Additionally, the temporal nature of art in a retail space makes it more precious – if you missed it, it is gone. And I personally think that is beautiful.

As per Oei (2016), “art bypasses the binary of the emotive and rational, and because it is irreducibly layered, it is valuable and necessary for the public sphere”. All in all, I do believe that Creative Intersections is a small step towards the right direction in making the arts more open and accessible for the masses; building homes for the arts.

References

Blanchot, M. (1987). Everyday Speech. Yale French Studies, 73, 12–20. 

Felski, Rita. (1999). The Invention of Everyday Life. New Formations, 39, 15.

Hoe, S.F. (2022). Block One: Pathways | ACM001 Session One: Understanding the Arts and Culture as Everyday Life [Powerpoint Slides].

Oei, A. (2016, November 2). As cities become brands and deploy art to create identity, can culture exist as a contested space? ArtReview. https://artreview.com/ara-winter-16-opinion-alan-oei/