Temporal Shifts: Along the Red Dot brings together four pioneering artists and collaboratives from Singapore: Ong Kian Peng, Debbie Ding, Urich Lau, and Avventura with Maya Dance Theatre. Together, they present critical investigations and speculative imaginations that address the island in its past, present and future. The works closely respond to the festival’s motto, utilizing immersive technology to address urgent societal concerns, such as our relationship to land and natural resources. These artists construct digital environments built on personal archives, historical research and cultural traditions, reflecting upon Singapore’s unique relationship to its environment and histories.
Ding’s New Village is an interactive artwork and game set in 1950s Malaya, exploring notions of cultural identity and personal effects of architecture. Lau’s VJ Conference: Super-Structure delves into the meaning-making of cultural landmarks and national history. In Moving Stillness, Avventura and Maya Dance Theatre draw upon traditional dance forms to dive into our waterways filled with disposed plastic, while Ong’s Accidental Utopia introduces a twist onto the nation’s plan for a new artificial island, bringing us into a post-Anthropocene future. Their works will be presented as narrative short films, 3D animation, interactive games, VR experiences and more, representing a diverse range of mediums and technological possibilities.
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Accidental Utopia
Ong Kian Peng (SG)
Accidental Utopia is a media installation that speculates on the future of the post-Anthropocene from a Singaporean perspective. Set on the proposed man-made “Long Island” in Singapore, designed to mitigate predicted sea-level rise, the work imagines a utopia meant for humans but unexpectedly transformed by higher-than-expected sea-levels.
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Moving Stillness
Maya Dance Theatre & Avventura (SG)
Moving Stillness provides viewers with a first-person experience of being engulfed in a sea of plastic debris. Exploring the Asian traditional dance practice focused on structure, rigor, rhythmic cycles, and intricate gestural language, this VR experience delicately negotiates the state of stillness through the moving body.
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New Village
Debbie Ding (SG)
New Village is an interactive artwork and game exploring 1950s Malaya. Can you “unforget” a place that you have never visited? Not a return to one’s motherland, but a voyage to new dimensions? Ding reimagines the village buildings as dislocated Cold War remnants and emotional-architectural receptacles, where tiny altar houses within the rural homes become…
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VJ Conference: Super-Structure
Urich Lau (SG)
Digitization and archiving are acts of preservation of our collective consciousness, of heritage and history. This immersive virtual reality work titled VJ Conference: Super-Structure is an investigation of the history of Singapore through its colonial buildings that held various branches of government and now house natonal museums and galleries.
BeFantastic (SG)
BeFantastic is a TechArt platform that engages a vibrant international community of creators and experts to push the boundaries of technology and the arts. BeFantastic carries forth the ethos of innovation, with a deep focus on community practice and working toward pressing global issues like climate change. Through an annual fellowship and a marquee festival in India, BeFantastic stimulates the arts, science and technology ecosystem in South and Southeast Asia.
Credits
Artists: Debbie Ding, Ong Kian Peng, Urich Lau and Avventura with Maya Dance Theatre
Curator: Clara Peh
Creative Director: Kamya Ramachandran
Producers: Christine Chong & Imran Manaff
Supported by: National Arts Council, Singapore
