December 2011
1 post
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Short Circuit, 6th January 2012, 8 pm →
The 5th installment of Singapore’s LGBT short film festival, featuring the films of Marcia Ong, Ezzam Rahman, He Shuming, Lincoln Chia, Regina Tan, Kirsten Tan, Leon Cheo and Loo Zihan.
October 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Freedom Film Festival 2011 →
The Substation will be hosting the Singaporean leg of the Freedom Film Festival on Friday, 28th October 2011. Initiated by Malaysian NGO Pusat Komas, the film festival centres on human rights.
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A Design Film Festival 2011 (Singapore) →
This year’s edition features films and documentaries such as “ANPO: Art & War”, “Citizen Architect”, “Design The New Business” and “Jun Takahashi (Undercover)”. At Old School, 3 - 20 November 2011
September 2011
2 posts
4 tags
The Hall of Mirrors by Bruce Quek →
Artist Bruce Quek presents “The Hall of Mirrors” as the winner of The Substation’s Visual Arts Open Call, going all the way through till the 30th of September 2011, with catalogue texts contributed by myself, Mark Wong and Sha Najak.
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WatchElizabeth Wijaya and Lai Wenjie’s I Have Loved debuts in this year’s Singapore International Film Festival.
June 2011
2 posts
2 tags
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A Design Film Festival presents PressPausePlay →
Design thinktank Anonymous returns with the Asian premiere of PressPausePlay as part of this year’s A Design Film Festival. Focusing on the proliferation and the democratisation of digital culture, the documentary racks up interviews with the movers and shakers of this new creative digital culture frontier.
April 2011
1 post
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Singapore Biennale 2011 #2
Artists in the News (2011) - Koh Nguang How
Factum Tang (2010) - Candice Breitz
Singapore Fiction (2011) - Ruangrupa
March 2011
2 posts
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Singapore Biennale 2011 #1
From Old Kallang Airport:
Work No. 112: Thirty-nine metronomes beating time, one at every speed, 1995 - 98 - Martin Creed
Double Up - Michael Beutler
Be True to Your School - Song-Ming Ang
Frequency and Volume: Relational Architecture 9, 2003 - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
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Singapore Biennale 2011 →
Opening on the 13th of March and going through till the 15th of May, the Singapore Biennale returns with the theme of Open House, featuring the work of Martha Rosler, Beat Streuli, Taryn Simon, Ming Wong, Shao Yinong and Mu Chen.
February 2011
3 posts
3 tags
In His Time: The Films of Edward Yang 杨德昌回顾影展 (2... →
The National Museum Cinematheque presents the films of Taiwanese auteur Edward Yang, with special guests Hsiao Yeh, Hung Hung, Stan Lai and Leong Poh-Chih.
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Essay on "Saint Jack" on the Quarterly Literary... →
My essay on understanding Singapore’s past through the lens of Peter Bogdanovich’s 1979 film Saint Jack.
January 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Zaireeka Listening Party
There’s something about the Flaming Lips’ music that induces emotions of the ineffable variety: witness the shiny-happy afterglow that settled upon the crowd after their concert here last year, with people leaving the MBS exhibition hall holding hands and singing along to Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”. That could only happen after the zany bacchanalian...
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WatchZaireeka Listening Party, Track 5
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Zaireeka Listening Party (as part of Sonic... →
Ang Songming does Flaming Lips in our very own Substation. Also check out the other events under Sonic Visions (including You and I).
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Art Stage Singapore (12 - 16 Jan 2010) →
December 2010
4 posts
1 tag
The Primitchibu World →
Part of the Trans-Cool TOKYO gallery film programme at 8Q, the screening yesterday was the film’s World Premiere.
While watching the film, I could not help but wonder if more should be said about the significance of pandas appearing in contemporary visual and pop culture.
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Trans-cool TOKYO and Moving Image Gallery... →
Exhibition at SAM at 8Q, featuring contemporary Japanese art with the likes of Yayoi Kusama’s Japanese Pop Art and Yasumasa Morimura’s portraits. Complemented by screenings of Japanese films and documentaries that delve into the subcultural corners of Tokyo.
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Sharism Presents (SG) →
3rd Dec, 9 pm, Hackerspace.sg
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Open House - Jan 2011 →
Marine Parade is the focus of this year’s Open House, a walking art tour: 6 flats, 12 artists, 1 neighbourhood. Featuring Claire Marie Ryan, Jes Brinch, John Low, Lynn Lu, Mark Wong, Michael Lee, Teng Yen Lin, Terence Lin, Zhao Renhui and others.
November 2010
2 posts
1 tag
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2010 German Film Festival →
Picks: Werner Herzog retrospective (I’ll be missing it though), Ajami, Berlin, Boxhagener Platz, The Robber, When We Leave
October 2010
0 posts
2 tags
Journalism in the age of data →
From kottke.org, a documentary on the visualisation of information and the possibilities and challenges of processing data for the purposes of journalism.
September 2010
4 posts
1 tag
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Campaign City: Life in Posters →
An exhibition by Evil Empire which revisits and reinterprets national campaigns. Featured artists: phunk | ampulets | Clare Ryan | Eeshaun | Ian Woo | Justin Lee | Messy Msxi | Michelle Fun | Randy Chan | Zhao Renhui. 9 September - 15 October. Admission is Free.
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Crafty 2010 →
Everyone gets crafty and talks crafty at the Crafty 2010 conference, produced by the design thinktank Anonymous. 9th October 2010, at LaSalle College of the Arts. Featuring 14 speakers, including Official Manufacturing Co., The Glue Society and Adrian Chan (BBH).
August 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Psychopolis
I heard mixed reviews of China Mieville’s latest, Kraken — a friend in particular blogged about how there were just too many characters and ideas bursting from the pages that it all got a bit much for her. Having survived the novel quite intact, my verdict is more favourable (The Guardian’s review of the novel reflects my sentiments quite exactly). It’s the novel-equivalent...
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Punk Music Saves The World
What do punk music, superheroes and doomsday cults have in common? They all live on myth and legend. And it is this combination of elements that gives the Japanese film Fish Story (2009) its effervescence as the plot of the film winds through a few seemingly unrelated story lines which eventually link together to explain how a punk record manages to pull the world away from the brink of...
2 tags
2 things
Short and Sweet - caught one of the semi-finals, then the finals with Zizi who was one of the judges. 10 10-minute plays of good quality, some of them witty and funny (what I’d like to call the ‘one-[very effective] trick ponies’), and some delivering more of a poignant impact. I liked Angie Farrow’s “Lifetime” (which won the best script award) which...
July 2010
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June 2010
1 post
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Back from the Northwest
I’m back from the area that set the tone for the pop-cultural zeitgeist of an entire decade.
(‘Twas a pity that I didn’t manage to catch the exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum…and by the way, Frasier’s apartment does not exist in real-life Seattle though the buildings in The Goonies are still there in Astoria, Oregon.)
May 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Hellooo, Arts!
Having emerged from the cave of concentration, I’m now embracing Arts Festival buzz. Haven’t read enough to have anything substantially developed to say as yet but I’ve noticed the emergence of a few predominant threads of discussion surrounding the festival (besides the usual features publicising the events in the news):
What seems to be the implicit censorship of theatre...
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Singapore Arts Festival Blog →
Now that the thesis is done and submitted, I should be writing a bit more about other things, beginning with the Singapore Arts Festival which opens today and runs till the 13th of June.
April 2010
0 posts
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The Status of Indie
The Life article on the Singapore International Film Festival that came out a few days ago posed the question if the film selection of this year’s 23rd edition was edgy and fresh enough. I don’t think having a Bruce Beresford retrospective necessarily damns the programme as old and stuffy, but certainly, there’s less Asian fare (Asian film awards remain, so do the Silver Screen...
March 2010
5 posts
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Japanoiserie couture →
Yumumu boutique launches in Parco NextNext, Millenia Walk, P2-30B, with East Asian Misfits II.
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SAGG article on the Design Film Festival →
I haven’t really posted my SAGG articles online, so I thought of posting the latest one on the Design Film Festival from the beginning of the year while I go on hiatus. Enjoy.
February 2010
2 posts
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Bruce Sterling on "Atemporality for the Creative... →
“The Gothic High-Tech and the Favela Chic. These are very obvious to me, as a novelist and creative artist. Perhaps you won’t see things this way — but I think the life-span of this will be about ten years. A new generation will arise who does not need things explained to them in this way. They will not wonder at a slogan like ‘futurity now’, because they will have never known anything different.
...
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One Small Step
David Hasting’s One Small Step is a two-man show on the space race which is refreshingly inventive and exuberantly performed. The actors, bursting onto the stage with paper tube rockets and homemade sound effects, powered through the 55 minute performance with shared energy and verve. Affecting a playfulness which bordered between entertaining silliness and child-like whimsy, the play...
January 2010
4 posts
1 tag
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From NYT: "Declaration of Indies: Just Sell It... →
This article from the NYT discusses the ways in which filmmakers have opportunities to make films cheaply, hold on to the rights of their work and distribute their work by themselves. How would these opportunities impact or change the cultural economy of filmmaking?
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A Design Film Festival (20 - 30 January 2010) →
Anonymous is presenting the first design film festival in Asia, featuring selected films on art, architecture, graphic design, motion graphics, photography and guerilla culture, alongside bonus content from innovative individuals, curated by art director Felix Ng. Running from the 20th to 30th of January, the films will be screened in Sinema Old School. Tickets can be ordered from the website.
December 2009
3 posts
2 tags
Post-Christmas at Post-Museum
At the ‘The Sound Gig’, featuring Dennis Tan, Goh Lee Kwang and Zai Kuning and the Amino Acid Orchestra, organised by Kai Lam
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Looking to the Future
2 different films watched this weekend, both heralding new directions in cinematography: the first being Public Enemies by Michael Mann which was circulated in the cinemas earlier in the year, and second, the movie of the moment, James Cameron’s Avatar. The aesthetics of the former, derived from its HD format, made for an uneasy but thought-provoking viewing experience, while the...
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The FIRST DRAFT - one-year professional...
Passing on the news from Facebook message sent by the British Council:
Have you always wanted to tell a story using the medium of film? Do you have stories like “Eat Drink Man Woman”, “Juno” or “Departures” to tell? If the answer is YES, this is the programme for you! THE FIRST DRAFT is Singapore’s first dedicated one-year professional development programme...