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ABOUT Initiated by Kenneth Tay, CONCRETE ISLAND is an ongoing research project (2016 - 2020) that takes place over the period of a five-year plan. Beginning with Tan Pin Pin's film 80km/h and J.G. Ballard's novel of the same title as points of friction, the project proposes to think of Singapore as a condition of movement, of exchange, and of intensities. Guided by nine passwords (concrete, architecture, control, access, speed, excess, museum, current. island), the project disperses into several formats all at once. At present, the project has taken the various mediums of a publication reader, an incubation space, a bus tour programme, and a reading workshop. Current contributors to the project include: Tan Pin Pin, Luca Lum, Tse Hao Guang, Jason Wee, Geraldine Kang, Fiona Tan, Ho Rui An, Anca Rujoiu, Amanda Lee-Koe, Kathleen Ditzig, Liao Jiekai, Lai Chee Kien, Vanessa Ban, and Kent Chan.

[concreteisland]

Solar: A Meltdown

Solar: A Meltdown

Performance lecture by Ho Rui An 1 April 2016, 7:00pm - 8:00pm NUS Museum

Solar: A Meltdown is a lecture that takes off from the sweaty back of a mannequin of the anthropologist Charles le Roux that the artist encountered in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. From this image launches a series of investigations that attempts to get to the “behinds” of Empire and more crucially, the merciless sun behind it, beating down on the imperial back. Probing this “solar unconscious” underpinning the European colonial project, the lecture further considers the white woman and the punkawallah (manual fan operator) as figures responsible for constructing a “global domestic” as solar management device. Spiraling into the contemporary moment of terrestrial meltdown, it finally seeks to reclaim sweat as a way of getting out of ourselves and in touch with the Solar. Solar: A Meltdown was first presented at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014 and more recently, at TPAM Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama 2016.

Ho Rui An is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. He writes, talks and thinks around images, investigating their sites of emergence, transmission and disappearance within contemporary visual culture. He has presented projects at the 2nd Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Serpentine Galleries (London), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Monnaie de Paris, Singapore Art Museum, LUMA/Westbau (Zurich), Para Site (Hong Kong) and Witte de With (Rotterdam). He is the Singapore desk editor for ArtAsiaPacific and has contributed to numerous publications. In 2011, his first novel, Several Islands, was published by The Substation (Singapore). He lives and works in Singapore.

This performance lecture was presented as part of NUS Museum's CONCRETE ISLAND, and as a continued dialogue with the password "museum".

[images courtesy of Luca Lum]

[concreteisland]

Publication Reader

CONCRETE ISLAND

Publication reader Paperback, 136 printed pages + 7 printed sticker sheets Contributions by Tse Hao Guang, Jason Wee, Geraldine Kang, Fiona Tan, Ho Rui An, Anca Rujoiu, Amanda Lee Koe, Kathleen Ditzig, Liao Jiekai and Luca Lum

Book launch, screening of 80km/h with public readings by Tse Hao Guang, Jason Wee and Anca Rujoiu 18 February 2016, 7:00pm - 8:00pm NUS Museum   

Instead of an exhibition catalogue that follows after a project or exhibition, CONCRETE ISLAND begins first with a publication reader as a literary guide to the project at large. It features nine commissioned entries by artists, writers and researchers based in Singapore, with each entry functioning as a response to each of the nine “passwords” guiding the project. As passwords, “concrete”, “architecture”, “control”, “access”, “speed”, “excess”, “museum”, “current”, and “island” are vehicles of thought, trafficking associations between one another. The publication also features a conversation between the co-curators of the project (Kenneth Tay and Luca Lum) weaving through every entry. 

The launch of the reader happened on 18 February 2016 at the NUS Museum. Tan Pin Pin’s film 80km/h (2004) was screened. As the film traverses across Singapore along the Pan Island Expressway from one end of the city to another, public readings by Tse Hao Guang, Jason Wee and Anca Rujoiu took place across the different spaces of the museum, and staged according to the film’s sequence. The audience were encouraged to move between spaces of the screening and the readings. The launch took a duration of 39 minutes in total, timed exactly to the duration of 80km/h.

Table of Content Traveling Light, Burnt Suns (Apotheosis and Nadir) / Kenneth Tay and Luca Lum Leaping / Tse Hao Guang Infrastructure Architecture / Jason Wee By unit of measurement / Geraldine Kang InAccessible / Fiona Tan An Accident: Two Views from the Dashboard / Ho Rui An Instances of Excess / Anca Rujoiu Museum / Amanda Lee Koe The Currents of ‘the Current’ / Kathleen Ditzig Kovan Melody / Liao Jiekai Escape Velocity: An Afterword / Kenneth Tay

Format: Paperback, 150 pages Dimensions: 180mm x 130mm x 12mm Publication date: 18 February 2016 Publisher: NUS Museum Publication city/country: Singapore, Singapore ISBN: 978-981-09-6795-6 Design: Studio Vanessa Ban Typeset: Fugue, Helvetica Neue 55 Roman Paper: 160gsm Naturalis Absolute White Matt (cover), 100gsm Divinia Cream (inside)

[image courtesy of Vanessa Ban]