Climate Crisis]]> Cultural Production]]> Edited by Ute Meta Bauer
Design by mono.studio
Printed by DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH
© 2022 the artists, the authors, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Nanyang Technological University 
ISBN: 978-0-262-04681-7 
Distributed by The MIT Press 
Copies are available for sale at NTU CCA Singapore and through MIT Press S$80/US$60

Modeling the curatorial as a method for uniting cultural production and science, Climates. Habitats. Environments. weaves together image and text to address the global climate crisis. Through exhibitions, artworks, and essays, artists and writers transcend disciplinary boundaries and linear histories to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on the fight for environmental justice. In doing so, they draw on the rich cultural heritage of the Asia-Pacific, in conversation with international discourse, to demonstrate transdisciplinary solution-seeking.

Experimental in form as well as in method, Climates. Habitats. Environments. features an inventive book design by mono.studio that puts word and image on equal footing, offering a multiplicity of media, interpretations, and manifestations of interdisciplinary research. For example, botanist Matthew Hall draws on Ovid's Metamorphoses to discuss human-plant interpenetration; curator and writer Venus Lau considers how spectrality consumes—and is consumed—in animation and film, literature, music, and cuisine; and critical theorist and filmmaker Elizabeth Povinelli proposes “Water Sense” as a geontological approach to “the question of our connected and differentiated existence,” informed by the “ancestral catastrophe of colonialism.” Artists excavate the natural and cultural DNA of indigo, lacquer, rattan, and mulberry; works at the intersection of art, design, and architecture explore “The Posthuman City”; an ongoing research project investigates the ecological urgencies of Pacific archipelagos. The works of art, the projects, and the majority of the texts featured in the book were commissioned by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.

]]>
Ute Meta Bauer]]> Anna Lovecchio]]> Michael Marder]]> Kong Yin Ying]]> Marian Pastor Roces]]> Ravi Agarwal]]> Donna J. Haraway]]> Matthew Hall]]> Nikos Papastergiadis]]> Donna J. Haraway]]> David Pledger]]> Dan Koh]]> Tan Zi Hao]]> May Adadol Ingawanij]]> Michael M. J. Fischer]]> Venus Lau]]> Elizabeth A. Povinelli]]> Cynthia Chou]]> Nina Oeghoede]]> Philippe Pirotte]]> Epeli Hau'ofa]]> Nabil Ahmed]]> Édouard Glissant]]> Tania Roy]]> Alfian Sa'at]]> Jake Atienza]]> Kenneth Dean]]> Faizah Zakaria]]> Stefanie Hessler]]> Huang Jui-mao]]> Anna Källén]]> Philippa Lovatt]]> Laura Miotto]]> Rob Nixon]]> Khim Ong]]> Markus Reymann]]> Dirk Snauwaert]]> Matariki Williams]]> Irene Agrivina]]> Nabil Ahmed]]> Irwan Ahmett]]> Tita Salina]]> Atif Akin]]> Animali Domestici]]> Apichatpong Weerasethakul]]> Martha Atienza]]> Tarek Atoui]]> Laura Anderson Barbata]]> Rosella Biscotti]]> Guigone Camus]]> Choy Ka Fai]]> Roko Josefa Cinavilakeba]]> Sean Connelly]]> Ade Darmawan]]> Lucy Davis]]> Ines Doujak]]> Jef Geys]]> Tue Greenfort]]> Newell Harry]]> Ho Tzu Nyen]]> Chia-Wei Hsu]]> Pierre Huyghe]]> ila]]> inhabitants]]> The Institute of Critical Zoologists]]> Kristy H. A. Kang]]> Susanne Kriemann]]> Zac Langdon-Pole]]> Jae Rhim Lee]]> Liang Shaoji]]> PerMagnus Lindborg]]> Armin Linke]]> Nicholas Mangan]]> Alice Miceli]]> Manish Nai]]> Nguyễn Trinh Thi]]> Phi Phi Oanh]]> Lucy + Jorge Orta]]> Park Chan-kyong]]> Sophia Pich]]> Marjetica Potrč]]> Shubigi Rao]]> Lisa Rave]]> Lucy Raven]]> Bridget Reweti]]> Hito Steyerl]]> Melati Suryodarmo]]> Tanatchai Bandasak]]> Sung Tieu]]> Jegan Vincent de Paul]]> Wu Mali]]> Vivian Xu]]> Yeo Siew Hua]]> Zarina Muhammad]]> Edouard Glissant]]> Anna Kallen]]> Nguyen Trinh Thi]]> Marjetica Potrc]]> mono.studio]]> Publication]]> Southeast Asia]]> Asia]]>
Architecture]]> Urbanism]]> Guest-of-Honour: William S. W. Lim


Emerging from an exhibition, conference, and festival that explored architect and urban theorist William S. W. Lim’s concept on “Incomplete Urbanism” and his call for “Cities for People,” this publication juxtaposes research essays, visual and textual documentation with artistic interventions and spatio-temporal maps. Organised into three chapters—“The City as Living Room,” “The City as Multiple,” and “The City as Stage,” the contributions—by architects, scholars, planners, artists, activists, and curators—constitute a diverse set of analyses. Unexpected notions of planning, building, and living in Asian cities, suggest multiple paths into critical spatial practice of Asian urban space. The volume positions Lim’s thoughts, concepts, and plans for action as that of a humanist who addresses the complex topography of an ever-changing urban Asia.

Contributors include: Laura Anderson Barbata, Jiat-Hwee Chang, Thanavi Chotpradit, Calvin Chua, Yvonne P. Doderer, Chomchon Fusinpaiboon, indieguerillas, Marc Glöde, Sacha Kagan, Lulu Lutfi Labibi, Magdalena Magiera, Laura Miotto, Marjetica Potrč, Pen Sereypagna, Shirley Surya, Sissel Tolaas, Etienne Turpin and Nashin Mahtani, John Wagner, H. Koon Wee, Woon Tien Wei, and Ari Wulu. Foreword by Nikos Papastergiadis. Afterword by William S. W. Lim.

Published by World Scientific Publishing
Edited by Ute Meta Bauer, Khim Ong, and Roger Nelson

]]>
Laura Anderson Barbata]]> Jiat-Hwee Chang]]> Thanavi Chotpradit]]> Calvin Chua]]> Yvonne P. Doderer]]> Chomchon Fusinpaiboon]]> indieguerillas]]> Marc Glöde]]> Sacha Kagan]]> Lulu Lutfi Labibi]]> Magdalena Magiera]]> Laura Miotto]]> Marjetica Potrč]]> Marrjetica Potrc]]> Pen Sereypagna]]> Shirley Surya]]> Sissel Tolaas]]> Etienne Turpin]]> Nashin Mahtani]]> John Wagner]]> H. Koon Wee]]> Woon Tien Wei]]> Ari Wulu]]> Nikos Papastergiadis]]> William S. W. Lim]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Khim Ong]]> Roger Nelson]]> Marc Glode]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Public Summit, part of CITIES FOR PEOPLE NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2016/17

]]>
Sustainability]]> Urbanism]]> 19 Jan 2017, Thu 03:00 PM - 06:30 PM
20 Jan 2017, Fri 01:30 PM - 06:30 PM
21 Jan 2017, Sat 01:30 PM - 06:30 PM
NTU CCA Singapore, Block 43 Malan Road, The Single Screen

The three-day Public Summit brings together a prominent group of architects, theorists, researchers, curators, and community groups to share and discuss ideas about sustainability, food and energy sources, spatial practice, and social relations in the urban fabric. Programmed as a series of Structured Conversations, the Public Summit attempts to bridge artistic practices and academic research with bottom-up initiatives and explore various strategies and participatory approaches, projecting solutions and desires for future “cities for people”.

Thursday, 19 January 2017

3.00pm

Registration

Tour of exhibition Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts of Critical Spatial Practice by Khim Ong (Singapore), Deputy Director, Exhibitions, Residencies, and Public Programme, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore)

4.00 – 6.30pm

Welcome Address

Ute Meta Bauer (Germany/Singapore), Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, School of Art, Design and Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

Structured Conversation #1: Food, Air, Water

This session opens up the debate surrounding sustainability in relation to food sources, water resources, and air quality. As elements that possess fundamental significance for all life, how has urban development and technology impacted and intervened into these resources? Can sustainability be achieved only with improved technology? Is sustainability sustainable? (William S. W. Lim) How can we better understand and work with regenerative processes of nature to create a more informed way of living for all?

Host: Paul Teng (Singapore), Professor and Adjunct Senior Fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU

With Joshua Comaroff (United States/Singapore), Assistant Professor, Singapore University of Technology and Design and Design Consultant, Lekker; Eugene Heng (Singapore), Founder and Chairman, Waterways Watch Society; Conrad H. Philipp (Germany/Singapore), Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore-ETH Centre; and Marjetica Potrč (Germany), Professor for Social Design, University of Fine Arts (HFBK), Hamburg

Respondent: Cecilia Tortajada (Mexico and Spain/Singapore), Senior Research Fellow, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS)

Friday, 20 January 2017

1.30pm                                         Registration

2.00 – 4.00pm

Welcome Address

Ute Meta Bauer and Khim Ong

Structured Conversation #2: Modalities of Exchange

Dedicated to examining various modes of exchange beyond pure economic terms, speakers will share their experiences working across cultures and diverse communities, introducing strategies for bridging differences. How are we able to create shared knowledge and

resource, and intervene into various social and cultural patterns? Can the shared spaces we create allow us to achieve an alternative economy based on social debate, giving, and sharing that can be managed by citizens rather than global finance?

Host: Sophie Goltz (Germany/Singapore), Assistant Professor, NTU ADM / CCA Singapore

With Qinyi Lim (Singapore), independent curator; Matthew Mazzotta(United States), artist; and Woon Tien Wei (Singapore), Post-Museum

Respondent: Yvonne P. Doderer (Germany), Professor for Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Applied Sciences, Düsseldorf

4.15 – 6.30pm

Structured Conversation #3: Critical Spatial Practice

This session explores the social, cultural, and political production of space in relation to urban intervention and the possibilities for individual acts and bottom-up initiatives versus top-down planning. What is the critical mode of spatial practice today? What ideas and options do we have for future urban habitats?

Host: Ute Meta Bauer

With Nikolaus Hirsch (Germany), architect; Hyungmin Pai (South Korea), Director, 1st Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017 and Professor of Architecture, University of Seoul; and Apolonija Šušteršič (Slovenia/Sweden and Norway), artist, architect and Professor, Art & Public Space, Oslo National Academy of the Arts

Respondent: Regina Bittner (Germany), Head of Academy Department and Deputy Director, Bauhaus Dessau

Saturday, 21 January 2017

1.30pm                                    Registration

2.00 – 4.00pm

Welcome Address

Ute Meta Bauer and Khim Ong

Structured Conversation #4: Performing the City

How can artistic practices activate communities, give voice to, and provoke different experiences of our built environment? How do artistic interventions stimulate processes of reflexivity? What are the shared methodologies that allow us to intervene into the social, cultural, and political through performative gestures that animate an alternative understanding and experience of everyday living?

Host: Anca Rujoiu (Romania/Singapore), curator and Manager, Publications, NTU CCA Singapore

With Laura Anderson Barbata (Mexico/United States), artist; Lucy Orta (United Kingdom/France), artist and Professor and Chair of Art and the Environment, University of the Arts London; and Sissel Tolaas (Norway/Germany), artist and smell researcher

Respondents: Sophie Goltz; and Charmaine Toh (Singapore), Curator, National Gallery Singapore

4.15 – 6.30pm

Structured Conversation #5: Who Owns the City

This session explores the social, cultural, and political production of space in relation to urban intervention and the possibilities for individual acts and bottom-up initiatives versus top-down planning. What is the critical mode of spatial practice today? What ideas and options do we have for future urban habitats?

Host: Calvin Chua (Singapore), Adjunct Assistant Professor, Architecture and Sustainable Design, Singapore University of Technology and Design

With Regina Bittner; Yvonne P. Doderer; Lukas Feireiss (Germany), curator and author; and Marjetica Potrč

Respondent: Wong Chen-Hsi (Singapore), Assistant Professor, NTU ADM, Singapore

]]>
Ute Meta Bauer]]> Khim Ong]]> Paul Teng]]> Joshua Comaroff]]> Eugene Heng]]> Conrad H. Philipp ]]> Marjetica Potrč ]]> Marjetica Potrc]]> Cecilia Tortajada]]> Sophie Goltz]]> Qinyi Lim ]]> Matthew Mazzotta]]> Woon Tien Wei ]]> Yvonne P. Doderer]]> Nikolaus Hirsch]]> Hyungmin Pai ]]> Apolonija Šušteršič]]> Apolonija Sustersic]]> Regina Bittner]]> Anca Rujoiu ]]> Lucy Orta]]> Sissel Tolaas]]> Charmaine Toh]]> Calvin Chua]]> Lukas Feireiss ]]> Wong Chen-Hsi ]]> Asia]]> Europe]]>
Environmental Crisis]]> Sustainability]]> 17 Jan 2017, Tue 10:00 AM - 06:00 PM
Behind Block 43 Malan Road

Adopting the World Cafe methodology (an effective format for large group dialogue), the workshop will bring together a diverse group of people including grassroots communities, environmental activists, and other social interest groups, who are engaged with environmental and sustainability issues. In this workshop, participants will hold presentations and discussions on topics of urgency relating to air and water. Participants are asked not only to consider the current state of matters, but more importantly, to project solutions and desires for the next 30 years, from the bottom-up perspective: What can we do ourselves to change the human and environmental conditions of air, land, and water – essential elements and finite natural resources that Singapore residents live with every day but rarely ask questions about. The workshop begins with small group presentations and conversations with each group focusing on one elected topic, after which participants rotate and move to another topic.

The final aim of the workshop will be for the participants to come up with proposals/manifestos for the future and present them to invited representatives from relevant state agencies. Through this workshop, Marjetica Potrč lays a special focus on participation and agency. Individual empowerment, problem-solving-tools, and long-term strategies are key in her approach.
]]>
Marjetica Potrč]]> Marjetica Potrc]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Topography]]> Urbanism]]>
Contributors include: Laura Anderson Barbata, Jiat-Hwee Chang, Thanavi Chotpradit, Calvin Chua, Yvonne P. Doderer, Chomchon Fusinpaiboon, indieguerillas, Marc Glöde, Sacha Kagan, Lulu Lutfi Labibi, Magdalena Magiera, Laura Miotto, Marjetica Potrč, Pen Sereypagna, Shirley Surya, Sissel Tolaas, Etienne Turpin and Nashin Mahtani, John Wagner, H. Koon Wee, Woon Tien Wei, and Ari Wulu. Foreword by Nikos Papastergiadis. Afterword by William S. W. Lim.]]>
Roger Nelson]]> World Scientific Publishing]]> Laura Anderson Barbata]]> Jiat-Hwee Chang]]> Thanavi Chotpradit]]> Calvin Chua]]> Chomchon Fusinpaiboon]]> Marc Glöde]]> indieguerillas]]> Sacha Kagan]]> Lulu Lutfi Labibi]]> Magdalena Magiera]]> Laura Miotto]]> Marjetica Potrč]]> Pen Sereypagna]]> Nashin Mahtani]]> John Wagner]]> H. Koon Wee]]> Ari Wulu]]> William S. W. Lim]]> Chang Jiat Hwee]]> Marjetica Potrc]]> Marc Glode]]> H55]]> Publication]]> Asia]]>
The Posthuman City. Climates. Habitats. Environments Exhibition Guide]]> Sustainability]]> Posthumanism]]> Technology]]> Climate Crisis]]> The Posthuman City. Climates. Habitats. Environments Exhibition Guide]]> Irene Agrivina]]> Animali Domestici]]> Ines Doujak]]> Pierre Huyghe]]> Jae Rhim Lee]]> Lucy + Jorge Orta]]> Nicholas Mangan]]> Marjetica Potrč]]> Hito Steyerl ]]> Guide]]> Southeast Asia]]> Sustainability]]> Biodiversity]]> Technology]]> Climate Crisis]]> Labour]]> Marjetica Potrč ]]> Marjetica Potrc]]> Europe]]> The Posthuman City. Climates. Habitats. Environments]]> Posthumanism]]> Sustainability]]> Coexistence]]> Biodiversity]]> Ecology]]> Technology]]> Climate Crisis]]> The Posthuman City features artists who propose a shift in perspective.

Taking NTU CCA Singapore’s overarching research topic Climates.Habitats.Environments. as point of departure, the exhibition The Posthuman City considers the possibilities of a conscious sharing of resources, and a respectful and mindful coexistence between humans and other species. Through imaginative propositions at the intersection of art, design, and architecture, the selected artists engage questions addressing issues of sustainability, water scarcity, invisible communities, nature as a form of culture, and suggest the implementation of lived indigenous knowledges. Examining the urban fabric in its condition as a habitat for a diversity of life forms, the featured works range from installations to time-based media.

Stressing the vital importance of clean water and the challenges of its scarcity around the world, the artist and design duo Lucy + Jorge Orta have developed a long-term project on water collection, purification, and distribution. OrtaWater focuses on the general issues surrounding clean water and the privatisation and corporate control effecting access to it. Starting from a rigorous analysis of this crucial resource through visual and textual research and collaborative workshops with engineers, Lucy + Jorge Orta create sculptures, large-scale installations, and public artworks, that are both artefacts and functional design. One angle of their research—low-cost water purification devices enabling filthy water to be pumped and filtered directly from local sources—is translated into Portable Water Fountain (2005) and Mobile Intervention Unit (2007). These devices have been used to purify and distribute water from the Venice’s Canal Grande (2005) and the Huang Pu River in Shanghai (2012), among others, and now from the creek that runs through Gillman Barracks.

Similarly combating water pollution, Irene Agrivina’s Soya C(o)u(l)ture is a mixed media installation that demonstrates how to transform wastewater from tofu and tempeh production into usable biomaterials, such as fuel, fertiliser, and leather-like fabrics. Soya C(o)u(l)ture was developed in collaboration with XXLab, an all-female transdisciplinary collective that Agrivina co-founded. Usually, large amounts of wastewater pollute the water in the rivers surrounding the plants, which in turn causes cholera and skin and bowel diseases in humans. Soya C(o)u(l)ture intends to divert this wastewater from tofu factories and put it in a homegrown starter culture medium to create useful products. A biological process using various bacteria and cell cultures, for instance Acetobacter xylinum, generates alternative energy sources, foodstuffs, and biological material. This process creates cellulose sheets that can either be used for consumption—nata de coco, a variant made of coconut water, is a popular snack food—or further processed (pressed, dried, enhanced with colouring and coating) to make clothing and craft materials. This biological procedure can be reproduced in any household using normal kitchen utensils in combination with open-source software and simple hardware. In this way, the project could provide women in poverty-stricken regions with opportunities to increase their income.

Indigenous peoples of various territories around the world, with deep historical and cultural ties to their land, have preserved sustainable ways of living that respect the limits of the planet’s resources. The artist and architect Marjetica Potrč’s Earth Drawings refer to these unique indigenous cosmogonies and their essential knowledges, based on research done over the past 15 years, centred on indigenous communities, such as the Asháninkas (in the Brazilian state of Acre in Amazonia), the Aboriginal (in Australian), and the Sami (in northern Norway), The Earth Drawings, a series on paper, point to the growing alliances between indigenous groups and bottom-up initiatives in the effort to ensure a more resilient future, beyond the social and economic agreement of the neoliberal order. Potrč stresses that the world’s diverse societies, taken together, form an intelligent organism: when necessary, they self-generate new models of existence and coexistence—a precondition for human resilience on Earth. Sharing life experiences is, after all, a basic human condition. Coexistence on Earth requires new foundations that foreground collective ownership of the land and a socially-conscious individualism.

Planetary coexistence of species acknowledges the presence and agency of diverse forms of intelligence. The artist Nicholas Mangan is inspired by termites and their capacity to build sophisticated and dynamic architectures that provide a model for decentralised social and economic organisation. The starting point of Termite Economies (Phase 1) was the anecdote that Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) researched termite behaviour in the hope that the insects might one day lead humans to gold deposits; a proposal to exploit the natural activity of termite colonies for economic gain. Mangan, on the contrary, proposes that the termites’ way of living in colonies might suggest other complex and global-scale systems for people to live and work together, better regulating and metabolising human consumption, production, and digestion. Termite Economies combines footage Mangan filmed on locations in Western Australia, alongside archival video and table-mounted sculptures, to speculate on the use of termites as miners and ruminating on how capitalism puts nature to work. The 3D-printed models reference existing infrastructures, for instance an underground tunnelling system for Tindals Mining Centre, a gold mine in Western Australia. The idea was to produce a 1:100 scale model to train termites.

In Bangkok Opportunistic Ecologies, the design practice Animali Domestici studied the urbanity of Bangkok from a non-anthropocentric perspective, focusing on the presence of pythons. Mapping the city through a snake’s experience, the resulting tapestry puts multiple beings of different species at the centre, displacing the human from its exceptionalism. The graphic realisation is freely inspired by the representation techniques, colour palettes, and composition of Thai traditional mural paintings. Their work process translates research and statistics on the Thai capital into multiple encapsulated narratives, including such elements as sewerage, canals, water swamps, and rain water “cracked” pipes—typical spots used by snakes, according to fire department experts—, as well as folkloric cultural practices like the numerology and superstitions connected to the shape and location of the animals.

In Untitled (Human Mask), the artist Pierre Huyghe films a monkey, Fuku-chan, who in real life has a work permit as a “waitress” in a traditional sake house in Tokyo. In the film, the animal is wearing a dress and a wig, as well as a white, human-like mask created by Huyghe. Made of resin, the mask is inspired by traditional Japanese Noh theatre masks, where only the main actor wears a mask, meant to show the essential traits of the character. The film’s first images are drone shots of a devastated landscape, that of Fukushima in 2011, after the earthquake-triggered tsunami caused the meltdown of three nuclear plant reactors. It then shifts to an empty restaurant and house, where we follow Fuku-chan moving around in the dark. Fuku-chan is seen acting, and seems to be waiting, shaking her leg, looking at her nails, playing with her hair. A cat appears, and we see close-ups of insects and cockroaches. Raising questions about the essence of human nature and of non-human forms of intelligence and communication, the work points at the prevailing relationship of domination between humans and other species.

Ghostpopulations, a series of collages by the artist Ines Doujak, combines ill human bodies with flora and fauna, transforming drawings from 19th-century medical textbooks into provocative assemblages that investigate desperation as an economic force. Doujak points out that entire populations uproot and flee in the direction of the faintest glimmer of hope, only to find themselves in the worst of predicaments: abandoned and deported, sold, abused or stigmatised forever, circulating as extremely cheap and disposable commodities. While she is giving visibility to such marginalised, abused, and displaced populations, these collages draw a dystopian mirage, reminding us of the pending threat of pandemic illnesses.

Death, from a post-humanist perspective, is not only inevitable and part of life, but is an event that is already in our past. The artist and entrepreneur Jae Rhim Lee developed a burial suit as an environmentally-conscious alternative to conventional funerary processes, shifting the negative narratives around death. The presented Infinity Burial Suit, a handcrafted garment that is worn by the deceased, is completely biodegradable, and co-created with zero waste fashion designer Daniel Silverstein. In addition, the Forever Spot Pet Shroud is featured, also consisting of a built in bio­mix of mushrooms and other microorganisms that together do three things: aid in decomposition, work to neutralise toxins found in dead bodies, and transfer nutrients to plant life, enriching the earth and fostering new life. Highlighting the importance of decompiculture—the cultivation of waste-decomposing organisms—, this project also suggests a strong link between human resistance to mortality and climate change denial. She advocates for a post-mortem responsibility towards the natural world and a direct engagement with our own mortality, making funerals new beginnings instead of endpoints, becoming more emotionally and socially accessible.

A parable on economic crashes, financial trading, mixed martial arts, and general contemporary culture, artist and writer Hito Steyerl’s large-scale architectural environment features Liquidity Inc., a single-screen projection that uses water and liquidity as guiding tropes. Opening with the quote “be water, my friend” by martial arts legend and actor Bruce Lee, the film comments on the circulation of digital images, big data, information, financial assets, labour, and weather systems. The installation consists of a double-sided projection screen in front of a blue, wave-like ramp, where the viewers find themselves in “troubled water.” Steyerl merges CGI and green screen scenes with an assortment of embedded videos, swipes, clips, scrolls, and pop-up windows, that include the story of Jacob Wood, a former financial analyst who lost his job during the 2008 economic recession and decided to turn his mixed martial arts hobby into a new career. The intricate mesh of late capitalism structures needs to be hijacked in order to allow space for new ecological and sustainable policies that value people and life over profit.

The Posthuman City, through artistic propositions, intends to open a discussion about the imbalanced relationship between an anthropocentric thinking that puts the human at the centre, and the fact that the urban environment is a habitat for many life forms. In her book The Posthuman (2013), Rosi Braidotti calls for resilience, stating that “sustainability does assume faith in a future, and also a sense of responsibility for ‘passing on’ to future generations a world that is liveable and worth living in. A present that endures is a sustainable model of the future.”

Curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Professor, NTU ADM, and Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Laura Miotto, Associate Professor, NTU ADM

The accompanying public programmes include seminars addressing techno-optimism and eco-hacktivism on 23 November 2019, and biodiver-city and urban futurism on 18 January 2020, deepening the discussion around posthumanism and the urban condition.

From 15 – 23 February 2020, the second edition of NTU CCA Ideas Fest takes place, guest curated by IdeasCity, New Museum, New York.]]>
Irene Agrivina]]> Animali Domestici]]> Ines Doujak]]> Pierre Huyghe]]> Jae Rhim Lee]]> Lucy + Jorge Orta]]> Nicholas Mangan]]> Marjetica Potrč]]> Hito Steyerl ]]> Video]]> Multimedia Installation]]> Film]]> Painting]]> Sculpture]]> Object]]> Installation]]> Southeast Asia]]>
CITIES FOR PEOPLE NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2016/7]]> Knowledge Production]]> Public Sphere]]> Urbanism]]> Ecology]]> Spaces of the Curatorial]]> Architecture]]> Environmental Crisis]]> CITIES FOR PEOPLE is the pilot edition of the annual NTU CCA Ideas Fest, a platform to catalyse critical exchange of ideas and encourage thinking “out of the box”. It is a bottom-up approach linking the artistic and academic community with grassroots initiatives. This pilot edition expands artistic interventions and engages contemporary issues such as air, water, food, environment, and social interaction in connection to artistic and cultural fields, academic research, and design applications.

The 10-day programme, coinciding with Singapore Art Week 2017 and Art After Dark at Gillman Barracks, comprises a conglomerate of performances, public installations, participatory projects and social experiment, urban farming initiatives, public dialogues, and a variety of workshops. It cumulates in a three-day summit that brings together a prominent group of architects, theorists, researchers, curators, and community groups to discuss and exchange ideas about urbanism, modes of exchange, critical spatial practice, and to envision a future city. CITIES FOR PEOPLE offers a platform to contemplate the possibilities for our shared space, reformulate our demands accordingly, and project solutions and desires for the future.

CITIES FOR PEOPLE, borrowing the title from a book by eminent Singapore architect William S. W. Lim published in 1990, expands on some of the ideas Lim developed, particularly in relation to tropical environments and recycling, as well as his call for a humanistic architecture. Organised on the occasion of the exhibition Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts at Critical Spatial Practice, this event is an invitation to share and engage in cooperative projects and collective experiences that critically reflect on current challenges in urban and social development.]]>
Ute Meta Bauer]]> Khim Ong]]> indieguerillas]]> Lulu Lutfi Labibi]]> Ari Wulu]]> Lucy + Jorge Orta]]> Foodscape Collective]]> Marjetica Potrč]]> Laura Anderson Barbata]]> Brooklyn Jumbies]]> Misso Russell Keith]]> Post-Museum]]> Xu Tan]]> Edible Garden City]]> Michelle Lai]]> Dan Susman]]> Victoria Marshall]]> Performance]]> Sound]]> Installation]]> Southeast Asia]]>