The plot revolves around a spreading epidemic of sleeping sickness where spirits appear to the stricken and hallucination becomes indistinguishable from reality. The epidemic is used as a metaphor for personal and Thai societal issues.
Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for a housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men. Doctors explore ways, including coloured light therapy, to ease the mens’ troubled dreams. Jen discovers Itt’s cryptic notebook of strange writings and blueprint sketches. There may be a connection between the soldiers’ enigmatic syndrome and the mythic ancient site that lies beneath the clinic. Magic, healing, romance and dreams are all part of Jen’s tender path to a deeper awareness of herself and the world around her.
Friday, 3 June 2016, 7.30 – 10.00pm
Tropical Malady (2004) | 118 mins
Keng is a soldier assigned to a post in a small city in rural Thailand. The troops’ main duties, it seems, is to investigate the mysterious slaying of cattle at local farms. While in the field one day, Keng meets Tong. Both of them share a connection and embark on a romance, taking trips in the countryside.
One night, the country boy wanders off into the dark. The film’s narrative abruptly shifts to a different story, about a soldier sent alone into the woods to find a lost villager. In the woods, the soldier encounters the spirit of a tiger shaman, who taunts and bedevils the soldier, causing him to run through the woods and become lost and isolated himself.
This screening is a public programme of Charles Lim Yi Yong: SEA STATE.]]>The plot revolves around a spreading epidemic of sleeping sickness where spirits appear to the stricken and hallucination becomes indistinguishable from reality. The epidemic is used as a metaphor for personal and Thai societal issues.
Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for a housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men. Doctors explore ways, including coloured light therapy, to ease the mens’ troubled dreams. Jen discovers Itt’s cryptic notebook of strange writings and blueprint sketches. There may be a connection between the soldiers’ enigmatic syndrome and the mythic ancient site that lies beneath the clinic. Magic, healing, romance and dreams are all part of Jen’s tender path to a deeper awareness of herself and the world around her.
Friday, 3 June 2016, 7.30 – 10.00pm
Tropical Malady (2004) | 118 mins
Keng is a soldier assigned to a post in a small city in rural Thailand. The troops’ main duties, it seems, is to investigate the mysterious slaying of cattle at local farms. While in the field one day, Keng meets Tong. Both of them share a connection and embark on a romance, taking trips in the countryside.
One night, the country boy wanders off into the dark. The film’s narrative abruptly shifts to a different story, about a soldier sent alone into the woods to find a lost villager. In the woods, the soldier encounters the spirit of a tiger shaman, who taunts and bedevils the soldier, causing him to run through the woods and become lost and isolated himself.
This screening is a public programme of Charles Lim Yi Yong: SEA STATE.Symposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History
Welcome Address by Ute Meta Bauer and Keynote Lecture: “The Art of Uncertainty” by Dr May Adadol Ingawanij, curator and moving image theorist, Co-director of the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster, LondonSymposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History
Session I: Shadows of HistorySymposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History
Session II: Ghosts and Spectres
Presentation: “Colonial Unheimlich” by Park Chan-kyong, artist
Symposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History
Session II: Ghosts and SpectresSymposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History
Session II: Ghosts and SpectresSymposium: Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History
Closing Keynote Lecture by Professor Kenneth Dean, Head, Department of Chinese, NUS
Single channel HD Video, colour, sound, 16 min, 16:9
Co-produced by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) for st_age
Single channel HD Video, colour, sound, 16 min, 16:9