<em>Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.</em>
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<p>Collaborative and experimental by nature, <em>Free Jazz III </em>builds upon its past iterations by activating and challenging common understandings of exhibition-making and the use of space. Sound walks. Machines listen. We are living through unusual times. </p>
<p>As the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore approaches a major transformation away from a permanent exhibition space in early 2021, <em>Free Jazz III</em> continues to explore the possibilities of an international research centre for contemporary art, featuring many artists who have been part of NTU CCA Singapore’s exhibitions, residencies, and programs since 2013, when the Centre presented <em>Free Jazz</em> as its inaugural event. The project began as a form of inquiry and an active tool to generate new possibilities for conceptualizing and programming an art institution. <em>Free Jazz III </em>convenes diverse projects united by themes of adaptation via masterful improvisation, trans-mediatic pivots, and the conscious renegotiation of our relationships to nature, technology, and each other. The disparate components of <em>Free Jazz III </em>explore the elements of dissonance, resistance, and innovation embedded in its musical namesake and the ability for sound and art to transcend physical and social distance. Embracing sound and walking as two powerful ways to overcome distance and bring people together, <em>Free Jazz III </em>comprises projects that can take place in non-gallery spaces, independently, asynchronously, or in purposeful syncopation with the present moment, reflecting on the past and looking forward to the future. </p>
<p>Admission to all programmes and events is free.</p>
<p><strong><span><a href="http://ntu.ccasingapore.org/events/sound-walks/"><em>Sound. Walks.</em></a></span><br />January–March 2021 (On-site and online)</strong></p>
<p>Reflecting on the loss of physicality through increased virtual interactions as well as many histories of sound and walking, artists address common life and communality in times of social distancing. In this series of performative explorations of sound, music, and community building, reflections take the form of soundwalks, sonic wayfinding and other physical and aural experiences, offering multiple ways for the public to actively witness, listen and participate, both remotely and on-site. Soundwalks by <strong>Tini Aliman</strong> (Singapore), <strong>Christa Donner</strong> and <strong>Andrew S Yang</strong> (United States), and <strong>Diana Lelonek </strong>(Poland) and <strong>Denim Szram</strong> (Poland/Switzerland) are propelled by sonic outputs of nature. Storytelling, correspondence, and the impossibility of direct communication factor into projects by <strong>Cheryl Ong</strong> (Singapore), <strong>Ana Prvački</strong> (Romania/Germany) in collaboration with <strong>Joyce Bee Tuan Koh</strong> (Singapore) and <strong>Galina Mihaleva </strong>(Bulgaria/Singapore), and <strong>Vivian Wang</strong> (Singapore/Switzerland). Sound, history, culture, and space overlap and intertwine in works by <strong>Arahmaiani </strong>(Indonesia) and <strong>Jimmy Ong</strong> (Singapore),<strong> bani haykal</strong> (Singapore) and <strong>Lee Weng Choy </strong>(Malaysia),<strong> Reetu Sattar</strong> (Bangladesh), and<strong> anGie Seah</strong> (Singapore).</p>
<p><em>Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. </em>is curated by <strong>Magdalena Magiera</strong> (Germany/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Curator, Education and Outreach, and <strong>Dr Karin Oen</strong> (United States/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes</p>
<p><strong><span><a href="http://ntu.ccasingapore.org/events/under-the-skin/"><em>Under the Skin</em></a><br /></span>1 December 2020 – 31 January 2021 (Online)</strong></p>
<p>World premiere and special performance<br />1 December 2020, 7pm SGT</p>
<p>This trio of performative works by artists <strong>George Chua </strong>(Singapore), <strong>Nina Djekić </strong>(Slovenia/Singapore/Netherlands), and <strong>Noor Effendy Ibrahim </strong>(Singapore) engages with sound, bodily movements, and performance. These new pieces are cinematically translated into the medium of video by filmmaker <strong>Russell Morton</strong> (Singapore) and viewed online, acknowledging the curatorial premise that, “the pandemic has pushed us into a space of dramatic convergence—where a deep tech, hyper-connected future collides with social political unrest,” in both the work itself and the medium in which it is presented.</p>
<p><em>Under the Skin</em> is curated for <em>Free Jazz III </em>by artist <strong>Cheong Kah Kit </strong>(Singapore) as part of <a href="https://www.novelwaysofbeing.sg/"><em>Proposals for Novel Ways of Being</em></a>, a united response to the changes brought about by COVID-19 hosted by twelve Singapore arts institutions, initiated by the National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum.</p>
<p><strong>Partner programmes:</strong></p>
<p><strong><span><a href="https://machinelistening.exposed/curriculum/"><em>Machine Listening, a curriculum</em></a></span><br />From October 2020 (Online)</strong></p>
<p>Expanded collaborations and explorations of curatorial spaces also took form in support of <em>Machine Listening, a curriculum</em> instigated by Melbourne-based <strong>Liquid Architecture</strong>. This evolving online resource, comprising existing and newly commissioned writing, interviews, music and artworks is a new investigation and experiment in collective learning around the emergent field of machine listening. It premiered with three online sessions open to all as part of <span><a href="https://www.unsound.pl/en/intermission"><em>Unsound 2020: Intermission</em></a></span>, an experimental sound festival in Krakow, Poland. NTU CCA Singapore and Liquid Architecture will convene another collaborative online session open to the public in early 2021.</p>
<p><em>Machine Listening, a curriculum </em>is curated by <strong>Sean Dockray</strong>, <strong>Dr James Parker</strong>, and <strong>Joel Stern </strong>(all Australia).</p>
<p>Visit the evolving<span> </span><span><a href="https://machinelistening.exposed/curriculum/">open source curriculum</a></span><span> </span>and the recorded Unsound sessions:</p>
<p><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddnvR7IGpes">(Against) the coming world of listening machines</a></span><br /><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM5SVoMBnKI&t=2935s">Lessons in How (Not) to be Heard</a></span><br /><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuNmI9Xdgpo&t=7795s">Listening with the Pandemic</a></span></p>
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<p><span><em><strong>Sollum</strong><strong> Swaramum<br /></strong></em></span><strong>26 February 2021, 7.30 – 9.00pm</strong><strong><br />On-Site at Blk 43 Malan Road</strong></p>
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<p>Presented in collaboration with The Arts House’s Poetry with Music series, the 4th edition of<span> </span><em>Sollum Swaramum</em>, brings together musicians <strong>Ramesh Krishnan</strong>,<span> </span><strong>Mohamed Noor</strong><span> </span>and<span> </span><strong>Munir Alsagoff</strong><span> </span>in exploration of the synergies between music and text, with devised and improvised texts based on the work of Tamil literary stalwarts<span> </span><strong>P Krishnan</strong>,<span> </span><strong>Ma Ilangkannnan</strong><span> </span>and<span> </span><strong>Rama Kannabiran</strong>. These newly devised texts are written by<span> </span><strong>Harini V</strong>,<span> </span><strong>Ashwinii Selvarai</strong><span> </span>and<span> </span><strong>Bharathi Moorthiappan</strong>, performed by<span> </span><strong>Sivakumar Palakrishnan</strong>, and art direction by<span> </span><strong>Laura Miotto</strong>.</p>
<p>Curated by Magdalena Magiera, Curator, Outreach and Education, and Dr. Karin Oen, Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes, NTU CCA Singapore. </p>
<p><em>Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.</em><span> </span>presented in partnership with Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, The Arts House, Liquid Architecture, as part of Singapore Art week, supported by National Arts Council.</p>
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<i>along waves of gravity –a solidar y of holes</i> by Kin Chui
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Envisioned in 1956 by Indonesian artist Iljas Hussein*, <i>along waves of gravity –a solidar y of holes</i> was to be a monument to the short-lived Principal Liaison Centre (PLC) established in Singapore in 1926. Pivotal in the international surge of anti-colonial struggles, the PLC was a point of liaison between the 3rd International and the region and it was meant to serve as an organ for the amplification of the voices of the marginalised and the oppressed. <br /><br />At the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung in 1955, Hussein was entrusted with the task of imagining a monument that encapsulated the spirit of the PLC. One year later, he presented the idea for <i>along waves of gravity –a solidar y of holes:</i> a triangulation of holes strategically placed across the island that would gather and continuously echo the voices uttered into them. Inspired by theories of general relativity and topological properties of continuous deformation, Hussein’s design articulates, spatially as well as acoustically, an anti-monumentalist stance. Rather than asserting an univocal shape, the monument retreats into the ground as a series of interconnected and shapeshifting vessels which reverberate and transform sound waves throughout time. Hussein kept experimenting with these ideas until his death in 1989 but, due to its scale and technical complexity, his visionary project remained unbuilt. The surviving renderings and audio experiments of the unrealised monument are now displayed in The Vitrine. <br /><br />* Iljas Hussein is a fictional artist conceived by Kin Chui. The name is one of the many aliases used by Tan Malaka (1897 –1949), an influential revolutionary thinker and fighter in the political struggles for Indonesia’s independence. Specifically, this alias was used to pen Malaka’s magnum opus <i>Madilog</i> (1943), the Indonesian acronym for <i>Materialisme Dialektika Logika (Materialism Dialectics Logics)</i>.
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<i>Creatif Compleks</i> by Michael Lee
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Developed during his residency at NTU CCA Singapore, <i>Creatif Compleks</i> (2018) is the culmination of <b>Michael Lee</b>’s reflection on the function of the artist’s studio within the arts ecology of a city. The work takes the form of a diagram about a hypothetical property development consisting of various configurations of the artist’s home/studio. The use of LED light strips, a popular fixture in advertising and interior design, alludes to latent apprehensions about the development and promotion of the arts in Singapore which today are, arguably, at a feverish pitch. Informed by myths and fantasies of artists in their studios, the work takes a speculative leap into the utopian and the absurd.
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<i>impasse to verbal</i> by Luca Lum
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Interested in the “semiotic thickness” of Geylang, an area located on the east-central side of Singapore where bustling street life, covert activities, information technologies, and data mining protocols are increasingly intertwined, Luca Lum has been observing the diffuse entanglements of bodies and surfaces, behaviours and networks that define contemporary urban life. <i>impasse to verbal</i> comes out from her continued engagement with the neighbourhood and from her speculations on the slippage between what things are, how they look, and what they do—which the artist defines as the play between description and disposition. <br /><br />The work is a visual assemblage that merges wall notices, official zoning maps, personal routes, and various extracts sampled from the urban landscape. Through an intricate interplay of stratifications and transparencies, it creates an imploded visual environment where information is simultaneously displayed and withdrawn, revealed and cloaked. Steeped in a pervasive blue glow reminiscent of the light of electronic devices, the signs are left to float and clash into leaky configurations that shatter conventional patterns of readability.
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<i>Landscape Series #1</i>, 2013 by Nguyen Trinh Thi
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Interested in the idea of landscapes as a quiet witness to history, artist Nguyen Trinh Thi collects and compilates hundreds of images in which anonymous persons are portrayed pointing towards seemingly empty locations within a landscape. Taken by innumerable Vietnamese press photographers, figures are always captured in the same position, gesturing towards the landscape to indicate a past event, the location of something gone or something lost or missing. We are left with no information about the people and their specific thoughts or feelings, only their repetitious sameness of pointing towards an “evidence” within the silent landscape. <br /><br />The land bearing witness to the volatile transitions in our geo-political, cultural, and social systems questions the extent of which unsustainable and environmentally-taxing practices effect the environment. Does a landscape harbour ill-feelings towards events and circumstances that have caused it harm? And if it were to break its silence, what forgotten stories would it reveal? Rather than disregarding the land, Nguyen’s photographs suggest these environments contain a plethora of unspoken histories. <br /><br />Nguyen’s works are built upon and are often generative of one another. Parallel to this presentation, two of her films, <i>Vietnam the Movie</i> (2015) and <i>Fifth Cinema</i> (2018), will be on view in The Single Screen from 28 May – 9 June and 11 – 23 June respectively. This screening is part of the Centre’s Film Screening Programme: <i>Faces of Histories</i>, 14 May – 17 July 2019.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Ngyuen+Trinh+Thi+">Ngyuen Trinh Thi </a>
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<i>Loose Leaves. Process, materials, sounds from Listen to my words</i> by Dana Awartani
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Feminism">Feminism</a>
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<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Tradition">Tradition</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Materiality">Materiality</a>
By disclosing rarely-seen preparatory drawings, sketches, and embroidery tests from the artist’s archive, <i>Loose Leaves</i> offers an intimate foray into the process of making <i>Listen to my words</i> (2018). An immersive installation by Dana Awartani, <i>Listen to my words<i> combines hand-embroidered silk panels and recordings of Arabic poems recited by modern-day Saudi women to confront issues of silencing, invisibility, and gendered divisions of space deeply entrenched in the cultural fabric of the Middle East. <br /><br />Drawn from the significant but scarcely documented tradition of female poets in the Arab world from the pre-Islamic era to the 12th century, the poems selected by the artist express feelings of love, yearning, and pride. They relay modes of awareness, stances of resistance, and acts of empowerment often centred on the female body. <br /><br />The distinct visual language articulated by the geometric patterns—bearers of sacred values in Islamic culture—references the ornamental motifs found on <i>jali</i> (or <i>mashrabiya</i>), lattice screens used in traditional Islamic architecture to control the circulation of air and light as well as to shield women from the male gaze. <br /><br />Presented alongside the original audio recording, <i>Loose Leaves</i> layers a selection of preparatory studies in the enclosed space of The Vitrine to provide a glimpse of the subtle negotiations that inform Awartani’s creative journey across different techniques and materials. </i></i>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Dana+Awartani+">Dana Awartani </a>
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<i>Semangat Kejiranan</i> by Izat Arif
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Interested in the contiguities and frictions between the natural and urban environment, <b>Izat Arif</b> has conducted experiential and erratic fieldwork in various landscapes in Singapore observing plants, soil, insects, and traces of human presence. This investigation is presented in The Vitrine as a form of a provisional “cabinet of essential items,” which contains a selection of the artist’s notes and drawings, research tools, and findings.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Izat+Arif+">Izat Arif </a>
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<i>Speed Reading</i> by Sonya Lacey
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Confounding ordinary notions of legibility, the work of <b>Sonya Lacey</b> addresses the politics of communication by tampering with the concrete textures of language. Specifically conceived for The Vitrine, <i>Speed Reading</i> combines two bodies of work that put the sheer physicality of language to a test. <i>Headlines from The Straits Times</i> and <i>Solar Print Tests</i> (both 2017) result from a series of experiments, undertaken by the artist during her residency at NTU CCA Singapore, where she exposed newsprint paper to both sunlight and artificial light, while <i>Dilutions</i>, an earlier work from 2016, is a sculptural piece involving a movable metal typeface and the process of corrosion determined by lead oxide. Slowly warping over time, the material components entailed in the production and circulation of the written word, <i>Speed Reading</i> alters the boundaries of legibility and shakes the physical foundations of the transmission of knowledge.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Sonya+Lacey+">Sonya Lacey </a>
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<i>The Migrant Ecologies Project</i> by Lucy Davis
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<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Materiality">Materiality</a>
The mixed-media selection presented in The Vitrine stems from <i>Railtrack Songmaps</i>, a project exploring competing claims to nature and culture that resound along the former Malaysian railway tracks at Tanglin Halt. For at least five decades, birds, nature lovers, songbird clubs, tree shrines, kampung gardeners and foragers have roosted and seeded themselves along the tracks, nurturing a tangled patch of urban wild that is currently undergoing redevelopment. The particular constellation of elements on display – photographs, Malay pantuns, embroidery on paper, and delicate airborne assemblages of images, cut-outs and coconut sticks – weave in and out of memories of Lim Kim Seng, who together with his brother Lim Kim Chua, joined the Nature Society of Singapore (NSS) as teenager. Both are now senior members of the NSS Bird Group. Kim Seng assisted The Migrant Ecologies Project in the identification of 105 bird species around Tanglin Halt. In an accompanying soundtrack he recalls how an early encounter with a kingfisher first drew him into a bird zone. <br /><br />The Migrant Ecologies Project was founded in 2010 by artist, art writer, and educator Lucy Davis. Investigating movements and migrations of nature and culture in Southeast Asia and beyond, the project unfolds through collaborations with sound artists, photographers, scientists, and designers. <br /><br />Lucy Davis has been an Artist-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore from April to June 2017.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Lucy+Davis">Lucy Davis</a>
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<i>Viva<span style="text-decoration:line-through;">r</span>i<span style="text-decoration:line-through;">u</span>m (wii fl∞w w/ l4if but t4k£ ø forms, ♥) </i>by Fyerool Darma
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Urbanism">Urbanism</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Public+Sphere">Public Sphere</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Identity">Identity</a>
Engaging The Vitrine as a site imbricated with complex histories and practices of display, Fyerool Darma complicates our understanding of Telok Blangah, the area where Gillman Barracks is located and where the artist recently moved, through objects found or acquired, deconstructed and reoriented by the artist and his collaborators. <br /><br /><i>Viva<span style="text-decoration:line-through;">r</span>i<span style="text-decoration:line-through;">u</span>m (wii fl∞w w/ l4if but t4k£ ø f0rms,♥)</i> is an exercise in four parts. Identified through keywords caches on internet-based community marketplaces and by skimming through nearby shops, the items are representations of the artist’s movements and encounters around Telok Blangah and of the possible future of the area: from its literal meaning of “cooking pot” to the forthcoming “Greater Southern Waterfront” development plan. Three items will be placed in The Vitrine, one at a time, with a monthly cadence and each accession will be captured in the Highlights section of the artist’s Instagram account (@fdarma). <br /><br />Asking questions such as: What is Telok Blangah? And, more importantly if objects are to be taken as registers of the site: Where exactly is Telok Blangah?, Fyerool’s <i>Viva<span style="text-decoration:line-through;">r</span>i<span style="text-decoration:line-through;">u</span>m (wii fl∞w w/ l4if but t4k£ ø f0rms,♥)</i> encapsulates an object-based index of the area wherein the items slide like cursors along intricate trajectories and the realms of the physical and digital, the archive and the display, are merged.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Fyerool+Darma">Fyerool Darma</a>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Southeast+Asia">Southeast Asia</a>