[event] Casa Nostra!! // 7th Oct 2011 @ Port Tumasik

PORT TUMASIK proudly presents

CASA NOSTRA!!

7th – 22nd of October 2011, 5pm to 10pm daily

24A Bali Lane, Straits Records level 2

drawing painting installation performance photography sound music sculpture video

“CASA NOSTRA!!” transforms the alternative space into a living room, bringing 20 local artists of together in a multidisciplinary presentaion; the exhibition emulates a homely atmosphere for the audience and artists to mingle with one another in hope to integrate everyone through the arts with sincerity.

“HOUSE WARMING” Potluck
Opening Event
7th and 8th October, Friday and Saturday.
5pm -10pm.


“INCOMA LISTENING PARTY”
EP Launch by INCOMA.
14th October, Friday, 7.30pm - 9pm


“TEA PARTY”
All about different tea.
15th October, Saturday, 3pm-5pm

Sponsored by ARTS FUND and National Arts Council

Supported by: Dahlia Gallery, SCYA, Straits Records, & Bestman Installation and Fixtures

[event] Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak #04-2011 // 24th Sept 2011 @ Emily Hill

R.I.T.E.S: Sound Gig #04 / 2011 presents:

Evan Tan (SG)

Yuzuru Maeda (SG/JP)

Jordan Johari Rais (SG)

Chong Li-Chuan (SG)

5pm, Saturday, 24th September 2011
White House, Emily Hill
11 Upper Wilkie Road Singapore 228120
Map here.

This is a free event, donations are welcomed.

More info - www.rootedintheephemeralspeak.com

Artists' Biography

Evan Tan is a self taught sound innovator. He has been involved in the local music scene under various guises since 1988. He was in prominent music band, Opposition Party, which had set precedence during the 90s hardcore music scene of Singapore and was an active member in the Indie Space Rock band The Observatory, Evan’s creativity has allowed his practice to expand into various genre of musical styles over the years. Since 2002, he has also been active in the laptop music and in the sound art scene, exploring digital noise, minimalist and electro-acoustic/electronic music, as well as conducting numerous audio walks and performing solo or as experimental noise band, Minister.

Yuzuru Maeda (born in Ogaki, Japan in 1978) She had received a Music BA from the LaSalle Collage of Arts, Singapore in 2009 and currently lives and work in Singapore. In her daily musical practice, she produces soundtracks, jingles and music compositions for independent films, commercials and her own video works. She performs mainly with the Sanshin (Japanese), Sarod (Indian) and Violin (Classical) in accompaniment with digital compositions. Her musical lineage is La Monte Young and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. She explores music and sound in cross cultural contexts and her musical works had been described as ‘beyond time and space’ which experess about divine energy and spirituality. She has performed in Choppa, Singapore (2007), Black Market, Singapore (2009), Guang Music of New Millenium, an international composers’ symposium in Bali, Indonesia (2009), Sugar Jar and 10th Open Art Festival in 798 Art Factory, Beijing (2009), Mekong River Project, Bangkok (2009), Post Museum, Singapore (2010), Sculpture Society, Fort Canning, Singapore (2011), “Fête de la Musique” presented by Alliance Française, Singapore (2011). http://yuzuru.weebly.com/,

Chong Li-Chuan (A.K.A Chuan) is a musician by training, composer by choice, an academic at large, and a consultant in user experience and strategic design. Chuan lived in the UK for 15 years prior to his return to the island city-state, Singapore, in 2006. He received his formal education at Goldsmiths College, University of London, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1999 and a Master of Music (Composition) in 2000. Between 2001 and 2005, Chuan was a post-graduate researcher in electroacoustic composition at the Stanley Glasser Electronic Music Studios (EMS) in Goldsmiths College. His research interest includes, but is not limited to, acoustic ecology, aurality, listening, sound and semblance, the aesthetics of noise and silence, musicking, identity formation, gender, performativity, embodiment, and post-structuralism. Chuan is currently the Programme Chair for the Diploma in Design for Interactivity (DDI), under the School of Technology for the Arts, Republic Polytechnic (RP). Over the past five years at RP, Chuan had developed and shaped the curriculum and delivery of DDI, focusing on Interaction Design, User Experience Design, and Design Thinking. http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/phase/

Jordan Johari Rais (born in Singapore October 19, 1978) is a multi-instrumentalist, experimental film-maker, score/song writer, sound artist, and a painter. Jordan have been actively recording solo materials. He released his solo e.p. Rock Lily in 2010. MONOCTOBER, and a few others. Jordan’s material have been selected for the Anthology of Singapore Experimental, a compilation of experimental music from Singapore musicians due to be released this year by Ujikaji Record. Among other collaborative works, the most recent one was where Jordan was featured for a workshop conducted by Bani Haykal from the band B-Quartet at the Substation Gallery for a week. Called “Alternatives” the workshop also featured other Singapore musicians and artists. www.myspace.com/jonettejordan, www.raisjordan.multiply.com

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R.I.T.E.S. is an artists-initiative organised as a non-profit event to platform new ideas and artists in sonic art, time-based and performance art-related practices. Its objectives are to present an eclectic mix of performances that is informed by visual aesthetics, technological integration and conceptual integrity involving art making and the social and cultural contexts that are related to performances. It explores art activities that are spatial, the way in which performance is linked to cultural, ethnic and geographical elements of the body, and at the same time exploring how all these elements can be bounded to the global, technological, cultural and economic shifts in our daily life.

[event] Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak #05-2011 // 19th Aug 2011 @ Emily Hill

[R.I.T.E.S #05-2011]

Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak

presents

Mike HJ Chang

Marla Bendini

Noor Effendy Ibrahim

7.30pm, Friday, 19th August 2011

at Emily Hill, Whitehouse

11 Upper Wilkie Road, Singapore 228120

Venue link - http://www.emilyhill.org/

This event is by free admission, all donations are welcomed

More info - www.rootedintheephemeralsp​eak.com

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Artists' info:

Mike HJ Chang is a Taiwanese American working as an art educator and living in Singapore. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts with a MFA. He receive his B.A. from University of California, Los Angeles. Recently he exhibited at Goodmen Arts Centre Gallery, Post Museum and TickleArt in Singapore and at Dobaebacsa in Seoul. He runs a small art space in Singapore, called FOXRIVER. Chang is right now working on multi-discipline projects titled Is What and Night, a Circular Room. Chang’s performance based pieces are often biographical, drawn from personal experiences, but plays out by a pseudo-character in which he invents. In his last performance piece Vampire Lecture Series (2005-2008), he uses the character of a vampire as an analogy to photography: both are light sensitive, both desire something they can’t have, both spend a large amount of time inside a dark room.

Mike Chang’s “Upright Monologue” is a monologue performance based on the format of standup comedy show. The piece traces the evolution of homosapian, different types of society, and the language component that we often take for granted. A mixture of science, time travel, autobiography, and a slice of art humor. The monologue piece explores languages through different human times, from cave to our modern high raises: the subtlety of our languages is correlated to our living dwelling, architectures, and space design for our bodies. In the beginning of time our ancestors stood up on their two legs, from quadruped to bipedal, so they could get better view of the horizon (predator, food). What happens to our evolution with social media and comfortable computer chair? Perhaps the answers are in the words.


Marla Bendini lives and works in Singapore. The artist’s multi-displinary & highly personal works has become her signature, expressing ideas about transgenderism, gender binaries and the dysfunction of social and cultural structures, particularly with her personal physical body as an articulation tool. Born Ong Boon Kok, Bendini Junior in 1986, “Marla Bendini” was created in 2007, an ongoing process of the identity as the “art form”. Her first self-titled exhibition “Marla.” brought her to Pattaya, Thailand in 2008. Sponsored by Fridae.com, Asia’s largest LGBT portal, she presented Conversations between father and son (2010), a multimedia installation performance supported by The Substation Gallery, Singapore. She is a founding member of the Sisters in Solidarity (SIS), an educational campaign that seeks to address, educate and take a stand against the stigma that transgender people in Singapore face in everyday life.

Marla’s performance, “Surrogate N°3”, is developed from Surrogate, a series of performance pieces that explores the relationship between art and the subjects, spearheaded with a focus on spontaneity in the interaction between performer(s), space and time. A bedsheet is a common motif in the performances- as a billboard in Surrogate N°1 and Noah’s Ark in Surrogate N°2.


Noor Effendy Ibrahim, living and working in Singapore, is a recipient of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) Singapore Foundation Culture Award 2007, He has served as a member of the Singapore National Arts Council Board from 2004 to 2006 (7th term), and currently sits as a Board Member of the Singapore Film Commission (2010-2012) and the Malay Heritage Foundation (2010-2011) At present moment, Effendy is the Artistic Director of The Substation, Singapore’s first independent contemporary art centre, Effendy has also served as the Artistic Director of Teater Ekamatra, a Singapore-based contemporary Malay Theatre company, from 2001-2006. An interdisciplinary artist, Effendy has created solo and ensemble art projects and performances in several countries, and has worked with Teater Kami, Teater Ekamatra, Teater Artistik, The Actors Studio (Malaysia), Cake Theatre, spell#7, Maya Dance Theatre, and Five Arts Centre (Malaysia), among other arts groups and collectives.

Effendy’s durational piece, “Dancing with the Ghost of My Child” is the first of a new series of physical rituals that the artist is researching on how the mind, heart and body reconcile personal and intimate notions of impossible needs and desires through visceral acts and habits. Through such rituals, it is hoped that the ghost of the impossible will be conceived to fill the painful void left behind by despair when the needs and desires of the person is not fulfilled.

[event] Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak #04-2011: New Threads #01 // 21st July 2011 @ The Substation

[R.I.T.E.S #04-2011] - New Threads #01

Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak presents

Chand ChandraMohan

Elizabeth Lim

Justin Lee

Jason Lee and Arif Ayab

8pm, Thursday, 21st July 2011

The Substation, Theatre

45 Armenian Street

This event is by free admission and donations are welcome.

More info - www.rootedintheephemeralsp​eak.com

New Threads #01: a special platform for new emerging artists in the field of performance art. R.I.T.E.S. had started a new platform to present emerging artists or artists who wish to attempt going into the terrain of live performance as part of their practice of art making normally in other media. Providing an opportunity for multidisciplinary and performance artists to develop and present their works in the realm of performance art, our objective here is to advance the regeneration process specifically in performance art and time-based arts practices. Through the presentations of these promising emerging artists, this platform intends to ascertain and encourage these individuals as potential artistic contributors to the developments of performance art practice in Singapore and beyond.

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Artist Biography:

Chand ChandraMohan is currently a student at LASALLE College of the arts. She is doing the undergraduate programme in Fine Arts specialising in painting. Although she works mostly in a 2D medium, she is very much interested in exploring the relations between space, object, and body which brought about her interest in performance art. In both her paintings and performances, she aims to explore surrealist themes as she wishes to connect the mind and the body as a whole. She feels that these two are very much considered separate in her observations, and chooses to work with these themes as a starting point.

Chand’s piece, “Mind” would be an exploration of material in real time in the context of a theatre setting in reference to the single spotlight. The piece would be exploring the relationship between biology and psychology, testing concentration and the physical limits of the actual body. The theatre reference comes about in the single spotlight adding an almost surrealist aspect to the piece, which further brings about the theme of the mind.


Elizabeth Lim has grown up being exposed to the eclectic society of Singapore. She has been traveling since an early age, which may contribute to her strong interest in the interactions between culture and people from different walks of life. Her upcoming projects are concerned with trying to expand the definitions of "Singaporean Art". More importantly, she is investigating the endless potential and possibilities Art and its mediums have to offer her. She further develops herself, first as a human being then as an Artist, to uncover what she has to offer Art. In her performance practice, she have noticed a compulsive need for a routine or a time where she is in control and everything will be in order, according to the artist. Her performance “Timekeeper”, looks into this fixation with uniformity, the self, and these formed structures in relation to the space, and human interaction (from audience). This will be explored through the use of sound, everyday objects, and items that are important to the artist. The objects reflecting the compulsion to make things just so on a day-to-day basis, and the important items as a hypothesis on the artist’s need for these routines and habits. This work is an exploration into the artist's self and her practice as a performer.


Justin Lee has been actively exhibiting widely since 1996 making an impact with his pop art imageries. His prolific and witty productions offers a unique understanding of contemporary Singapore society and lifestyle with a blend of cultures from the east and west. Justin also seeks to record everyday lifestyle into visual art based on his cultural background and surrounded by doubting questions appearances. He believes that art play an important part in helping people to grow and heightens awareness of them. His current works reflect on how text influences and controls the users in our daily lifestyle. His works also reflect on words and images from the mass media like signage, billboards and consumer products, which control our thoughts and expression. Justin Lee’s piece, “Eat Fast Food Fast” will be a dialogue in which the artist uses fast food to interact with the audiences explores the consumerist tendencies of society and the transpiration of truth in one’s media-fixated urban lifestyle.


Jason Lee graduated from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 2006 with Diploma in Visual Communication, specializing in photography design. In 2010, he obtained a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts from the University of Huddersfield, UK.His current works deals with wide issues that revolve around the urban environment and contemporary society that inspires him. His artistic interest lies in the areas of urbanization, abandoned traditions, and sub-cultural lifestyle. Art to him is a platform to explore issues that are being misunderstood or overlooked. He has participated in group exhibitions and collaborations. He received special commendation in the Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2010 (UK) under the portfolio category. He is based in Singapore and is a present member of The Artists Village.

Arif Ayab (A.K.A Reef) is a musician member of a Singapore based band Under the Velvet Sky, UTVS. He had collaborated in other music projects with artists like Lee Wen, Zai Kuning, Bani Haykal, to name a few. In mid 2011, Reef began presenting his solo performances combining music, sound, poetry & performance art in his act. Recently, he had also performed in R.I.T.E.S with Wunderspaze, a loose collective of artists and artworkers interested in the research and presentation of art.


Jason Lee and Reef will be presenting their inaugural collaborative piece, “Born From the Wasted”, whereby both artists experiment the sounds and instrumentations on matters that would considered as trash or recyclables and objects associated with nature. The 'trash' include food wrappers, plastic containers, disposable cups, cartons, styrofoam, and so on. They will investigate the relationship between waste and nature, and how humans play a critical role in them. The performance aims to question our awareness towards ecology when disposing our daily waste. It serves as a platform for the artists to demonstrate re-connections with the natural environments and generate conversations with nature.

[event] Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak #03-2011 // 23rd June 2011 @ The Substation

23 June 2011

7.30 pm to late

The Substation, Theatre

45 Armenian Street, Singapore 179936

www.rootedintheephemeralspeak.com

1. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé (U.K.)

2. Jeremy Hiah (SG)

3. Shannon Cochrane (CA)

4. Wunderspaze (SG)

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1. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé (U.K.)

Emmanuelle Waeckerlé was born in Morocco, lives between London and St Yrieix la Perche in France. Her work straddles across various disciplines including performance art, photography, storytelling and Book art, While anchored in explorations on language, identity and displacement, recurring themes such as the relationship between body and identity and the limitations of translation were seen as poetics of survival and resistance.

Through her continuing commitment to both education and practice based research she tries to foster new enquiry across and between Photography, Performance art and Book art, developing collaborative projects and communities both at local and international levels, in academic and non academic contexts.

Emmanuelle Waeckerlé is a reader in Photography and relational practices at University for the Creative Art in Farnham UK, and co-founder / co-director of bookRoom research cluster. She helped set up bookRoom press.

The art of letting go (on the edges of language)

To a greater or lesser extent, everyone depends on stories to discover the manifold truth of life. Only such stories, read sometimes in a trance, have the power to confront a person with his fate. This is why we must keep passionately striving after what constitutes a story.


George Bataille. Blue of Noon appendix: The author’s foreword (1957)

Emmanuelle Waeckerlé will conduct “Jungle Fever (wish you were here)”, a workshop on 22 June as a prelude to the presentation of “The art of letting go (on the edges of language)” on 23 June. Participants (max.25) who respond to “Jungle Fever”, will be taken on a tour with Emmanuelle Waeckerlé as tour guide.

“Jungle Fever (wish you were here)”, will be conducted as a workshop on 22 June in the dance studio of the Substation. For the past 5 years she has been developing a series of workshops “Body thought Body talk” - a collaborative construction of personal meaning using simple performance exercises to explore one’s body (as opposed to one’s mind) as both a tool and the object/subject of observation. Emmanuelle’s process set out to liberate the participants by demanding stretches on preconceived habits of consciousness between de-learning the past habits and renewal of inter-personal interactions and thinking behaviors, by working on the body through the performances in “Jungle Fever”.


“The art of letting go (on the edges of language)” (23 June)

Emmanuelle Waeckerlé sets out to link the workshop processes of “Body thought Body talk” conducted on the day before in “Jungle Fever” by using VINST, developed in collaboraton with software artist, Sebastian Lexer first presented in 2005. VINST is a unique vocal instrument, part human part virtual - a body without organs - responding to touch but also to mood and sensibility. It is an exercise in verbal procreation and story telling, weaving together personal, conceptual and whimsical concepts that might have led Emmanuelle Waeckerlé to become a vocal instrument for all to play {with) and a tourist guide for authentic travel and beyond. The sounds are pre- or non- linguistic, and are based on how the body reacts to touch and how it produces sound. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé personally derive as much pleasure playing (with) her virtual self as well as from watching others doing so.

Estimated Duration: approx: 45mins

www.ewaeckerle.com

2. Jeremy Hiah (SG)

Born in 1972, Jeremy Hiah began his involvement in the arts since 1993. His works mostly deal with social questions, based on his personal experiences and background. As a practicing artist Hiah widely explored different art media and materials in painting, sculpture, installation, performance and collaborations with different artists in different fields. Hiah has presented his works in various countries including Germany, Italy, Austria for UNSECO Artists In Residency Vienna, Hong Kong Art Center, Vietnam Contemporary Art Center Indonesia Australia, South Korea Thailand and China for exhibition festival and artists in residency. He is also an active organizer and member of The Artists Village and Sculpture Society Singapore. Former 2001 Vice President of The Artist Village and 2005 Vice President of Sculpture Society and doing art workshop in Secondary, Junior College and Polytechnic schools. He established and ran Your MOTHER Gallery, an alternative living room art space since 2004. Hiah is the artistic director for Fetter-Field Performance Art Event 2006, 2007 and 2009.

http://www.tav.org.sg/

http://www.geocities.com/yourmothergallery/

The White Crocodile

The work that I intend to make for this project is the myth of the white crocodile. Bendemeer Road is where the two rivers Kallang River and Whampoa River meet. This white crocodile myth comes from the canal Whampoa River and Kallang River. The neighborhood use to say that there is a white crocodile living in this River and believes to be the guidance of this river and had protected the people of this area. Whoever sees it will have good luck and number some time appears on the body of the crocodile and one see it will strike lottery. I have been living in this area for the pass 27 years and River was my playground during my childhood time. I believe this white crocodile has protected my friend and me. This white crocodile is a mystery to us, as I have not seen it. The myth said that it would only appear if there were some good events coming into our neighborhood. This white crocodile is like a deity according to some of our old folks.

Estimated Duration: approx: 30mins

3. Shannon Cochrane

Shannon Cochrane's performance works have been presented across Canada in Toronto, Montréal, Halifax and Vancouver and internationally in China,Chilé, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. Shannon is a co-founder and co-curator/organizer of the 7a*11 International Festival of Performance Art (www.7a-11d.ca) and is the current Artistic and Administrative Director of FADO Performance Art Centre (www.performanceart.ca).

Performance for Prepared Invisible Table

My performance work engages directly with audience, strategically with humour, and methodically with material to create situations and images that are concerned with the formal presentation of action, the possibilities of social interaction, and the investigation of authorship, repertoire, the archive and the practice of performance art itself. Performance for Prepared Invisible Table is an action collage using some everyday materials and some not-so-everyday materials to create images that appear and disappear in the exact same moment.

Estimated duration: approx.: 30mins.

4. Wunderspaze (SG)

Wunderspaze is the contemporary art initiative first established in January 2006 in Singapore. As a modest collective, Wunderspaze has been operating independently without receipt of government or other institutional funding. It aims to be a venue of exchange for emerging local, Southeast Asian and other artists and curators interested in the development and discourse of contemporary art in Southeast Asia. It intends to make its work through regional networking, research, documentation and presentation of works, ideas and strategies by such young artists and curators that is has contact with. Aside from artistic development within contemporary visual art and associated practices, the concurrent direction is to examine and develop curatorial approaches, models and methodologies. Wunderspaze is represented by Khairuddin Hori and Zaki Razak.

http://wunderspaze.blogspot.com/

White Market

Founded in 2006 in Singapore, Wunderspaze is a loose collective of artists and artworkers interested in the research and presentation of art. Amongst its interests is the profiling of artists and artworks belonging to minority groups. This time, Wunderspaze activates a community of Malay-Singaporean artworkers for a performance called “White Market”. “White Market” is an assembly of improvised rituals and actions, juxtaposed in the given space and time, taking off from the notion of collective and analogous actions that is often associated with organised assemblies and cults.

Estimated Duration: approx: 45mins