FUTURE of IMAGINATION International Performance Art Event, Singapore, 2008 www.foi.sg Future of Imagination 5 Future of Imagination 5 1 Contents Prognosis: Comparative Indicators for Future Actions 4 Lee Wen Time and Again: 8 Present-ing the Future in the Public of Performance Art Adele Tan Resonant Relationships: 14 The One-to-One performance Lynn Lu Document & Performance or 20 How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Lens Bruce Quek Artists’ Biographies Adina Bar-On (Israel) 30 Angie Seah (Singapore) 31 Cai Qing (Germany/China) 32 Cheng Guang Feng (China) 33 Chia Chu Yia (Singapore/Malaysia) 24 Dariusz Fodczuk (Poland) 35 Duan Ying Mei (Germany/China) 36 Fabien Montmartin (France) 37 Gwendoline Robin (Belgium) 38 Helmut Lemke (Germany/UK) 39 Jason Lim (Singapore) 40 Kai Lam (Singapore) 41 Lee Wen (Singapore) 42 Lynn Lu (Singapore) 43 Melati Suryodarmo (Germany/Indonesia) 44 Mongkol Plienbangchang (Thailand) 45 Myriam Laplante (Canada/Italy) 46 Ronaldo Ruiz (The Philippines) 47 Sabrina Koh (Singapore) 48 Yuenjie Maru (Hong Kong) 49 Zai Kuning (Singapore) 50 Forum Speakers 51 Cover photo: ‘Past Now Present’, Kenny McBride, Future of Imagination 4, 72-13, theatreWorks, Singapore Photo by Urich Lau 2 Future of Imagination 5 Essays Future of Imagination 5 3 Prognosis: Comparative Indicators for Future Actions Lee Wen 4 Future of Imagination 5 In August 2001, I participated in the 2nd Open Art Festival in Sichuan, China organised by Chen Jin, Shu Yang and Zhu Ming.1 This was my first visit to the Chinese mainland. On arrival we were told that the venue would have to be changed from the Beijing suburbs (as was originally planned) to undisclosed venues in Chengdu, Sichuan, because the organisers feared that the police might have caught wind of the event and was preparing to shut it down. We took a 36-hour train journey to Chengdu and sought out a rustic unused brick factory near Pengshan, a small town outside Chengdu. We also performed on an island in the midstream of a river facing the Giant Buddha monument in Leshan and eventually ended in Chengdu on the last day. The situation in China had changed tremendously over the years and by the time I returned again in 2004 (and later in 2006), performance festivals were becoming more openly held in Beijing. This October I participated in the ‘UP-ON First International Live Art Festival’ in Chengdu. I had helped organise and curate the foreign artists while Chengdu-based artists, Zhou Bin, Liu Cheng Yin and Yan Cheng were the artist-organisers curating the artists from China.2 UP-ON in Chengdu was followed up by two smaller events in Chongqing and Xi-An as the foreign artists split into two groups to go to the two different cities.3 The events were reported favourably in the local newspapers as well as on broadcast television. What a contrast from my first encounter in 2001 when we practically felt like fugitive artists on the run from the authorities and the law. At the same time, the audiences have grown to include not only artists and friends but also dedicated students and an enthusiastic public. Chia Chu Yia, Sleeping with the ignorance, UP-ON First International Live Art Festival, Chengdu, China, 2008 Future of Imagination 5 5 Huang Ling, “KVCIO 症 / The Illness of KVCIO”, 2008’Vital-Chongqing International Live Art Festival, 2008 Despite various organisational problems and frictions one cannot but feel positive about contributions which helped bring about transformations in society via artistic processes. However, at the end of the performances and discussions with the audiences, some prevailing and recurrent questions gnawingly remain concerning the reception and continuation of performance art or even contemporary art practices in reality. If we comparatively examine the situation in China with Singapore some telltale signs show up glaringly the characteristics of how our society functions and perhaps also point towards future actions for facilitating desired changes and development. Authorities in both countries responded to performance art with severe censure at the outset but this was later followed by acceptance. Since 1991, the National Arts Council has funded the development of the arts and culture in Singapore. The controversial performances in 1994 by Josef Ng and Shannon Tham, during an event co-organised by The Artists’ Village, alternative art group and 5th Passage, an artists-run space, however, resulted in a 10-year funding ban on performance art and sanctions on exhibitions for Ng and Tham.4 In the same year, Zhu Ming and Ma Liuming were arrested and imprisoned after police interrupted a performance event at the East Village, an informal artists’ colony in Beijing.5 6 Future of Imagination 5 Josef Ng relocated to Bangkok and is now a respected curator of a major art gallery in Bangkok, while Shannon Tham is an art director with a successful career in advertising and design. Zhu Ming and Ma Liuming who once underwent distressing arraignment for performance art have now gained fame and are today sought after in the international art market.6 After facing censure from the authorities or even legal action, artists in China could still re-establish themselves as artists, albeit of the money-spinning entrepreneurial kind, whereas Ng and Tham have had to give up their artistic ambitions and find new directions elsewhere. Contemporary art has gained increased media attention with international biennales set up in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing; more new art magazines have been initiated and writing on art has acquired sophistication and depth in China. Even after the second edition of our international biennale, Singapore’s media are still looking for verification as if the claim of cultural and art renaissance pertains only to the ages of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Any new art magazine that is able to last for more than three issues or exist past half a year can therefore pat themselves on their back for trying. Performance art in China was chastised in the past on the grounds of obscenity and nudity. Although still frowned upon by the more conservative sections of society, there is enough tolerance and sophistication today for nudity to be accepted as art rather than as an indecent or morally offensive act. Such performances found their way into newspaper and television reports although one hastens to detect the proclivity for prospective sensationalism. The greater ease of use and proliferation of mobile phone cameras, cheaper video and digital cameras has become an irritating and distracting feature during every performance art event. Stern announcements and signs to restrict the use of mobile phones or requests to switch them to silent mode or prohibiting their use often end in failure. At a most tense moment, an excited photographer will be closing in on a view, obscuring that of others; someone’s phone will ring, breaking the concentration of both the artist and the audience. Despite the newfound embrace of performance, there is now a need for more sensitivity and self-discipline amongst the audience. Art students in China till today are not taught performance art in schools – although they are allowed to perform, they will not be assessed for those works done – but performance art has begun to be introduced into the Singapore schools’ curriculum. That said, young artists in Singapore schools have strongly tended towards reproducing Western models or methods seen in art books and magazines without much regard for our own local contemporary history and performance artists. Young students in China are getting increasingly interested in performance art but the education system there responds not to the demands of the students but has accommodated more the inclinations of a rigid hierarchy. One of the two festival venues in Chengdu had to be changed just three days before the festival began. The management of the intended venue abruptly decided for us to be part of another Festival of Flowers beginning more than a week later than originally planned despite having been agreed upon the terms of the sponsorship months before. Zhou Bin and his co-organisers were fortunate to able to find an alternative venue and sponsor but they had to re-print all posters and re-send invitations. In Singapore, venues have to be booked months if not a year ahead. Our strict Future of Imagination 5 7 2) Duan Ying Mei, “忧郁”----段英梅2015 年重庆现代艺术中心 / “Melancholy “ - Duan Yingmei, 2015 Chongqing Contemporary Art Center, 2008’Vital-Chongqing International Live Art Festival, 2008 Photo: Lee Wen licensing requirements for public performances simply make this an impossible-to-imagine worst- case scenario. “Performance” has become a key word in not only the study of art but also a wide variety of activities ranging from religious rituals, trading markets, to the Olympics, and performance as a field has been described as an anti-disciplinary discipline resisting conclusions.7 The negotiating, organising and enacting of live performance art programmes could also be seen as a larger collective performance. Based on the comparative observations of these experiences above, one can discern distinct differences and characteristics between the state of affairs in Singapore and China or elsewhere. And in order to rationally consider what needs to be changed or even have the confidence in our own capacity to make these transformations depends on our disposition to either yield to the status quo or renew and fortify our commitment towards a higher life ideal. 8 Future of Imagination 5 (Endnotes) 1 2nd Open Art Festival, Pengshan, Leshan and Chengdu, Sichuan, 8 to 17 August 2001: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ee1s-ari/sichuan.html 2 Zhou Bin and I started discussions more than a year ago when I was on a site research visit for my own project in June 2007.