SINGAPORE – Try your luck at love with artist Liana Yang’s art installation called A Souvenir. It comprises a funhouse claw machine that gives the audience a chance to win a “love prize” – a limited-edition collectible by the artist.
“A Souvenir is an accumulation of my experiences from various online dating apps that have been incorporated into an interactive digital art artwork,’‘ says Yang.
“It taps the visual and textual tropes of romance, and essentially questions what love is.”
The work is from the new Singapore Art Museum (SAM) show, Can Everybody See My Screen?, which is on at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Curators Ong Puay Khim and Teng Yen Hui, who were at the media preview last Wednesday, say the show deals with the relationships between evolving technologies and the human body, and how these relationships have transformed the way people live their lives and connect.
There are four new commissions in this show, including A Souvenir. Another new commission is artist Xafier Yap’s game installation called 2nd Puberty where the audience can take on the perspective of an avatar in order to navigate the virtual world, the judgment of others, and their own inner dialogue. Yap says: “The game mechanics is a metaphor for my lived experience.”
Another highlight is a multimedia installation by the multidisciplinary collective KYTV. Titled The P.O.P Station Greatest Hits (2004-2009, 2022), it is also a new commission.
Originally presented as an interactive work between 2004 and 2009, the 2022 iteration features a video wall of pop-star wannabes and an accompanying mockumentary of the work’s evolution. The videos have been uploaded to the Internet.
One of KYTV’s founders, Rizman Putra, says the pop stars “are now floating around in cyberspace, each in a distinct stage of transformation because of the use of technology”.
One work on show that was already in SAM’s collection is Urich Lau’s multimedia installation called Life Circuit (2009-2016). It comprises a wearable device that has modified gadgets that become extensions of the body, hindering him from seeing, speaking or hearing, yet enabling him to stream out audio and video feeds captured from his immediate surroundings.
Life Circuit was acquired in 2019. SAM curator Ong says: “Seven of the 12 works presented are from SAM’s collection while four are new commissions, reflecting the museum’s efforts to collect and engage with new mediums and modes of artmaking.”
Can Everybody See My Screen?
Where: Singapore Art Museum, 01-02 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Road
When: Till Dec 11, 10am to 7pm daily
Admission: Free
Info: https://str.sg/wKUw
