Presenters

Cherie Tan
Indian Ink and a Burly Dose of Odd [Graphic]

Hullo, I’m Cherie and I draw, and sometimes I get paid for that. When that happens I buy new Ah Beng accessories for my bike!

The most amazing stuff emerges when I don’t plan for it. I try not to use pencils to pre-sketch, I just ink directly onto the paper, and let the drawing expand itself. Its hard to predict what the drawing will become in the end, and sometimes the proportions don’t come out correct, but that’s part of the appeal for me - I like unpredictability and quiet imperfections. Oddly, once I’ve drawn something it’s hard for me to reproduce it, so i have alot of trouble developing comic strips or short stories - the character comes out looking abit different each time!

Jayson Yong
Manipulative Choices [Installation]

I am a recent graduate from LASALLE Fine Arts that have an interesting question about what choice is: is it really yours? So, to assume choice is a delusion, there must be manipulation at work. Thus this oxymoron must surely exist if we think choice is ours to make. And I am interested in creating works that attest to the concept of “tube” culture, influence, persuasion, suggestion, conditioning, occultism, homogeneity and even behaviorism – all of which is empirically calculative, misleading , manipulative and even paradoxical.

So is it good or bad to manipulate choices that are given? I say only when people realize they are being manipulated, it is bad. When it is good, how can they know that they are being manipulated in the first place? And my work is symptomatic to the intellectual endeavour which arises from unexpected enigma. Like Friedrich Waismann once wrote, “We all have our moments when something quite ordinary strikes us as queer... facts... stare at us with puzzling expression, and we begin to wonder whether they can be possibly things we have known all our lives...”

Daniel K
diskodanny [Dance]

daniel k received the Singapore Public Service Commission Scholarship to study BA Fine Art & critical theory at Goldsmiths College in london (1997-2001). He has also studied choreography at the Laban centre & Birkbeck College. daniel is currently an Associate Artist with The Substation, singapore and an installation/dance artist
with diskodanny.com, a multidisciplinary artistic partnership.

daniel’s work is usually linked to the nightscape, since night compared to day, is more open to surrealism, reverie and allows individuals to take flight from their occupation de jure. From the disco to sex, Daniel tries to unveil the politics and performance of desire.

His presentation will focus on recent works that highlights the relationship between The Subject and Object, linked via photography/images.

Amanda Poh
this is you, and this is me [Photography]

Amanda is formally trained in Chinese ink painting, water-colour and a variety of western media. Her works are often concept-based, interactive or really small. She also has a penchant for making works that invite tactile participation from the audience.

Her latest work on show is a photographic series entitled ‘13th January’. It documents a pursuit of a particularly delicate shade of blue (this is you,) in the sky that she witnessed, the day a loved one passed away. She has never quite been able to find it again. The loss, and its search, found itself motifs in planes, tree branches, communication lines (and this is me.); things that naturally aspire skyward.

Those aside, she likes poetry, traditional wet-printing and white tea. Amanda has recently been involved in the Month of Photography, Tokyo, and is currently pursuing a degree in photography in Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design & Media.

James Loh and Alvin Chua
Heavy [Interactive Arts]

Heavy is formed by James Loh and Alvin Chua. Our works are a result of exploration into new areas of information infused with aesthetics.

Heavy Breathing Intrigued by how the human lungs react to stress & noise, the concept was adopted from breathing behaviors. Illustrating the input and response loop of noise level and the reaction stirred, it simulates different possible breathing patterns creating a sound reactive light system.

Automatic Automatic is a sound reactive camera which captures moments triggered by sound levels. Inspired by fun photography, the camera represents an artificial memory in which events are captured and replayed in form of mini stories.

Sherman Ong
Between the banal and the quotidian [Film, Photography]

I have always been interested in the human condition – living, dying, loving, praying, forgetting and longing – and how we organize and regulate our lives and our environment. In my encounters with different peoples and cultures, I realize that each of them have their own survival mechanisms of coping, harnessing or controlling Nature in order to build a stable social environment where they can thrive.

The idea of coping, harnessing or controlling Nature, and how it intersects with Human Nature in our quest to regulate our lives - in particular, the social/private spaces in a built urban environment - has always been my interest and a recurring theme in my work.

As a photographer, I am interested in exploring the quotidian, at the intersection between Nature and Human Nature, offering an alternative view point to the banal while eliciting the subtle beauty of everyday life.

Lim Zi Sin
Piercing Forms [Painting]

My work has always dealt primarily with the limitations of a frame and the flatness and surfaces of painting and drawing. I have started to explore the possibility of making artwork without the use of traditional drawing and painting materials.

Elements I focus on are texture, material and technique. I use piercing with a penknife as a way to achieve purity in my work. Most of the artworks I produce are mainly for aesthetic pleasure and aimed at dispelling any interpretive reading.

Joey Chin
Humanity [Poetry]

What does humanity mean to you?

For me, humanity is collectively men, women, motherhood, personalities, sexuality, diseases, habitat, language and a smorgasbord of facades we all possess.

We are all intertwined in one way or another. What it takes for me, personally, to be one with you, will claim some vital part of me. So there is no taking from mankind or the earth, without leaving a minuscule fragment of yourself behind, and vice versa.

I explore roles that the everyday man plays, the richness of countries and cities that cannot be defined by GDP, and most importantly, what it takes to be female and human.

Matthew Teo
Ah Pa [Photography]

“Ah Pa” means Dad in colloquial mandarin.

An exploration and documentation of a riotous father and son relationship and a very intimate view into the on-goings of a Chinese family in Singapore, this project has been going on for the past 3 years.

I have never been close to my Dad and we used to have super big fights all the time that resulted in shouting matches, slamming of doors and even some shoving. (yes, I feel ashamed of myself). These days, things are less tense between us, thanks in part to me photographing him. It’s given him a chance to ask me why I am photographing him and precious moments for us to communicate in a civilized manner.

Jason Lim
Arriving at Dharma [Sculpture]

The forms of Lim’s ceramics are everything that is yet to come, that already is, that will never be, that is in Singapore and not there and that is in his body when he performs.

They are all the same in their difference, all showing the meaning that comes and goes and the ridiculous task of trying to find it and pin it down.

The ceramics move and at the same time are still. The repetition allows for that, the rows of lines or warts giving the viewer the choice of staying on one of the spheres, climbing into it, or moving on to the next.

ROJAK 11

on 28th June 2008, Saturday, 8pm at Old School, 11 Mount Sophia Block B #B2-09.

Invite by Daryl from MAKE

Presenters

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