It’s 2017, It’s Going to be Better, and More Dangerous?
2016 year is finally over, but the horrids of 2016 recognize no year?! Since the year, is just a measurement. Today did not feel any more fresher just because it’s a new calendar year; it’s really just another day. So, no, it doesn’t feel like it’s a “new year”. Perhaps, this is just my resentment towards the last week of the year, a week (most of the time longer) of anxiety, compounded stress and the fear of being forgotten. A conversation with a friend recently made me think why don’t I try to treat 2017 differently by making New Years resolutions and so, I did it! Although, she said that my goals are not “quantitative” enough and are too personal/subjective.
Which brings me to a particular subject; how does one calculate risk? I have been pondering about this in relation to my kitchen presentation at the DAI. In retrospect, I must admit that I have lived rather riskily in Singapore; being investigated for using a sensitive word (which I’d rather not use here) on my blog at the age of 15/16, charged in court for 7 counts of vandalism at 19, arrested and charged in court again at 23 for illegal driving. I’ve been rather obedient after the last incident simply because I do not want to give any more reasons for the state to “restrict my freedom” due to my “crimes”, jeopardizing my “artistic practice”. And when I say “restricted freedom”, I really meant being locked up.
I began to analyze what encompasses this risk. Hence, the following “quantifying” questions of; what do I want to do that is so gravely dangerous that I have to think in such a way? Am I already traumatized from that 36 hours lock-up? Have I already lost my fight after being handcuffed in my own home that one time? Is this how much faith I have on Singapore (the state)? Would I put unnecessary attention/shame to my family for challenging the system, or the authority? How do I generate controversial narratives without putting my freedom or identity at risk? How much risks can I take as a citizen/an artist before my personal freedom gets impounded? Does it have to be at the expense of an individual — an “exemplary convict”? How can I talk about the fraud committed through the different state apparatuses? How far of an extent is the exploration of the limits of (il)legality done by utilizing a body or by creating a fictitious one, challenging the rhetorics of state apparatuses and thus, questioning the legitimacy of law, authority and power?
I’m just thinking aloud here. I hope this thought exercise can trigger a larger discourse and perhaps an ongoing writing/propositional work.
Now, happy New Year again, to readers, RFAOH crew, all ex and current residents, wherever you are!
co-director (m) wrote on Jan 5:
Hi Wayne, yes, my fb And an image from Thomas Hirschhorn's Gramsci Monument in the Bronx a few years back.
I actually had read that article last week but thanks for the impetus to re-read it; Another causality of our hyper mediated times is our (my) attention span and or our (my) ability to pick out/retain the important bits from the deluge of information that comes across various feeds. I kind of want to read Mbembe's book now. I'm not sure we can separate politics from economics; at least they always feel perpetually entwined and a kind of ultimate ground (social/cultural) you can never really dig beneath, but maybe we can MacGuyver methods no navigate it or invent knew rhetoric to understand it. You have to actively work within (or fuck around with) the culture to be part of it. Creating ambiguity is opening possibility.
co-director (s) wrote on Jan 5:
Gosh, you sound much cooler than any of us. I got only once suspended from high school for a week. Dah
Happy New Year to you, too! No risk no life (;
Wayne Lim wrote on Jan 4:
Ahh hello Matt! Is that you on facebook?
I can't help it but what a coincidence, I just saw this lecture by Avital Ronnell at the European Graduate School, On Writing a Dissertation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zanetT7b5Ko
I think the risk is becoming bigger for everyone, the stakes are higher for anyone to do anything; from spending significantly more in a bio supermarket to whether a newly-wed couple should dump in so much cash to buy a roof over their heads. I'm not sure I can articulate any better than Achille Mbembe in his article, The Age of Humanism is Ending:
http://mg.co.za/article/2016-12-22-00-the-age-of-humanism-is-ending
Art has come to the forefront again, although this time (a general) against on politics. Unlike before — during the renaissance — when art rose with politics as one of the enlightened paths in creating the imaginaries of the new world. Coming back to Ronnell's, I get this impression of her dealing (very well?) with her schizophrenic self as a writer, not to be subsumed by the endless external hindrance. It's good to learn/know that there are people out there trying too; dealing with the uncertainties, distress and discontents of today's world.
co-director (m) wrote on Jan 3:
Happy New Year Wayne
I feel quantitative reasoning is overrated - lol -- But of course new years resolutions are inherently subjective no?
There is always risk. As an artist, easy risks like rejections, moderate risks like growing old without a pension, or a life hovering around the poverty line, and occasionally (most urgently) in real consequences for falling a foul of the power aparatus of social control. (The level of social control in Singapore is a bit more amped than Canada or the Netherlands, granted) My Foucault is a bit rusty these days but I always have a soft spot for the anti authoritarian "punk" ethos; the Pussy Riots, The Ai Wei Weis, The Goyas and Delocroixs. And though all art is inherently also politics I predict a resurgence of this super-earnest punk-assed spirit in the coming post Brexit, Trumpian dystopia. Though the earnestness of these types of expressions are/will be cathartic I think the potential of art's agency for change truely lies in its ability to be completely irreverant, in its shape shifting ability to assume various forms and its resistance to being pinned down -- Its open ended-ness, in its existence as *nonsense*.
To paraphrase Avital Ronell, To leave things open-ended and radically in-appropriable and admitting it's something beyond our understandning is much less satisfying, more frustrating and much more necessary. The political battles for peoples conciousness and social obedience comes through various promises of meaning - the appropriation of culturally sanctioned rituals, the free market, entertainment and news industries, etc. People are fed and fuelled by promises of immediate gratification in thought and food and junk -- junk thought and junk food and so on -- so there is a politics of refusing that gratification. Art can potentially provide a great areana for that.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153187549775315&set=a.10153187548280315.1073741826.801570314&type=3&theater