Singapore Rockets These notes are incomplete.

If you like to read things that are well-crafted and polished, come back in a week; this document will evolve rapidly. This however, is completed: http://glossi.com/bigRwing/#!/glossies OK, following are notes about two Singaporean artists. As mentioned, these notes will be rewritten and polished into essays similar to those found in here: http://glossi.com/bookmerah/9368-black13

ROCKET 1 (notes by Chiaki Williams)

After the moshpit I was only left with Judas
(2012) Gerald Leow Photographs, Leather Jacket and Keris sculpture, 2 channel video A keris (Malay dagger) with a blade made of two words made of steel. The two words: JudasPriest. A young Asian man in the moshpit of a concert. On the back of his jacket is one word: JudasBecame Judas in the Moshpit (2012) Gerald Lowe Photographs, Video, Leather Jacket and Keris sculpture, 2 channel video

A keris (Malay dagger) with a blade made of two words made of steel. The two words: Judas Priest. A young Asian man in the moshpit of a concert. On the back of his jacket is one word: Judas. I Became Judas in the Moshpit, a conceptual work composed of photographs, video, paintings and a sculpture, uses pop culture and anthropological concerns to create a self-portrait of an artist questioning his place in the relationship between East and West. The works are strong, private and universal. Aspects of the piece include: - A mash up of Margaret Meade's 1952 filmed documentation of "Trance and Dance in Bali" with video from the 2012 Judas Priest concert in Singapore, emphasising the similarities between entranced kris dance performers and headbanging Judas Priest fans.Incense and smoke machines are also seen to serve similar functions. -Body as exhibition space/public space as performance space. -The artist wore a jacket with the words 'Judas Priest' taped onto the back. In the thrashing of the moshpit, the lettering that spelled 'Priest' fell off. The jacket referenced another wearable artwork, Don't Give Money to the Arts(1995), by Tan Da Wu, a forefather of Singaporean contemporary art. -The photographs are meant to be exhibited in a way which references the traditional Balinese gate. -Dualities abound: the artist as observer and subject, western music being performed in Southeast Asia, fascination/devotion to the West, betrayal to the East. -The dilemnas, questions and possibilities of postcolonialism.

-an image from I Became Judas in the Moshpit can be found here: http://glossi.com/bigRwing/#!/glossies www.geraldleow.com

ROCKET 2 (notes by Chiaki Williams)

Notes From A Revolution (2012) Godwin Koay Technique: water color! Revolutionary, as the medium is often used for light-hearted landscapes, oh-so-serious Klee-like studies or portraits painted in profile. Godwin Koay's Notes From A Revolution marches past these cliches, planting his watercolors firmly in the shifting borders between literature, politics and conceptual art. A few pieces, for example, are "merely" headlines. Headlines painted with black watercolor are familiar yet alien. Seemingly without emotion, they call attention to a civil disturbance so laden with emotional intensity that citizens set themselves on fire in protest. Watercolors to create images of red police wagons, grey body shields and black rubber truncheons.... This is not the shrill one-note shrieks of protest art, from the 'dance-on-LKY's-grave'group. This is not the homogenized art of those who "engage" in issues. This reality, perceived with imagination and careful thought. There is talk of this project becomeing a book. That could destroy the "fill-inthe-misssing-pieces" aspect that contributes greatly to the works success. If handles with a heavy touch, the result might be a graphic novel full of ideas presented with a refreshing technique, but one that fails to reach the very real promise of a revolution in thinking that the works, at their best, suggest. http://www.todayonline.com/entertainment/arts/notes-revolution-45

ROCKET 3 (awaiting transformation from Debbie Ding) http://dreamsyntax.bigcartel.com/product/dream-syntax

Nothing like rock Is it correct to say that your rock art is not really about rocks? I have some vague (and probably inaccurate) impression about quantum physics, something like it is about the relationships about all things. And there is a song on that album called Detroit Rock City. Isnt one aspect of all this, that one has to be a social butterfly? Something like we can understand something by studying what it isnt. Something like that. Paris, Korea, Singapore, where else have you done rock-related works? Personal Effects were a new wave rock band.They had a song called Ive Been Thinking Hard About You. I should be able to tell the difference between an alto sax and a clarinet, but I cant. Sadato. Rock music, I guess that is what I am writing about. And being a young female artist is so diferent from being an igneous rock.Though I had a yellow Panasonic cassette player.The rock in rockn roll is about sex. I would think that sex and rock are polar opposites. At the end of the day, isnt it always about the stories created rather than the art itself? Sex is moving, liquidy life, rocks are rocks. I should again say that I am on a bus, the 143 from Harbourfront to Clementi, not far from where your rock was observed and collected. Where I sleep are a black couch, a glass table, and a statue of Buddha that has soft pastel disco lights that project on the wall that is the last thing I see at night before I go to sleep. Actually, the observation was more of a glance, Hey! A rock that looks somewhat red. Bukit Merah! Debbie Ding! The exact location was on the corner of something something road and another road. I realize that isnt exact. But I could find it on a map. The highway was nearby. Stacks of freight containers were across the street. It was hot. On this bus is a woman who has long, flowing black hair. It was like seeing a

neighbor from childhood starring in a Hollywood movie. She is fat to the point of being a jelly-like ball. Her pants are black and white stripes and she is lounging in the orange seats. Is she aware of the road and the rocks beneath the road? I brought it to school. High school I think. One would think not. We are usually not aware of those foundations upon which our lives are built. Rockwise and otherwise. A red traffic light. Seeing, picking up, carrying. How can I connect that to the works of Debbie Ding? What am I supposed to be writing, anyway? There was a middleman between us because I was unsure of when you and I would be on the same landmass again. I had taped the record called Kiss Alive! Manhattan is said to be one big rock. Do you know if that is true? Perhaps I have told you that I have almost always live on islands, bit it is probably wrong to perceive an island as being a very large rock. Lodestones. Magnets. Ishikawa is a town in Japan and, if I remember correctly, 'ishi' means stone. Kawa is river. River of stone? Probably not. I once proposed to Math Paper Press the idea of a book on the pavements of Singapore. The idea did not travel far. Road surfaces say so much. And what about SUSPENSION BRIDGES? The rock of your dreams? Do you have one? I must pat myself on the back for not dragging bad puns into this...like getting stoned. Or being caught between a rock and a hard place.This bus is perfectly air conditioned and the ride is smooth.