I always see Candice around in school and wherever we see each other, she will always be the first one to smile, so I smile back. Even though I have never took her class, she seem very nice.

Anyway, when I was looking through Candice’s website, I found Playing The Archive, part of Studio Lab from Penn State. To be honest, I spent more time watching the performance from Playing The Archive than on Candice’s website but that doesn’t mean I did not read all of her works! Cause she only has 5 works on her website.

In a summary, Playing The Archive is literally what it means. They believe that musicians, visual artist and data analysts should work together to perform and display the archive in multiple format and media. The archives here refers to artefacts and documents which are worth to be archive and it is also a process where a hard object becomes digital in a form of archiving.  But anyway this is not the topic here. But however, Studio Lab’s mission is almost parallel to what Candice is doing I feel. That is not a surprise as Candice is a part of the team.

Sleeping In The Power Socket was her MPA solo thesis show. As she presents her artists project by saying that perhaps it is important to start understanding man’s relationship to objects, I agree with her on this actually. Likewise, I always have a fascination on why certain objects means so much to one person but it does not mean anything at all for another person. I think the act of possessing it also plays a part.

What we choose to identify ourselves with and the act of leaving behind paraphernalia – of means to leave a mark; that of passing values, wills (both monetary and ethical), the need of a second self – is crucial to study.

-Candice Ng.

This statement actually reminds me Voldermort in Harry Potter. Voldermort actually split his soul into 8 parts and each part is embedded on an object. Voldermort wanted immortality. This came up to me when Candice mention the above statement. I guess the point i am making is that what we do on earth is a testament to what we will leave behind when we die, and this can take in a form of Artworks or a beautiful crafted poem about Love.

Candice also uses everyday objects that has a special meaning for her in her works. For example, a chocolate bar and a chinese incense paper. In her work titled Alternative Rituals of Remembering, it is a personal work where she talks about remembering her late dad. These objects has a special relationship with her and this is one way she make sense of the world I feel.

Going back to the questions you posted, Candice’s works talks about identity by asking what are the elements of identity especially in SEA where traditions are particularly very important. One’s identity could take form in a literature or a form of a folklore for example and by knowing what is our identity, she is trying to imagine what happen in the near future where all this identity is being archived in a digital form. Yes it is also relevant in NTU’s 5 peaks of excellence, one of them being New Media. Candice explores the future of this medium which is the New Media through the use of RFID which has more potential I feel. Working with data also means that a physical tangible object could no longer be part of the equation and going online is the NEW MEDIA. This is also a scary thought as pointed out by Candice, ‘Does the creation of digital content loose meaning just because it has no ‘tangible’ physical properties? How can data be sacred?.

I look forward for Candice’s introduction to her works in more details in class!