What is it that is being communicated?
The fact that these buildings were purposefully chosen; the close proximity that allows viewers to walk through them communicates the curator’s intent on emphasizing the handful of buildings that were involved in the show. This was likely to communicate the richness of culture that the young nation have cultivated in the rather short amount of time. There were a mixture of buildings that reminded the audience of our colonial past – of which helped shaped the present. This was meant to engage the patriotic sense, that despite being once part of colonialism, our forefathers have paved the way for Singapore to become fruitful and successful. The colours shone on the buildings (red and white) was not shocking either as it was obvious that the national colours were apt in the context.
What might the “curators” have to consider to plan such a transformation?
The curators might have thought about which part of the structure on the facade to accentuate. Although the monuments were large, the ‘space’ on the facade was rather limited, in the sense where it would be monotonous to carelessly project lights all over the facade. Instead, parts of the monument such as the supporting pillars may have been ‘playfully’ selected (it could be intentional to highlight the base of Singapore’s heritage) to be projected, and dimmer red lights used to hint other interesting aspects of the cultural institutions.
What alternate ways could YOU imagine transforming these sites to communicate something unique or unknown about Singapore culture?
This event was rather passive in the sense where audiences can hardly ‘interact’ with the monuments. What if there was a way to keep tab on the number of audiences? In light of the COVID situation, we have to use SafeEntry check-ins to locations. In a similar fashion, our action of ‘checking in’ could trigger a different response in the lights, setting an algorithm to it where every response would not be similar, this may peak the interest of audiences to participate in the ‘lighting up’ of these national monuments. While adding interactivity to the piece, we may also take a peek at Singapore’s ‘Kay Poh’ culture (a loose term to describe Singaporeans being nosy, but in a harmless manner), where passerbys may stop and react to participants who are ‘lighting up’ these monuments. The aim of which is to gather more participants through their ‘Kay Poh’ behaviour, while extending the message to Singaporeans that being ‘Kay Poh’ may not be as bad as they think, as a matter of fact being beneficial the event instead.
