Please join us for a performance-lecture by artist Ho Rui An, his first in the UAE: seats are limited – reserve via [email protected]
Location: A4, Alserkal Avenue
Duration: 55 minutes. No latecomers will be admitted once the performance has started.
Opening with footage of an accident captured from a dashcam, DASH considers how the accident—or crisis—becomes legible within a risk-managed and financially hedged era. While the dashcam was originally designed as a device that bears witness to the accidents that happen to the vehicle to which it is fitted, its proliferation in recent years has inadvertently yielded a contemporary index of the accident in the form of the vast accumulation of crash footage on the Internet.
Taking this condition of the dashcam as a point of departure, the lecture considers the broader logic of “horizon scanning” that underpins the foresight programmes of the Singapore government, which combine big data and scenario planning as tools for “surprise anticipation”. As a crucial node along the electronic circuits of global finance as well as the sweaty regional routes crossed by disenfranchised migrant labour, Singapore is held up within the lecture as a privileged site to attend to the disturbances or “weak signals” that crop up on the horizon. From this limit-space where one can never know what might come at you, a fantastic speculative economy—populated by the likes of “black swans” and “dragon kings”—is produced to affirm some narratives while extinguishing others.
This performance-lecture is part of Art Jameel’s InTransitTalks featuring visiting international guests, artists and curators.
Ho Rui An is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. He writes, talks and thinks around images, with an interest in investigating their emergence, transmission and disappearance within contexts of globalism and governance. He has presented projects at Jakarta Biennale (2017), Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014), Haus de Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2017), Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center, Manila (2017), NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2017), NUS Museum, Singapore (2016), Para Site, Hong Kong (2015), Hessel Museum of Art and CCS Bard Galleries, Annandale-on-Hudson (2015) and Witte de With, Rotterdam (2014). He is the Singapore desk editor for ArtAsiaPacific and has contributed to numerous publications. He lives and works in Singapore.
Rui An is a visiting tutor for Campus Art Dubai (CAD) 6.0, part of Art Dubai’s educational programming. CAD is held in partnership with Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, and Dubai Design District (d3), with Art Jameel as the 2017-18 curatorial partner.
Image courtesy of Marwan Tahtah.