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NTU CCA Singapore Exhibitions is focused on contemporary artistic production that provides a critical platform for reflection and discussion. The exhibition programme embraces artistic production in all its diverse media with a commitment to current debates in visual culture. NTU CCA Singapore presents up to four exhibitions a year ranging in format from group to solo shows giving voice to a diversity of international artists. Each exhibition is accompanied by an extensive public programme of tours, talks and workshops that foster reflections on the exhibition from various perspectives and disciplines.

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Sound. Walks.

22 January 2021 — 28 March 2021

Download Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. Exhibition Guide here. 

Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. offers the curatorial proposition that collectivity and communality can be explored through art experiences that draw on the long histories of sound and walking, offering concrete ways to connect with nature, technology, and each other during times of social distancing. Dematerialized, asynchronous, and participatory, these artworks each reflect how our current collective negotiations between physical and online realms need not be seen as binary opposites, but as opportunities for rethinking social interaction through our senses.

We invite you bring your headphones and your walking shoes to experience the artworks of Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

Tini Aliman (Singapore)

Arahmaiani (Indonesia) in collaboration with Jimmy Ong (Singapore)

Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang (United States)

bani haykal (Singapore) in collaboration with Lee Weng Choy (Malaysia)

Diana Lelonek (Poland) in collaboration with Denim Szram (Poland/Switzerland)

Cheryl Ong (Singapore)

Ana Prvački (Romania/Germany) in collaboration with Joyce Bee Tuan Koh (Singapore) and Galina Mihaleva (Bulgaria/Singapore)

Reetu Sattar (Bangladesh)

anGie seah (Singapore)

Vivian Wang (Singapore)

 

Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. is curated by Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Curator, Education and Outreach, and Dr Karin Oen (United States/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes

 

Public programmes

Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.
2 Oct 2020, Fri - 31 Mar 2021, Wed

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Download the Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. exhibition guide here.

Collaborative and experimental by nature, Free Jazz III builds upon its past iterations by activating and challenging common understandings of exhibition-making and the use of space. Sound walks. Machines listen. We are living through unusual times. 

As the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore approaches a major transformation away from a permanent exhibition space in early 2021, Free Jazz III continues to explore the possibilities of an international research centre for contemporary art, featuring many artists who have been part of NTU CCA Singapore’s exhibitions, residencies, and programs since 2013, when the Centre presented Free Jazz as its inaugural event. The project began as a form of inquiry and an active tool to generate new possibilities for conceptualizing and programming an art institution. Free Jazz III convenes diverse projects united by themes of adaptation via masterful improvisation, trans-mediatic pivots, and the conscious renegotiation of our relationships to nature, technology, and each other. The disparate components of Free Jazz III explore the elements of dissonance, resistance, and innovation embedded in its musical namesake and the ability for sound and art to transcend physical and social distance. Embracing sound and walking as two powerful ways to overcome distance and bring people together, Free Jazz III comprises projects that can take place in non-gallery spaces, independently, asynchronously, or in purposeful syncopation with the present moment, reflecting on the past and looking forward to the future. 

Admission to all programmes and events is free.

 

Sound. Walks.
January–March 2021 (On-site and online)

Reflecting on the loss of physicality through increased virtual interactions as well as many histories of sound and walking, artists address common life and communality in times of social distancing. In this series of performative explorations of sound, music, and community building, reflections take the form of soundwalks, sonic wayfinding and other physical and aural experiences, offering multiple ways for the public to actively witness, listen and participate, both remotely and on-site. Soundwalks by Tini Aliman (Singapore), Christa Donner and Andrew S Yang (United States), and Diana Lelonek (Poland) and Denim Szram (Poland/Switzerland) are propelled by sonic outputs of nature. Storytelling, correspondence, and the impossibility of direct communication factor into projects by Cheryl Ong (Singapore), Ana Prvački (Romania/Germany) in collaboration with Joyce Bee Tuan Koh (Singapore) and Galina Mihaleva (Bulgaria/Singapore), and Vivian Wang (Singapore/Switzerland). Sound, history, culture, and space overlap and intertwine in works by Arahmaiani (Indonesia) and Jimmy Ong (Singapore), bani haykal (Singapore) and Lee Weng Choy (Malaysia), Reetu Sattar (Bangladesh), and anGie Seah (Singapore).

Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. is curated by Magdalena Magiera (Germany/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Curator, Education and Outreach, and Dr Karin Oen (United States/Singapore), NTU CCA Singapore Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes

 

Under the Skin
1 December 2020 – 31 January 2021 (Online)

World premiere and special performance
1 December 2020, 7pm SGT

This trio of performative works by artists George Chua (Singapore), Nina Djekić (Slovenia/Singapore/Netherlands), and Noor Effendy Ibrahim (Singapore) engages with sound, bodily movements, and performance. These new pieces are cinematically translated into the medium of video by filmmaker Russell Morton (Singapore) and viewed online, acknowledging the curatorial premise that, “the pandemic has pushed us into a space of dramatic convergence—where a deep tech, hyper-connected future collides with social political unrest,” in both the work itself and the medium in which it is presented.

Under the Skin is curated for Free Jazz III by artist Cheong Kah Kit (Singapore) as part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, a united response to the changes brought about by COVID-19 hosted by twelve Singapore arts institutions, initiated by the National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum.

 

Partner programmes:

 

Machine Listening, a curriculum
From October 2020 (Online)

Expanded collaborations and explorations of curatorial spaces also took form in support of Machine Listening, a curriculum instigated by Melbourne-based Liquid Architecture. This evolving online resource, comprising existing and newly commissioned writing, interviews, music and artworks is a new investigation and experiment in collective learning around the emergent field of machine listening. It premiered with three online sessions open to all as part of Unsound 2020: Intermission, an experimental sound festival in Krakow, Poland. NTU CCA Singapore and Liquid Architecture will convene another collaborative online session open to the public in early 2021.

Machine Listening, a curriculum is curated by Sean DockrayDr James Parker, and Joel Stern (all Australia).

Visit the evolving open source curriculum and the recorded Unsound sessions:

(Against) the coming world of listening machines
Lessons in How (Not) to be Heard
Listening with the Pandemic

 

Sollum Swaramum
26 February 2021, 7.30 – 9.00pm
On-Site at Blk 43 Malan Road

Presented in collaboration with The Arts House’s Poetry with Music series, the 4th edition of Sollum Swaramum, brings together musicians Ramesh Krishnan, Mohamed Noor and Munir Alsagoff in exploration of the synergies between music and text, with devised and improvised texts based on the work of Tamil literary stalwarts P Krishnan, Ma Ilangkannnan and Rama Kannabiran. These newly devised texts are written by Harini V, Ashwinii Selvarai and Bharathi Moorthiappan, performed by Sivakumar Palakrishnan, and art direction by Laura Miotto.

 

Curated by Magdalena Magiera, Curator, Outreach and Education, and Dr. Karin Oen, Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes, NTU CCA Singapore. 

 

Image: (1) Arahmaiani, Monk praying for tree in the Lab Monastery area, 2014. Documentation of work with a community of monks (2010–ongoing). Khamp, Qinghai plateau. Photo: Feri Latief. (2) Tini Aliman, Exit-Traverse-Disembark, 2020. Documentation of research on St. John’s Island (2020), Singapore. (3) Christa Donner & Andrew S. Yang, Paths and portals, inside and out, 2020. Digital image. (4) Ana Prvački, Tent, quartet, bows and elbows, 2018. Documentation of performance at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (2018), Boston. (5) bani haykal & Lee Weng Choy, Trouble with Harmony, 2020. Digital image. (6) Reetu Sattar, Harano Sur (Lost Tune), 2017-2018. Documentation of performance at the Dhaka Art Summit, 2018, co-commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation and the Liverpool Biennial in association with the New North New South and the Archaeology of the Final Decade. Photo by Pranabesh Das. All images courtesy the artists.

 

Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. presented in partnership with

                   

   

             Part of                                Supported by
   

Under the Skin
1 Dec 2020, Tue - 28 Mar 2021, Sun

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Under the Skin showcases the experimental practices of George Chua, Nina Djekić, and Noor Effendy Ibrahim, three artists who engage with sound, bodily movements, and performance to examine contemporary body and identity politics. Bringing together elements of performance, sound and visual art in response to the theme of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, the artists have been commissioned to produce new work reflecting their own experiences of the sudden uncertainty and loss of normalcy during the global COVID-19 pandemic: abrupt shifts in social interaction and daily routines, confinement and physical limitations, adjustments, and reorientations to relationships. As we grapple with the uncertainties of the post-pandemic future, this radical moment of instability also calls upon us to reclaim our personal and collective consciousness, to nurture the resilience of our body and soul. How does a body compose itself and develop new vocabularies for articulation? What new sensorial and corporeal sensibilities can we locate and uncover?

While the current conditions of our lives also expose global fragilities and social divisions, this project draws mainly from the spaces, experiences and materialities of everyday life, where the effect of the pandemic is, perhaps, most potent and surreptitious. Attempting to reconcile ideas of tenderness in violence, Noor Effendy Ibrahim continues his on-going performance research to excavate inherent and latent memories within his own body through self-inflicted physical pain. Locating marginalised bodies and their everyday lived experiences via a mythical dance troupe, George Chua meditates on vulnerability and belief, contemplating our existential struggle on what it means to be human. Engaging with translations and memories within an constructed setting, Nina Djekić invites us to consider notions of intimacy via virtual spaces and proxy bodies.

The trio of performative works are cinematically translated into the medium of video by Singapore artist and filmmaker Russell Morton, and their videos presented online. 

Under the Skin is curated by artist Cheong Kah Kit for NTU CCA Singapore’s Free Jazz III

 

 

NOOR EFFENDY IBRAHIM, IN COLLABORATION WITH SYIMAH SABTU 

Dancing with the Ghost of My Child in 33 Steps
2020, HD Video, 38 min 12 sec

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Dancing with the Ghost of My Child in 33 steps is an aging man’s increasing desire and longing for an inspiration, for a life, for a child that he pains to father, and be a father to. In this dance, a man dreams of invoking the ghost of a child, his child, who has not yet been born into the world. This man lays his prayer across time and space. He prays for what love has yet to conceive. He hopes that if the ghost of his child is lost, the child may hear his voice, and find a path back to him. This dance leads the man to a moment in his life where perhaps he might begin to believe again.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Interdisciplinary artist Noor Effendy Ibrahim continues his on-going performance research to excavate inherent and latent memories within his own body through self-inflicted physical pain. Empathising with guilt and desire, Effendy constantly negotiates his faith and shifting identities in society as he seeks to neuter otherness. These excavations often result in violent and numbing effects on his body, creating a spectacle whilst leaving his body desensitized and apathetic. In his ongoing “Dancing with the Ghost of My Child” series, Effendy seeks to reconcile ideas of tenderness in violence. Website: https://www.anjing-performance.com/

Syimah Sabtu is a dance artist from Singapore. She graduated from Republic Polytechnic (Theatre and Arts Management) and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Dance). Syimah’s practice is rooted in Malay folk dance and contemporary dance, where she examines the kinesics state of the dancer’s body. Syimah is currently researching on the Dualities of Being, exploring layered connections between personal histories, narratives and beliefs that are nestled within our bodies. As a dance artist, she believes in the potentiality of collaboration, interaction and connection across various art forms and disciplines. Syimah is currently a core associate with P7:1SMA Ltd and an associate member with Dance Nucleus. Website: www.syimahsabtu.com

 

 

GEORGE CHUA

Seven Legged Spider Dance Troupe
2020, HD Video, 19 min 45 sec

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

An electrician, a cardboard lady, a dwarf and a crippled chicken rice hawker. Together, they dance with seven legs. These are the nameless bodies only known by their vocation and physical handicaps.

They were immersed in oppression and yet developed a dispassion towards evil. They carry evil in their bodies but were not evil themselves. Rather, evil had been done to them and had marked their bodies with its effects.

I am dancing their dance, yet I am not them. Their flesh is smeared in these isolated rooms, yet their anguish cannot be isolated. Though full of anguish, I must tell of this secret joy.

I have known them as characters in my head yet they became unknowable by me, hence unnameable.

That which was unnameable was forced upon with a name of a malformed insect, in the name of art.

This work was conceptualised in 2007 but shelved. A time of reflection during the COVID Pandemic brought this work to light again. Dedicated to the memory of my two aunts who committed suicide when I was a child. I remember you.

 

BIOGRAPHY

George Chua is a multidisciplinary artist based in Singapore. Active since the late nineties, he works in the intersection between the body and sound. He has presented works in the form of physical theatre, performance art and sound installations. As an instigator and explorer of sound, he resists development in a singular style or genre. Apart from his solo work and performances, George’s collaborative interests include live sound improvisation, sound design for film and theatre, as well experimental strategies for soundtracks.

 

 

NINA DJEKIĆ

Approximities
2020, HD Video, 16 min 40 sec

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Approximities presents us with a series of seemingly everyday vignettes. However, as the characters move in and out of the frame, the scenes increasingly gain an air of artifice.

The film builds on my experiences visiting a local park while living in Singapore. Spending long stretches of time at the park without a particular aim in mind, it has allowed my thoughts to roam freely and gently, amidst the company of strangers. One by one, alongside the scenery and vegetation, these strangers became a familiar presence.

Reconstituting this familiar park space through my memories, I engaged with a group of friends in a long-distance choreography of enacting and translation. This process is a paradoxical task of establishing common ground within an artificially constructed situation.

Can we think of a park as a virtual space or vice versa, that enables us to gather regardless of physical distance? How do we rearticulate proximity under those conditions?

How do we spend time?

 

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1989 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Nina Djekić is an artist and choreographer based in between Singapore and the Netherlands. She graduated with a BA in choreography from School for New Dance Development and an MFA from Sandberg Instituut, both in Amsterdam. Her work revolves around choreographic notions in exhibitionary settings. It looks at the bodily engagements between the artwork and the visitor as well as the affect the uncanny presence of artworks has on the relationship between the visitors themselves. Often conflating the conventions of writing with the scoring of movement, her curiosity lies in the relation between embodiment and language. Central to this is the notion of empathy, as an ability to be moved (physically and/or otherwise) and how to choreograph it. Website: http://www.ninadjekic.com/index.php/about/

Russell Morton makes films and performances. His short films The Silent Dialogue of All Artworks (2013), The Forest of Copper Columns (2016) and Saudade (2020) explore folkloric myths, esoteric rituals and the conventions of cinema itself. In recent years, Russell’s work has taken a choreographic turn through collaboration with movement and dance artists. As part of residencies and laboratories with dance-film independent collective CineMovement, his collaborative piece with a Hong Kong dance artist was part of Hybrid Motion (2019) for the Jumping Frames International Dance Video Festival (2019).

Cheong Kah Kit is a visual artist based in Singapore. He graduated from Umeå Academy of Fine Art, Sweden. He was affiliated with p-10, a Singapore independent curatorial team (2004 – 2006). In 2016, he co-founded Peninsular, an artist studio / experimental project space in Singapore. Kah Kit was artist-in-residence at Para Site, Hong Kong, 2015. In 2020, he was Co-curator for State of Motion, commissioned by the Asian Film Archive Singapore.

 

 

A partner programme of

 

Top image courtesy of Nina Djekić.

Cheryl Ong
#soundcards, 2021
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore
1 Jan 2021, Fri - 26 Mar 2021, Fri

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

Activations: 

Friday, 1 January – Friday, 26 March 2021 (every Tuesday and Friday)
On Instagram

In this current state where borders are closed and physical gatherings not recommended, social media and emailing have turned into a tool for us to communicate and interface with each other. #soundcards is an attempt to build an exchange of sonic memories and audio time-stamps like a postcard but by utilizing sound instead of visuality as a key medium. Will this interaction using a different sensibility change the way we perceive places and spaces? 

 

BIOGRAPHY

Cheryl Ong (Singapore) is a percussionist who is active in performance and education and a regular member of the avant rock group The Observatory. In recent years she has been exploring improvisational and experimental practices for her music, while hunting down new ideas and sounds. Her recent performances include All Ears, Festival (2020, Norway) and AngelicA Festival (2019, Bologna) in a duo with Vivian Wang. Ong participated as a musician for the dance performance by Pichet Klunchun x Wu-kang Chen at Behalf (2019, UCC, Singapore). Her solo composition Hejira was used in Yeo Siew Hua’s award winning film, A Land Imagined.

 

Image: Cheryl Ong#soundcards, sound, Instagram, 2021. Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. Courtesy the artist.

In the Vitrine:

Ana Prvački in collaboration with Joyce Bee Tuan Koh and Galina Mihaleva
Mouthful (masked duet), 2021
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore
9 Jan 2021, Sat - 7 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

Activations:

Saturday, 23 January 2021, 5.00 – 7.00pm
Sunday, 24 January 2021, 5.00 – 7.00pm
The Lab, Block 43 Malan Road
Sign up here to attend the activation.

 

How to breathe deeply and sing expressively in this moment when the mouth and nose embody danger? How to have pleasure in music when in its essences it is airborne and moist?

Let us return power and agency to the mouth and voice while still protecting ourselves and others. Let us express our emotions freely into the air that we all share. The Mouthful mask is both conceptual and practical. It exposes the breath and gives us an earful and eyeful of air.  Mouthful projects a new sound which follows the guidelines of our time while it overcomes and embraces the obstacles we face with poetry and humor.

Mouthful is conceived by Ana Prvački, produced and manifested by Galina Mihaleva and activated by Reginald Jalleh and Zerlina Tan with original music by Joyce Bee Tuan Koh. A transdisciplinary, collaborative work, Mouthful is realized with two performative activations and as an installation and sound work in The Vitrine at NTU CCA Singapore, Block 43 Malan Road.

 

BIOGRAPHIES

Joyce Bee Tuan Koh (Singapore) composes concert music and creates sound installations and multi-media works. Versatile and collaborative, Joyce has a wealth of experience working with musicians, choreographers, theatre-makers, artists, writers, philosophers, filmmakers, and architects. Originating from her interests in architecture and interdisciplinarity, her work explores notions of sonic canvas, space, and theatre of music. As described by the International Piano Quarterly, her sound world “engages the intellect and requires a different approach”. Her works have been presented at international festivals notably, International Computer Music Conferences, International Symposium on Electronic Arts, World Stage Design, Biennale Musiques France, Sir Henry Wood Promenade UK, Melbourne Arts Festival, Sydney InsideOut Festival, Singapore Arts Festival, Singapore Dan:s Festival, and Soundislands Festival.

Ana Prvački’s (Romania/Germany) background in music, theatre, mask work, architecture, fine art and beekeeping inform a cross disciplinary practice that ranges from painting to performance and augmented reality. Her experimental approach is central to a strategy for creating unique experiences and an environmentally conscious artistic practice. Her work has been featured in museum exhibitions including at the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, and has also been included in the 14th Istanbul Biennial, 1st Singapore Biennale, dOCUMENTA 13, the upcoming 13th Gwangju Biennial and Bangkok Biennial.

Galina Mihaleva (Bulgaria/Singapore) is Associate Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, where she teaches Technology, Art and Fashion. Her research investigates the physical and psychological relationship we have with garments or what she calls “wearable technology.” Mihaleva taught at Arizona State University for more than 15 years in costume design, where she often worked with renowned choreographers worldwide. She is the founder of Galina Couture in Scottsdale, Arizona where her team develops exclusive and unique collections making use of new materials. Mihaleva received the Rumi award in the US and won first place at Tiffany’s Paris Fashion Week, 2016. 

 

Image: Ana Prvački in collaboration with Joyce Bee Tuan Koh and Galina Mihaleva, Mouthful (masked duet), 2021, installation, performance, and sound work. Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

Arahmaiani in collaboration with Jimmy Ong
Flag Project, 2006 – 2021
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 28 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

If the video is unable to play, click here.

 

“Song For A Tree”

Since the beginning of the birth

of creatures on earth –

We have lived together

We take care of each other

And love each other.

 

– Arahmaiani, 2021

 

Arahmaiani’s practice is anchored within communities with the goal of studying and developing collective creativity, to find alternative, innovative and creative solutions to problems communities are facing these days. By implementing an “open art system” through an inter-disciplinary approach, Arahmaiani open invitation is to overcome rigid discourses and establish new value systems. When in Yogyakarta, she stays often with Jimmy Ong, with whom she shares an interest in dealing with issues of culture, environment and social-political conflicts. An artist who left Singapore 30 years ago, Jimmy found himself back in Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic, where he attempted a community project with migrant workers under quarantine. Together they intend to hold dialogues and discussions to identify issues and concerns important to such communities in Singapore, including permaculture, urban farming, and food security while exploring the creative interconnections of culture, music, and botany.

In this performance incorporating a flag bearing the word guyub – the Javanese term for living harmoniously – Arahmaiani offers an original sound composition by Wukir Suryadi (Indonesia) as a “song for the plants.” She invites us all to respond to this offering and create our own songs for plants, inspired by mutual care and harmony.

To share your song for plants, send it to ntuccaeducation@ntu.edu.sg

 

A response by Michelle Lai (Singapore/Netherlands)

 

A response by Huiying Ng (Singapore/Germany)

 

To learn more about the Flag Project, click here

 

BIOGRAPHY

Arahmaiani (Indonesia) is one of Indonesia’s most respected and pioneering artists in the field of performance art. From the 1980’s, she has performed in many public spaces — even during the rule of an oppressive military regime. Since then, she has engaged with issues about the environmental, politics, violence, critique of capital, the female body, and in recent years, with her own identity, which although Muslim, lays between Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and animist beliefs. Her interactive performances have developed into a community-based practice, bringing attention to subjects prevalent in Indonesia and to issues of violence against the environment on the Tibetan Plateau. 

Jimmy Ong (Singapore/Indonesia) is an artist who currently works from his studios in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Jimmy Ong’s practice involves highly personal inquiries into bodily forms and queer(ed) identities, expanding into broader entanglements with regional myths, archetypes, traditions, and historical narratives.

 

Image: Arahmaiani, Monk praying for tree in the Lab Monastery area, 2014. Documentation of work with a community of monks (2010–ongoing). Khamp, Qinghai plateau. Photo: Feri Latief. Courtesy the artist.

Christa Donner and Andrew S Yang
Listening through the Landscape, 2021
Supported by the Yale-NUS Dean of Faculty
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 28 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

To view the script for Listening Through the Landscape, click here

 

In Listening Through the Landscape, Christa Donner and Andrew S Yang present short, guided audio walks that explore the nature of time and the ecology of Singapore through trees, soil, and water. Combining narration with environmental sounds collected during the 2020 Circuit Breaker period, Donner and Yang transform everyday spaces into multisensory journeys. Step outside and let’s take a walk. Select a walk from the above list, press “Play” and activate.

You can access this program using your smartphone and headphones, and at your own pace and schedule.

Listening Through the Landscape began while Donner and Yang were inaugural Artists-in-Residence at Yale-NUS College and appears in Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. with support from Yale-NUS Dean of Faculty.

Narrated by Alexis Chen.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Christa Donner (United States) is an artist, writer, and organiser who investigates anatomy and its metaphors. Donner employs a range of artistic media in her creative research, including drawing, audio performance, large-scale installations and small-press publications that create multi-layered, community-centred but intimate projects. Her creative research focuses on the human and non-human body as a site for conflict and adaptation: from the internal activities of the microbiome to the creative potentials of care work and community. She is currently an adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Contemporary Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Andrew S Yang (United States) works across the visual arts, sciences, and history to explore emerging ecologies of the Anthropocene. Yang’s work has been exhibited from Oklahoma to Yokohama, including the 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2016), the Spencer Museum of Art (2019), and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (2020). His writing and research can be found in Art JournalLeonardoBiological Theory, and Antennae. He is an Associate Professor in the Liberal Arts Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a research associate at the Field Museum of Natural History. 

 

Image: Christa Donner and Andrew S Yang, Paths and portals, inside and out, 2021. Courtesy the artists.

anGie seah
Empathic Voices, 2021
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 28 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

 

Singapore’s Dragon Kiln is one of the few remaining brick-built kilns in Asia. When there is no firing, it is left empty and unused. seah’s aim is to investigate the materiality of clay by re-purposing the dragon kiln as a sound recording space, revisiting the historical site and exploring its acoustics by activating the space with vocal experimentation. With the human voice as its main focus, this project embeds vocal emotional expressions of the prosodic features of speech, as well as vocalisations with no linguistic content – hums, sobs, laughter, wailing, and gibbering. With the involvement of the migrant worker community, which has been restricted the most during the pandemic, the kiln no longer feels hollow, being filled instead with a spirit of collectivism. Thespectral and uncanny qualities of place are amplified through voice and sound manipulation of fired clay objects.

 

BIOGRAPHY

anGie seah’s (Singapore) multidisciplinary practice traverses the mediums of drawing, sculpture, performance art, installation, sound and video. Seah allows spontaneity and intuition to navigate a range of shifting emotional resonances and psychological states. Experimenting with articulations of spoken language, she searches for authentic expression and primal beauty. For more than a decade, she has been working with diverse communities on participatory projects. Since 1997 anGie has exhibited widely including at ZKM Centre for New Media, Germany; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; and the Palais de Tokyo, France; as well as at NTU CCA Singapore and the Singapore Biennale.

 

Image: anGie  seah, Empathic Voices, 2021, sound. Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. Courtesy the artist.

Tini Aliman
Exiting-Traversing-Disembark, 2021
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 28 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

Exiting-Traversing-Disembark consists of three parts with three points of departure and ways of traversing paths that sometimes may not have points of return.

Put on some headphones and press “Play” to begin your sonic expedition here

 

Exiting-Traversing-Disembark is a meditation and reflection on what it might mean to move from one point to another, to cross waters. Visualising the sea as ‘ground’ as a departure point, this soundwalk gives attention to  the multiple trajectories in which we perceive what it means to travel or traverse through space, especially against the constraints of the present times. On an island city state like Singapore with its high rise concretised built environment, it is easy to forget we are surrounded by water and connected to the archipelagic. How can we be more attentive to the soundscape of these journeys where we cross water, whether that crossing is figurative, imaginative, speculative or actual?

 

BIOGRAPHY

Tini Aliman (Singapore) is a sound artist and designer, field recordist and audio technician who works at the intersection of theatre and film sound design, live sound art performance, installation and collaborative projects. Her research interests include but are not limited to, forest networks, spatial acoustics, bio-music, botanical histories and the variables of data translations via biodata sonification. She has been involved in projects and exhibitions across Asia Pacific and Europe. Her recent projects have been presented at National Gallery Singapore, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Biennale Urbana at Caserma Pepe, Venice and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei.

 

Website and visualisation: crop.sg

Image: Tini Aliman, Exiting-Traversing-Disembark, 2020–2021, St. John Island, Singapore. Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. Courtesy the artist.

bani haykal in collaboration with Lee Weng Choy
Trouble with Harmony, 2021
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 28 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

 

bani  haykal and  Lee Weng Choy
Troubletext #1, 2021
Text, performance
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

bani  haykal  and  Lee Weng Choy
Troubletext #2, 2021
Text, performance
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

Activation: Trouble with Harmony
by bani haykal in collaboration with  Lee Weng Choy
Saturday, 13 March 2021, 3.00 – 6.00pm
Online

Zoom Registration here.

 

Two participants from the original programme are back for the 3rd Edition, to collaborate on a project they’re calling, “Trouble with Harmony”. It’s not an attempt to articulate the trouble with harmony. Neither to analyse, for instance, the predominant but problematic discourses about political, cultural or racial harmony in a multifarious society like Singapore. Rather, an invitation to play—to play with. Donna Haraway reminds us that the etymology of “trouble” is the French verb “to stir up”, “to make cloudy” or “to disturb”. Perhaps our role here is to “sit in” and find how these instances of harmonies demand us to think deeply about our present—where we are. Trouble with harmony is a proposition to think about trouble alongside thinking about harmony. Shifting the shapes of our thinking, and our listening. Exploring a polyphony of themes, topics and tropes. But perhaps this is saying both too much and not enough.

 

BIOGRAPHY

bani haykal (Singapore) is an artist, composer, musician who experiments with text and music, and takes the and processes, as material. His projects investigate modes of interfacing and interaction with feedback or feedforward mechanisms. He is a member of b-quartet. In his capacity as a collaborator and a soloist, bani has participated in festivals including MeCA Festival (Japan), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), Media/Art Kitchen (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Japan), Liquid Architecture and Singapore International Festival of Arts (Singapore) among others. His current work frames encryption as a process and basis for human-machine intimacy by navigating interfaces such as a QWERTY keyboard as mediums of interactivity. 

For more video’s by bani haykal please go to here

Lee Weng Choy (Malaysia) is an independent art critic and consultant based in Malaysia. He is president of the Singapore Section of the International Association of Art Critics, and a part-time consultant with A+ Works of Art, Kuala Lumpur. Previously, Lee was Artistic Co-Director of The Substation in Singapore and the first Deputy Director of the NTU CCA Singapore. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art—Singapore. He has done project work with various arts organisations, including Ilham Gallery, Kuala Lumpur and the National Gallery Singapore. 

 

Image: bani haykal and Lee Weng Choy, Trouble With Harmony, 2021. Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. Courtesy the artists.

Vivian Wang
Beat the Blues - A manual for absurd times, 2021
Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 28 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

Instructional exercise* ONE is LIVE NOW

 

Instructional exercise TWO is LIVE NOW.

 

Instructional exercise THREE is LIVE NOW.

“Do you find it hard to concentrate these days? Perhaps the blues bug just keeps nipping away at your heels? Are you bored and feeling listless or always struggling to keep going? When was the last time you did something different, something a little adventurous, slightly odd or just for the fun of it? Can you spare 10 to 15 minutes for a simple creative ritual? “

Wang offers an instructional manual of self-therapy to perk up your spirit. Activate an appreciation for life, expression, awareness and presence through sound, vocalizing, movement and imagination.

All instalments are available as downloads.

*best listened with headphones

*The poem quoted in exercise three is by Pauline Oliveros, “The Earth Worm Also Sings” (1992)

 

 

BIOGRAPHY

Vivian Wang (Singapore/Switzerland) is a composer, sound artist and musician whose interest lies in exploring intermediate spaces, producing works across a range of sonic intersections. Her 16-channel sound installation Priests & Programmerswas commissioned for the inaugural Sharjah Architecture Triennial in 2019. Recent performances happened during the 58th Venice Biennale, 2019 and Utrecht’s biggest music festival Le Guess Who. Her collaborators include sound artists Tarek Atoui and Lasse Marhaug, as well as pop artist Jenny Hval. As a founding member of Singaporean experimental rock group The Observatory, Vivian has toured extensively. She appears on Utech Records as ARCN TEMPL.

 

Sound, text and narration by Vivian Wang, Beat the Blues – A manual for absurd times, 2021, sound walk. Commissioned by NTU CCA Singapore for Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. Image by Sissi Kaplan. Courtesy the artist.

Screening: Reetu Sattar, HARANO SUR (Lost Tune),2018
22 Jan 2021, Fri 08:00 PM - 09:00 PM

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

The sound of the harmonium is tightly woven into the history and culture of Bangladesh, but for artist Reetu Sattar, it is not just an instrument. In her performance piece Harano Sur (Lost Tune), she uses it as a way to explore the violence and social upheaval which has affected her home country in recent years.

A film documentation of a performance involving a physical structure, 33 musicians and 29 harmoniums with 4 shehnais, Harano Sur (Lost Tune) connects observations of losses to completely ambiguous mental states, consciously manifesting a collective feeling of powerlessness amidst deteriorating socio-political conditions that are slowly decaying.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Reetu Sattar (Bangladesh) works in Dhaka and Berlin. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses live performance, documentation and objects as archival memories in an effort to re-examine history and human perception. Her search of a new language as response to the empathetic mind reaches her to working inside seemingly impossible spaces, allowing for contents to be emergent rather than determined as the body negotiates repetition, disruption, meaning and memory. She has presented her work at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Liverpool Biennial, and Dhaka Art Summit, among many other venues. Her performances have been staged internationally at venues in London, Birmingham, Bangkok and Goa.

 

Image: Reetu Sattar, Harano Sur (Lost Tune), 2017-2018. Documentation of performance at the Dhaka Art Summit, 2018, co-commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation and the Liverpool Biennial in association with the New North New South and the Archaeology of the Final Decade. Photo by Pranabesh Das. Courtesy the artist.

Diana Lelonek and Denim Szram
Melting Gallery, 2019, 2021
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 7 Mar 2021, Sun

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

 

 

 

This symphony of disappearing glaciers consists of three melting Alpine glaciers: du Rhone, Aletsch and Morteratsch, and is a slowly trickling catastrophe whose arrival is hardly spectacular. Blurred, present everywhere and nowhere, it gives rise to anxiety. Alpine glaciers are disappearing. Some of them are already gone forever. Listening to the ubiquitous sounds of uniform dripping that resembles a countdown, the sound is a direct sign of irretrievable loss. Previously installed in an empty white cube gallery space, this installation faces the outdoors, in front of NTU CCA Singapore’s Exhibition Hall. It melts into the background sounds of its sub-urban terrain and adjacent secondary forests nearby, connecting the climate crisis not only across time and space, but more importantly across different climates and geographies, both raising and answering the artist’s question about where art resides in the climate crisis.

Melting Gallery is prepared in collaboration with and composed by Denim Szram, and created during Lelonek’s residency as part of the Culturescapes festival in Basel, Switzerland.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Diana Lelonek (Poland) explores relationships between humans and other species. Her projects are critical responses to the processes of over-production, unlimited growth, and our approach to the environment. She uses photography, living matter, and found objects, creating work that is interdisciplinary and often appears at the interface of art and science. 

She participated in several international biennales, festivals and group shows at: Riga International Biennale of Contemporary Art RIBOCA; Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg; Center of Contemporary Art, Warsaw; Kunstraum Niederosterriech, Vienna; Temporary Gallery, Cologne; Ballarat Photography Biennale, Australia; Tallin Art Hall; Culturescapes Festival, Basel; Musee de l’Elysee, Lausanne. 

Denim Szram (Poland/Switzerland) a sound and media artist, whose artistic work oscillates between music production, performance, multimedia installations and immersive sound compositions. As an electronic musician he creates compositions for spaces, dance and theatre. An expert in the field of 3D audio and uses this for his acoustic scenography, he expands sound with other media and creates audio visual systems and musical interfaces to explore expression with new technology. His work has been shown internationally  and institutions like ZKM Karlsruhe, House of electronic arts in Basel,  and the Audio Art Festival Krakow.

 

Image: Diana Lelonek, Glacier du Rhône, research documentation for the project Melting Gallery, 2019. Courtesy the artist.
Singapore Art Week 2021
22 Jan 2021, Fri - 30 Jan 2021, Sat

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Singapore Art Week (SAW) is an annual celebration of visual arts which takes place in the month of January. The nine-day celebration offers artists, collectives, organisations and other art intermediaries a visible platform for showcasing a range of quality visual arts projects, discussions, and exhibitions to a local and international audience.

NTU CCA Singapore is excited to participate with Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks. conceived by our curator Magdalena Magiera and Deputy Director Dr. Karin Oen, featuring a mix of specially curated on-site and online events addressing the necessity of experiencing art in social distance in light of COVID-19. Experience some of our Free Jazz III projects online, including Cheryl Ong’s #soundcards on our Instagram page on Tuesdays and Fridays as well as Under the Skin on our web pagecurated by Cheong Kah Kit and part of Proposals for Novel Ways of Being.

 
Extended hours during Singapore Art Week:
22 & 29 January 2021, 12.00pm – 9.00pm
All programmes at Block 43 Malan Road (unless otherwise stated)
 
 
Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.
 
Screening: Reetu Sattar, Harano Sur (lost tune), 2018
Friday, 22 January 2021, 8–9pm
The Single Screen, Blk 43 Malan Road
 
Activation: Mouthful (masked duet), Ana Prvački in collaboration with Joyce Bee Tuan Koh and Galina Mihaleva
23 and 24 January 2021, 5–7pm
Blk 43 Malan Road
Register here
 
Under the Skin
Until 31 January 2021
Online here
 
Residencies OPEN (Block 37 & 38 Malan Road)
22 January 2021: 3.00 – 9.00pm
23 January 2021: 2.00 – 7.00pm
 
 
Curator-Led Tours
 
Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films.
22 January 2021: 6.30pm, 7.30pm
23 January 2021: 3.00pm
24 January 2021: 4.00pm
29 January 2021: 6.30pm, 7.30pm
30 January 2021: 3.00pm, 5.00pm
Register here
 
Campur, Tolak, Kali, Bahagi, Sama Dengan (Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide, Equals) with Anca Rujoiu
22 January 2021: 6.00pm, 7.00pm
23 & 30 January 2021: 2.30pm, 4.30pm
Register here
 
Culture City. Culture Scape.
Public Art Trail at Mapletree Business City II.
22 – 24 & 29 – 30 January 2021: 1.30pm, 3.30pm, 5.00pm
Register here
Liquid Architecture
Machine Listening, a Curriculum
13 Mar 2021, Sat 03:00 PM - 06:00 PM

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Free Jazz III. Sound. Walks.

Register here for the Zoom link.

Activation: Improvisation and Control
by Sean Dockray, Dr James Parker, and Joel Stern (all Australia)
Saturday, 13 March 2021, 3.00 – 6.00pm Singapore / 6.00 – 9.00pm Australia
Online

MACHINE LISTENING is an investigation and experiment in collective learning, instigated by artist Sean Dockray, legal scholar James Parker, and curator Joel Stern for Liquid Architecture. The project launched in October 2020 at Unsound Festival in Poland and continues at NTU CCA Singapore.

Our devices are listening to us. Previous generations of audio-technology transmitted, recorded or manipulated sound. Today our digital voice assistants, smart speakers and a growing range of related technologies are increasingly able to analyse and respond to it as well. Scientists and engineers increasingly refer to this as ‘machine listening’, though the first widespread use of the term was in computer music. Machine listening is much more than just a new scientific discipline or vein of technical innovation however. It is also an emergent field of knowledge-power, of data extraction and colonialism, capital accumulation, automation and the management of desire. It demands critical and artistic attention.

As part of Free Jazz III, the project explores machine listening’s history in computer music, and the evolving dynamics between improvisation and control.

BIOGRAPHIES

Sean Dockray (Australia) is an artist, writer, and programmer whose work explores the politics of technology, with a particular emphasis on artificial intelligences and the algorithmic web. He is also the founding director of the Los Angeles non-profit Telic Arts Exchange, and initiator of knowledge-sharing platforms, The Public School and Aaaaarg.

Joel Stern (Australia) is a curator, researcher, and artist living and working on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia. Since 2013, Stern has been Artistic Director at Liquid Archi­tec­ture, a leading organ­i­sa­tion that creates spaces for sonic expe­ri­ence and crit­i­cal listening at the inter­sec­tion of con­tem­po­rary art and exper­i­men­tal music.  

James Parker (Australia) is an academic and curator based at Institute for International Law and Humanities at Melbourne Law School. His research focuses on the relations between law, sound and listening.

 

Image: Debris Facility, Aerial Ear, 2020. Courtesy Liquid Architecture and Debris Facility.