Retro Specks Future Pixs
2004 - 2005
Some time in May 2003, as I was coming back by train from Kuala Lumpur, I noticed an electric line along the track, running all the way from Johor to the Singapore station. At times crumbling under the thick cover of vegetation, only to later reappear, standing strong and proud with all its wiring intact, this electric line was a piece of the past which for some reason had withstood the onslaught of modernity.
Having travelled by train on many occasions between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, I had been aware for sometime already of the peculiarities associated with the train line between the two countries. This section of the train line, and the Singapore station itself, are Malaysian territory within Singaporean territory. This rather unusual situation inherited from the colonial past is so paradoxical that one administratively enters Malaysia before having physically left Singapore.
RSFP, or Retro Specks Future Pixs, was conceived as a “video and photo based time-sculpture”, an installation, in which video, photography and sculpture interacted to take the viewer back and forth in time, back and forth in space, while remaining here and now in Sculpture Square. It was based on a double screen video projection respectively showing the back and forth journeys between Tanjong Pagar and Johor Bahru.
Sketches
Exhibited Prints
and Video
Performance
Workshops
Retro Specks Future Pixs: The Book
Exhibition Invite
E-invite
Installation View
Retro Specks Future Pixs, Sculpture Square, 2004-05
RSFP / The return Ticket, National Institute of Education, 2005
Sketches
Exhibited Prints and Video
Digital prints on metal
Two-channel video projection on white cloth
Performance
Performance E-Invite
Photo documentation
Workshops
Participating Schools:
Dunman Secondary School, Fajar Secondary School, ISS International School, St. Andrew's Junior College,
Tanglin Trust School Ltd, Zhangde Primary School
Process documentation and installation views
Objects made by students
Retro Specks Future Pixs: the Book
2007
Something rather unexpected happened in the course of putting up the exhibition, something that eventually led to the production of a book. While working on the graphic explaining the layout of the installation, it suddenly dawned on me that the floor plan of RSFP was reproducing exactly the layout of the seminal 1977 drawing in which I purposely explored for the first time the notions of time and space and their nature in painting and photography. The idea to trace the progression between these two significant moments of my career took shape in the blink of an eye. And as fate would have it, I was lucky enough to be given the needed budget for this project by the team of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Some things are just meant to be.
