{"id":2139,"date":"2020-01-16T22:15:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T14:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brack.sg\/?p=2139"},"modified":"2020-02-12T22:11:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T14:11:24","slug":"utopian-cacophony-and-collective-responsibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/2020\/01\/16\/utopian-cacophony-and-collective-responsibilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Utopian Cacophony and Collective Responsibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Alfonse Chiu <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, 2019, Brack took part in a symposium convened by National Gallery Singapore<\/strong><\/a> titled We Started Something: Collectivism in Art in Asia<\/a>, which sought to explore the origins and growth of \u2018artist collectives\u2019 in Cold War-era Asia, tracing the impact of these collectives on the development of Asian art and cultural history. Brack was joined by two other collectives – Pangrok Sulap<\/a> from Malaysia and Gudskul <\/a>from Indonesia – for a day-long programme in which each collective shared a core element of their practice with a public audience. <\/em>

Pangrok Sulap led a workshop on woodblock printing, and Gudskul facilitated a ‘knowledge market’ wherein audience members taught and were taught by one another.<\/em> Brack facilitated a process of improvised world-building, inviting the audience to collectively envision and articulate what their ideal future would look, feel, smell, taste, and sound like, before thrusting them back into the ‘real’ world<\/em>. This article is authored by Alfonse Chiu<\/a>, who took part in the Brack-led workshop as a participant. <\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does your idea of paradise look like? Does it look like\nmine? How does a utopia \u2013 mine, yours, ours \u2013 feel, how does it sound? Whose\nvoice do we hear, do we want to hear, do we listen to, when we set out\u2014if we\nset out\u2014to build this ideal world? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are some of the questions that run through my head as\nI sit cross-legged and blind-folded in a cold, alien room. Or at least I think\nit is a room; all I have for recollection is stepping over a threshold into a\nspace, the chilled dry breeze of air-conditioning washing over me as I leave\nthe humid embrace of a local day. Next to me \u2013 close enough to make out the\nstill air that demarcates a person at ease, but far enough for me to know nothing\nbeyond a presence \u2013 I know someone is sitting, just like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around us, the soft sounds of waves dashing against a shore\nrise and ebb like the breaths of a planet. A voice invites us to contemplate a\njourney to the vast beyond, to build \u2013 with our words \u2013 a world close to home\nin spirit but much ahead in time. \u201cWhat would,\u201d the voice coaxes, \u201cthis future world\nlook like?\u201d What would you have this world be? Across the room another voice is\nquick to describe: \u201ca dome.\u201d From the opposite corner: \u201ca luscious, verdant\nland.\u201d Somewhere to my right: \u201ca place where animals share the gift of our\ntongue.\u201d Behind me: \u201csomewhere that love is free, but consent is still needed.\u201d\nAround us all, the sounds of a collective imagining for things yet to come.\nThere are common themes that run through what each individual conceives of a as\na better, softer world, yet there are also unspoken, seemingly vast gulfs that\nlie in the silence between each consensus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Time to let go and return, we are told, as we are brought\nback to the stark reality of our times. We open our eyes and before us is a\ntable of sand from which we are instructed to were supposed to pick out the\nbits that do not belong: beads of clear plastic, brightly coloured shards that\nwere perhaps once part of someone\u2019s toy, scraps of some kind of textile with\nfaded patterns. We work in silence and before long, we notice that the table bears\ninscriptions, names, toponyms that speak of not so distant places (we spy \u2018Singapore\u2019\namongst many others). On the wall, a video shows a group of young people entangled\nin a net of debris as they struggle in the surf on the beach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the end, we know, but how did we get here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

II.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a certain fatalism embedded within the definition\nof \u2018utopia\u2019 that tends to go unnoticed in contemporary usage. Sir Thomas More,\nwho coined the term way back in 1516, was himself cognisant of the difference\nin his proposed etymology: \u03bf\u1f50 (\u201cnot\u201d) and \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 (\u201cplace\u201d), forming Utopia<\/em>,\nor Non-Place, as compared to \u03b5\u1f56 (\u201cgood\u201d or \u201cwell\u201d) and \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 (\u201cplace\u201d),\nwhich forms Eutopia<\/em>, or Good-Place, a homophone that has since found\ngreater resonance in current discourse, but fell short of its original intended\nmeaning. Far from being the aspirational socialist commons that are often\nvisualised, More\u2019s conception of a seemingly ideal society is also one that is by\nname \u2013 impossible, by practice \u2013 unfeasible, and by origins \u2013 imaginary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While modern idealistic connotations of a utopian dream have acquired, in recent times, an oily sheen of irony (as imminent climate collapse, a potential third world war, and possible global recession loom in a not so distant future), the unfolding context also prompts an urgency that may prove to be fertile soil for new ways of envisioning a future that allows for the collective survival of humanity.  More and more, we witness a renewed vivification of civic awareness, political agency, alternate forms of knowledge that seek to counteract the colossal damages that an unchecked neoliberal world order has wrought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Given this ugly situation that we find ourselves in, it is\nimportant \u2013 now more than ever \u2013 for those of us who work in the arts and\ncultural sectors to reconsider the potential for creative expression to\nfacilitate much needed robust public discourse. What are the avenues for mass\neducation, collective reflection, and sustained action that might correct the many\ncomplex (and perhaps seemingly minor factors) that have accumulated in record\ntime into something so bleak?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

III.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After removing our blindfolds, we sat in a circle to reflect on our experience of collectively building a utopian future world. Many salient points were raised about issues like consent, consensus, and collective decision-making. A poignant meditation that provoked more questions than answers. Even now, months after the workshop, I find myself pondering these questions long after: How do we negotiate dissent within a collective? How might we reconcile essential differences in our definitions and ideals? How do we create a collective process that considers those who cannot or will not speak up? How do we decide on the world we are creating?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alfonse Chiu In August, 2019, Brack took part in a symposium convened by National Gallery Singapore titled We Started Something: Collectivism in Art in Asia, which sought to explore the origins and growth of \u2018artist collectives\u2019 in Cold War-era Asia, tracing the impact of these collectives on the development of Asian art and cultural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":2148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[451,2],"tags":[449,339,413,412,512,513,411],"class_list":["post-2139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-conversations","tag-artworkshop","tag-bracksg","tag-collectivism","tag-gudskul","tag-nationalgallerysingapore","tag-ngs","tag-pangroksulap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2139"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2197,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139\/revisions\/2197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brack.sg\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}