Singaporean Experimental Artists at The Unifiedfield AIR Programme.
Organised by The Unifiedfield with the support of The Substation and the National Arts Council.

24 -25th January 2015, The Substation.

Entrance fee: free / voluntary donation. 

The Unifiedfield is proud to present the outcome of the projects produced by the experimental Singaporean artists who participated since 2012 at The Unifiedfield´s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Programme in Granada, Spain.  A showcase with live performances, experimental music, screenings, artist talks and workshops.

Artists:  Zulkifle Mahmod, Tania De Rozario, Loo Zihan, Kai Lam, anGie seah, Shaun Sankaran & Natasha Noor, Bani Haykal & Shahila Baharom, Harry Chew, Tara Transitory aka One Man Nation, Marta Moreno Muñoz.

Programme:

· Saturday 24th January, 19.00 - 22.00h:

Introduction to The Unifiedfield Artist-in-Residence programme and the participant artists.

‘Imaginary City, Granada’ audio field recording by Zulkifle Mahmod.

‘The Devil Un-Dressed’, a text by Tania De Rozario.

‘Every Heart Vibrates to That Iron String’, video documentation of a performance by anGie seah.
‘Duende’, an experimental film by Loo Zihan.
‘Kai Lam Sucks Big Time’, a performance by Kai Lam + jam session with participants of the circuit bending workshop.
‘The Soundtrack to Granada’, live sound performance + video by Shaun Sankaran & Natasha Noor,

· Sunday 25th January, 19.00 - 22.00h:

‘Metaphrasis’, a live audiovisual performance by Bani Haykal & Shahila Baharom + artist talk.

‘Tara’, a documentary in progress by Harry Chew+ artist talk.

‘//gender|o|noise\\’, live sound performance by One Man Nation, aka Tara Transitory + artist talk.

‘Singapur: Bulimia and Transference’, a performance by Marta Moreno Muñoz.

Workshops:

· Saturday 24th January, 13.00 - 17.00h: Circuit Bending workshop by Kai Lam.

· Sunday 25th January, 13.00 - 17.00h: Performance art workshop by Marta Moreno Muñoz.

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The Unifiedfield is an independent art space and artist-run organization focusing on the experimental aspects of sound, video and performance art. It previously occupied a traditional complex amongst rice fields in Yogyakarta (Indonesia), subsequently moving into a cave in Granada (Spain) before settling in an antique building nestled in Granada’s historic Moorish quarters, the Albayzín, where it has been running its artist residency for the last three years. In 2013 The Unifiedfield initiated its Nomadic Artist-in-Residence Program in The Philippines and it is planning to establish a permanent residency in Siargao island in the near future.

Since its inception in 2009, some of the primary goals of The Unifiedfield have been the production and diffusion of new interdisciplinary and non-commercial forms of art, together with the creation of artistic exchanges between Asia and Europe. In this time, it has organized monthly events, video art screenings and experimental music concerts at both its Yogyakarta and Granada spaces; produced site-specific works and held clandestine interventions in public spaces; initiated two Artist-In-Residence programmes; curated and exhibited at art institutions such as Nikolaj Kunsthallen (Copenhagen), the Museum Of Contemporary Art (Taipei) and the Singapore Art Museum; conducted workshops on performance and sound art; produced The Future Sounds Of Folk in partnership with Amsterdam-based institution STEIM; presented experimental music from Singapore at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao as part of a fringe festival; and given presentations at the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), amongst others.

+ info: www.theunifiedfield.org

‘Imaginary City, Granada’ audio field recording by Zulkifle Mahmod:

The objective of this project is to create a new body of work and investigate the sound ecology in different cities. For his residency at The Unifiedfield, the artist recorded sound from the city of Granada and combined it with sound from Singapore, Hong Kong and Ptuj and sound from his DIY sound instruments. These sounds were layered together during a live performance.

 Zulkifle Mahmod (b. 1975) is at the forefront of a generation of sound-media artists in Singapore’s contemporary art development. Zul was one of the participants for the 52nd Venice Biennale in Italy for the Singapore Pavillion in 2007 along with three other artists. Adopting a multi-disciplinary/multi-genre approach, that also includes drawings, prints, sculptures and ready-mades, Zul has exhibited in Singapore, Thailand, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Russia, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Norway and Finland.

‘The Devil Un-Dressed’, a text by Tania De Rozario:

An excerpt from ‘The Devil Un-Dressed’, an ongoing project re-imagining representations of the monstrous feminine in East Asia. 24 & 25 January 2015 at The Substation (Singapore):
Singaporean Experimental Artists at The Unifiedfield AIR Programme, organised by The Unifiedfield with the support of The Substation and the National Arts Council.
The Unifiedfield is proud to present the outcome of the projects produced by the experimental Singaporean artists who participated since 2012 at The Unifiedfield´s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Programme in Granada, Spain. A showcase with live performances, experimental music, screenings, artist talks and workshops. Artists: Zulkifle Mahmod, Kai Lam, Zihan Loo, Harry Chew, Angie Seah, Bani Haykal and Shahila Baharom, Shaun Sankaran and Natasha Noor, Tania De Rozario, Tara Transitory aka One Man Nation, Marta Moreno Muñoz.
Special thanks to co-organizer Shahila Baharom.
*Zihan Loo's video has been rated M18.

CLICK on the pictures to see them FULL SIZE
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THE SUBSTATION. 45, ARMENIAN STREET, SINGAPORE.
www.substation.org
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* FREE/ VOLUNTARY DONATION.
· SATURDAY 24th JANUARY, 19.00 - 22.00h:
- The Unifiedfield Artist-in-Residence programme./- ‘Imaginary City, Granada’ audio field recording by Zulkifle Mahmod./- ‘The Devil Un-Dressed’, a text by Tania De Rozario./- ‘Every Heart Vibrates to That Iron String’, video documentation of a performance by anGie seah./- ‘Duende’, an experimental film by Zihan Loo*.*Zihan Loo's video has been rated M18./- ‘Kai Lam Sucks Big Time’, a performance by Kai Lam + jam session with participants of the circuit bending workshop./- ‘The Soundtrack to Granada’, live sound performance + video by Shaun Sankaran & Natasha Noor.
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· SUNDAY 25th JANUARY, 19.00 - 22.00h:
- ‘Metaphrasis’, a live audiovisual performance by Bani Haykal & Shahila Baharom + artist talk./- ‘Tara’, a documentary in progress by Harry Chew+ artist talk./- ‘//gender|o|noise\\’, live sound performance by One Man Nation, aka Tara Transitory + artist talk./- ‘Singapur: Bulimia and Transference’, a performance by Marta Moreno Muñoz.
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· WORKSHOPS, 13.00 - 17.00h:
- Saturday 24th January: Circuit Bending workshop by Kai Lam.
- Sunday 25th January: Performance art workshop by Marta Moreno Muñoz.
* Please scroll down for full information about the content of the workshops. Workshops fee: voluntary donation. Registration by email writing to: info@theunifiedfield.org
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Download FULL PROGRAM:
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‘Imaginary City, Granada’ audio field recording by Zulkifle Mahmod:
The objective of this project is to create a new body of work and investigate the sound ecology in different cities. For his residency at The Unifiedfield, the artist recorded sound from the city of Granada and combined it with sound from Singapore, Hong Kong and Ptuj and sound from his DIY sound instruments. These sounds were layered together during a live performance.
Zulkifle Mahmod (b. 1975) is at the forefront of a generation of sound-media artists in Singapore’s contemporary art development. Zul was one of the participants for the 52nd Venice Biennale in Italy for the Singapore Pavillion in 2007 along with three other artists. Adopting a multi-disciplinary/multi-genre approach, that also includes drawings, prints, sculptures and ready-mades, Zul has exhibited in Singapore, Thailand, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Russia, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Norway and Finland.

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‘The Devil Un-Dressed’, a text by Tania De Rozario:
An excerpt from ‘The Devil Un-Dressed’, an ongoing project re-imagining representations of the monstrous feminine in East Asia: ‘I've always been fascinated with how female horror figures are constructed, and in particular how the construction of the female villain in Asian horror often revolves around tensions between agency and oppression: On one hand, the typical female ghost is an autonomous character who seeks justice on her own terms; on another, agency is only granted in death and in the demonization of her person as villain. Visually and narratively, elements of the “horrific” are also derived from the woman’s failings in traditional gender roles: virgin, wife, daughter, sister, mother, sex object.’
Tania De Rozario is an artist, writer and curator interested in issues of gender and sexuality. She is the author of “Tender Delirium” (Math Paper Press, 2013), which was shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize, and was the 2011 winner of the NAC-SPH Golden Point Award for English Poetry. She is currently penning her second full-length book, ”And The Walls Come Crumbling Down”, and is an Associate Artist with The Substation (Singapore), where she is working on “Making Trouble”, a research project documenting links between activism and visual arts in post-2000 Singapore. Tania is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of EtiquetteSG, a collective that develops and platforms art, writing, film and music by women, and increasingly, by non-binary-identifying individuals.

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‘Every Heart Vibrates to That Iron String’, video documentation of a performance by anGie seah:
anGie seah’s multidisciplinary practise explores human nature in relation to the social environment, through encounters with the ephemeral realm of sound. For anGie seah, the human voice is poetry and it expresses the emotional truth of the self. Since 2002, she has continued to create vocal pieces rooted in raw emotion and the imagination in the context of her autobiographical situations. Her intense and emotive performances evoke the complexities of the human psyche, breaking out of the limitations of spoken language in search of authentic expression and primal beauty; the unrestrained voice begins to embody a language with its own sacred vocabulary, synthesising new meanings, contexts and associations through its raw articulation. Spontaneity is a key artistic strategy for anGie, allowing chance and intuition to navigate a range of shifting emotional resonances and psychological states.
Born in 1979, anGie seah is a Singaporean artist whose multidisciplinary practise traverses the mediums of drawing, installation, performance and sculpture to respond the human condition in relation to the social environment. In 2000, she was awarded an education bursary from National Arts Council, graduating from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Arts, with a major in sculpture. She was also awarded a culture scholarship from the Goethe Institute, Berlin, in 2005. Since 1997, anGie has exhibited works, taken part in artist residencies and participated in performance art festivals both locally and internationally in Switzerland, Indonesia, Belgium, Romania, Poland, Spain, Germany, Italy, The Philippines, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Thailand, China and Myanmar. In these recent years, she has been actively involved in creating art projects with communities, She has also conducted participatory workshops widely for families, underprivileged children, children with disabilities and the elderly. With support from National Arts Council of Singapore and Esplanade -Theatres by the Bay.

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‘Duende’, an experimental film by Zihan Loo*:
‘Duende’ takes inspiration from Federico Garcia Lorca’s ‘Ode to Walt Whitman’ and the Grenadian poet’s letters from New York, being the third part of a trilogy of essay films that the artist has been working on since 2009.
*Zihan Loo's video has been rated M18.
Zihan Loo is a performance and moving-image artist from Singapore. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has had recent exhibitions and showings at NEXT / Art Chicago, Macau International Performance Art Festival and Defibrillator (Chicago). His moving-image works have been screened in various film festivals including AFI Fest (L.A.), Pusan International Film Festival, Newfest (New York City) and Frameline (San Francisco). He was the recipient of a James Nelson Raymond Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and he currently teaches cinema in different institutions in Singapore.

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‘Kai Lam Sucks Big Time’, a performance by Kai Lam:
For Kai Lam, performance is a repeated act of resistance against the dominant cultural hegemony that has become an authoritarian machinery which systematically oppresses individual freedom and restricts the evolution of human creativity. His work is about us as hybrid beings, how cultural surrogation takes shape and is built through the process of performance.
Kai Lam (Singapore, 1974) has proved an active innovator since his artistic involvements in 1995 during which he was majoring in Sculpture at Lasalle-SIA College of the Arts. In 2001, he was awarded a study grant from Lee Foundation and an education bursary from National Arts Council, and graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Arts where he majored in Sculpture. Versatile and prolific skills in drawing, painting, sculpture, mixed-media installation and performance, Lam also collaborated in theater productions and co-organize art events. As President of alternative art group, Artists Village, he helped initiate “Artists Investigating Monuments” in 2000, presenting installations and performances in various public sites. This was later presented again in Singapore Art Museum, 2004 and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and at HKW, Berlin, 2005. In 2003, he started to co-organize “Future Of Imagination”, an annual international performance art festival that showcases and focuses on performance practice and in 2009 he co-initiated, “Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak” (R.I.T.E.S). Since 1999, he has travelled to different countries in Asia and Europe to present his art projects.

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‘The Soundtrack to Granada’, live sound performance + video by Shaun Sankaran & Natasha Noor:
With Granada’s beautiful historical architecture and the nature surrounding it, Shaun Sankaran and Natasha Noor collaborated to turn Granada’s vibe and feel into a visual and aural experience. The performance will be the communication of emotions, as well as spontaneous immediate responses to the video filmed during their residency, capturing the essence and beauty of the city.
Shaun Sankaran (Singapore, 1983) has presented his brand of experimental sounds across the globe under his various incarnations with several album releases, and collaborations under his belt. Having graduated from Middlesex University with a B.A. in Recording Arts. He went on to work as a lecturer at the School of Sound & Audio Engineering Singapore (SAE). While mostly based in Singapore, he has also performed in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom) as well as neighboring Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia. Founder of Earthbound SG, which showcases experimental music in Singapore. Shaun Sankaran has collaborated with C-drik Fermont, Marc Chia aka One Man Nation, Dharma from The Observatory (Chöd), Shark Fung (Wu Wei) and Zai Kuning. (Dark Vertigo). In May 2011, Shaun Sankaran directed and performed alongside Preet Kaur at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, for audio-visual project called “We Live”.
Natasha Noor (Singapore, 1989) is a multidisciplinary artist who has been a practitioner of photography, painting and visual art & design. She was enrolled in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied Western Painting as her major. She has produced a string of photography, video and design for mostly bands and events such as the experimental music collective “Earthbound” as founded by Shaun Sankaran, Dharma from The Observatory and Shark Fung and also has a collection of her personal artwork along the years. Apart from Fine Arts, she has participated in various acting roles, some in established theatre companies such as Ravindran Drama Group.

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‘Metaphrasis’, a live audiovisual performance by Bani Haykal & Shahila Baharom:
As a collaborative duo, Bani Haykal and Shahila Baharom’s interest in interdisciplinary and intercultural projects tap into culture and language as primary resources. They investigate the correlation of the visual and sonic languages, combining them together to formulate audiovisual performances revolving around a narrative. During their residency, the artists further explored and developed their audio-visual performance vocabulary. This body of work included the development of a new physical structure (instrument / sound sculpture) which will be incorporated into a live performance which consists of overhead projections, physical movements and sound.
Bani Haykal writes and experiments with text / music. Based in Singapore, he was an Associate Artist of The Substation and his research looks into the culture, social relevance and perception of music coupled with his interest in narratives and performance. He is published with one book of poetry (Sit Quietly In The Flood) and has read / presented works in several festivals including World Event Young Artist UK, The Kuala Lumpur International Literary Festival, Singapore Arts Festival and The M1 Fringe Festival among others. His work with music includes being the vocalist and principal songwriter for alternative rock band, b-quartet, a contributor to performance / music collective, mux, audio-visual performance group OFFCUFF and a past member of The Observatory. As a solo musician, he explores music and sound through structured improvisation and spoken word, having worked on 2 studies, Ergophobia & how i got lost and died trying. Haykal has collaborated, exhibited, performed and toured in local and international festivals including Media/Art Kitchen (Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines), World Event Young Artists (UK), da:ns Festival and The M1 Fringe Festival among others.
Shahila bte Baharom is a visual artist primarily performing with and utilizing overhead projectors. Shahila is the co-founder of audio-visual collective OFFCUFF and as a live performer she has collaborated with various artists including Miriam Nash (UK), Patyatann (Mauritius), Mike Cooper (UK), Nicolas Sanchez (Uruguay), The Observatory, Arif ´Reef´Ayab, Jordan Rais and Cheryl Ong (Singapore), amongst others. She has participated in several festivals including the first World Event Young Artist 2012 (UK), LitUp Festival and Singapore Night Festival.

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‘Tara’, a documentary in progress by Harry Chew:
This documentary follows Tara Transitory, formerly known as Marc Chia, in her journey towards the feminine spectrum. An experimental musician from Singapore based in Europe, she performs under the moniker ‘One Man Nation’. Edited in a non-linear manner, Tara gives the audience a voyeuristic glimpse into the chaotic and often, heart-wrenching world of a transgender’s emotional and physical transformation. The aim of Harry Chew´s residency was to further explore and document Tara’s life touring in Europe, her day to day activities and interviewing friends who knew her when she was Marc. The wide spectrum of interviews- from gender studies experts to international artists to friends in Granada- will further reveal Tara’s kaleidoscopic world and highlight topics regarding transsexualism and art.
Harry Chew graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Film Sound & Video in 2002, and has been working with the video medium ever since. While his day job involves creating and conceptualizing video projects for various MNCs and organizations with a fresh approach, he seeks balance and symmetry by producing and exhibiting documentaries, experimental projects and music videos. With a keen interest in traveling, he has numerous overseas corporate and artistic work experiences from Canada, Cambodia, France, Germany, Holland, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Poland, Shanghai, Spain, Thailand, Vietnam and the United States. Additionally, he has independently produced (directed, filmed & edited) two documentaries- Plunge and Switchbacks- with screenings in various international film festivals. Switchbacks has also received a best documentary award in Wales and a special mention award in Houston. In April 2013, he was invited to speak at Reitveld University regarding his work and his documentary process. The love for the medium has also inspired him to form the Dirty 30s- a loose collective of creative individuals who enjoy working together, on projects involving music, art & design and video. They have showcased these works both individually and collectively over the last two and a half years.

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‘//gender|o|noise\\’, live sound performance by One Man Nation, aka Tara Transitory:
One Man Nation´s work was best described by Portuguese avant-garde collective Soopa after a concert in Porto as a performance that transmitted a deep narrative feeling of geopolitical disenchantment, ingrained into dark textures. This disenchantment exists on more levels than purely narrative, it is exorcised by the use of every part of her body as a whole, that presence with the inclusion of the sounds produced by the intended or accidental gestures and physical actions – everything is technology making anything and everything potentially an instrument, a source of sound, a critique – the avoidance of a priori drawn ways, ontologically reinventing the possibilities of life, and as a living performer/artist, exploring all the possibilities in the here, in the now.
Tara Transitory aka One Man Nation is an experimental musician with a background in media and sound art. In 2009 she co-founded The Unifiedfield together with Marta Moreno Muñoz, which they co-directed till 2013. She is trans, nomadic and is currently sending out smoke signals from the International //gender|o|noise\\ Underground exploring the themes of gender, noise and catharsis through performances, talks and the collective experience of creating ephemeral happenings with trans*queer communities everywhere. Originally from Singapore, she splits his time between Asia|Spain where she is developing The International //gender|o|noise\\ Underground and runs the Translæctica nights. Tara performs solo as One Man Nation, with Truna as { 23 Shadows of Amnesia } and with Pierre Bastien as Mecanation. She has collaborated extensively and her past collaborations include Vincent Moon, C-drik Fermont, Kato Hideki, Hilary Jeffrey, Richard Scott, Alfredo Genovesi and Soopa Collective; has performed internationally at theGuggenheim Museum (Bilbao), Museum of Contemporary Art (Taipei), ISEA (Ruhr), Mapping (Geneva), Piksel (Bergen), MEM (Bilbao), STEIM Jamboree (Amsterdam), Makeart(Poitiers), Fete 0.1 (Orléans), SummerLAB (Gijon), Steirischer Herbst (Graz) and Sonic Protest (Paris) amongst others.

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‘Singapur: Bulimia and Transference’, a performance by Marta Moreno Muñoz:
‘Singapur: Bulimia and Transference’ is a reverse osmosis performance depicting Singapore through its symptoms. This piece attempts to be an archeological revision of the artist´s personal life / past work and the intra-history of the space where the performance will take place, attempting in the process to return to a certain ‘psychic paleolithism’, a more intuitive performative practice which involves a departure from symbolic thinking and the disruption of the ‘law of the father’ by more archaic impulses.
Marta Moreno Muñoz (Spain, 1978) is a performance and video artist with a background in experimental theatre and other time-based arts. Graduating in 2002 with a M.A in Fine Arts, her work has focused predominantly on “feminine” subjectivity, dissolution of the ego and the notion of pre-oedipal nostalgia in response to a patriarchal and undesirable reality. She is at present in a transitional stage, shifting towards the conceptualization of larger-scale projects exploring the complex interchange between performance art and cinematic language. Currently based in The Philippines, she is working on personal artistic projects, researching for her PhD thesis “Art as an Experience of Dissolution of the Self” and directing The Unifiedfield; Marta Moreno has lived, produced and engaged in artistic works in Spain, UK, Turkey, India, The Netherlands, Indonesia, and exhibited here and there.

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Workshops:
· Saturday 24th January, 13.00 - 17.00h: Circuit Bending workshop by Kai Lam.
Kai Lam (aka Singlish Punk) is a multi-disciplinary artist with a background in Sculpture. Kai Lam’s foray into aural works and sonic arts is a result of his extended practice in video, installation and performance art.
The participants will need to come prepared and required to bring any numbers of sound producing toys / radio / musical instruments/ musical keyboards / usb speakers etc, as long as the objects are battery operated, they will be suitable for the workshop. The artist will give a brief introduction of circuit bending and begin work with the workshop participants on their machines. The workshop will mostly consist of finding sounds ‘spots’ and soldering knobs and switches onto the circuit boards.
Students must bring these materials: sound producing machines (toys /radio/ instruments, etc), soldering iron / pen, etc… Optional: hot-glue gun, wire cutter.
* All participants of the workshop will be invited to perform in an improvised jam session together with Kai Lam and their circuit-bent instruments at The Substation.
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· Sunday 25th January, 13.00 - 17.00h : Performance art workshop by Marta Moreno Muñoz.
Marta Moreno Muñoz co-founder and director of The Unifiedfield is a performance and video artist with a background in experimental theatre and other time-based arts.
At The Unifiedfield we understand artistic practice as a vehicle that can transform life, our relation with ourselves, society, and the natural world by experimenting with our subjectivities, expanding the consciousness and therefore creating new existential scenarios. In performance art practice sometimes all the stored energies are released, thus facilitating the opening to new states of consciousness. Performance can play this role of de-conditioning us of our habitual mental processes allowing both the artist and the audience to discard learned models of perception and giving way to a number of new phenomena that otherwise can hardly be grasped with the rational conceptual structures.
Taking on a process rather than goal oriented approach, in the proposed workshop we will focus through different activities in the development of intuition and introspection as fundamental elements of performance art. Concentrating more on the practical side of the subject, the aim of this workshop is not only the conceptualization of a time-based art work as it could be a live performance, happening, video-action or sound intervention but also the playful experimentation as part of the process of creation.
Workshop description:
· Reflection on the main elements and notions of performance art: time, space, presence, concept, process, context, non-representation and participation.
· Reading of the diverse and open definitions given by artists working in performance art followed by a discussion of what experiences or knowledge the students previously had with performance art.
· Activities based on the 'instructions for performance' by Yoko Ono, students will conceptualize new instructions in different groups.
· Here and Now: In this exercise students are invited to cross the room as slowly as possible, being feeling fully aware their bodies in space and their relation to it.
· Activity based on the game of the mystical trees of Yogyakarta:
- ask yourself a fundamental question in regards your present creative process/ the current moment you are living- following your inner compass, develop a special technic to locate two particular spots on the ground- with your eyes closed try to walk in a straight line in between those two spots while focusing on your fundamental question.
· Collective discussion about the processes generated during this session
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Workshops fee: voluntary donation.
Registration by email writing to: info@theunifiedfield.org
Tania De Rozario is an artist, writer and curator interested in issues of gender and sexuality. She is the author of “Tender Delirium”  (Math Paper Press, 2013), which was shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize, and was  the 2011 winner of the NAC-SPH Golden Point Award for English Poetry. She is currently penning her second full-length book,  ”And The Walls Come Crumbling Down”, and is an Associate Artist with The Substation (Singapore), where she is working on “Making Trouble”, a research project documenting links between activism and visual arts in post-2000 Singapore. Tania is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of EtiquetteSG, a collective that develops and platforms art, writing, film and music by women, and increasingly, by non-binary-identifying individuals.

‘Every Heart Vibrates to That Iron String’,  video documentation of a performance by anGie seah:
anGie seah’s multidisciplinary practise explores human nature in relation to the social environment, through encounters with the ephemeral realm of sound. For anGie seah, the human voice is poetry and it expresses the emotional truth of the self. Since 2002, she has continued to create vocal pieces rooted in raw emotion and the imagination in the context of her autobiographical situations. Her intense and emotive performances evoke the complexities of the human psyche, breaking out of the limitations of spoken language in search of authentic expression and primal beauty; the unrestrained voice begins to embody a language with its own sacred vocabulary, synthesising new meanings, contexts and associations through its raw articulation. Spontaneity is a key artistic strategy for anGie, allowing chance and intuition to navigate a range of shifting emotional resonances and psychological states.

Born in 1979, anGie seah is a Singaporean artist whose multidisciplinary practise traverses the mediums of drawing, installation, performance and sculpture to respond the human condition in relation to the social environment. In 2000, she was awarded an education bursary from National Arts Council, graduating from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Arts, with a major in sculpture. She was also awarded a culture scholarship from the Goethe Institute, Berlin, in 2005. Since 1997, anGie has exhibited works, taken part in artist residencies and participated in performance art festivals both locally and internationally in Switzerland, Indonesia, Belgium, Romania, Poland, Spain, Germany, Italy, The Philippines, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Thailand, China and Myanmar. In these recent years, she has been actively involved in creating art projects with communities, She has also conducted participatory workshops widely for families, underprivileged children, children with disabilities and the elderly. With support from National Arts Council of Singapore and Esplanade -Theatres by the Bay.

‘Duende’, an experimental film by Loo Zihan:
‘Duende’ takes inspiration from Federico Garcia Lorca’s ‘Ode to Walt Whitman’ and the Grenadian poet’s letters from New York, being the third part of a trilogy of essay films that the artist has been working on since 2009.
Loo Zihan is a performance and moving-image artist from Singapore. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has had recent exhibitions and showings at NEXT / Art Chicago, Macau International Performance Art Festival and Defibrillator (Chicago). His moving-image works have been screened in various film festivals including AFI Fest (L.A.), Pusan International Film Festival, Newfest (New York City) and Frameline (San Francisco). He was the recipient of a James Nelson Raymond Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and he currently teaches cinema in different institutions in Singapore.

‘Kai Lam Sucks Big Time’, a performance by Kai Lam:
For Kai Lam, performance is a repeated act of resistance against the dominant cultural hegemony that has become an authoritarian machinery which systematically oppresses individual freedom and restricts the evolution of human creativity. His work is about us as hybrid beings, how cultural surrogation takes shape and is built through the process of performance.
Kai Lam, (Singapore, 1974) has proved an active innovator since his artistic involvements in 1995 during which he was majoring in Sculpture at Lasalle-SIA College of the Arts. In 2001, he was awarded a study grant from Lee Foundation and an education bursary from National Arts Council, and graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Arts where he majored in Sculpture. Versatile and prolific skills in drawing, painting, sculpture, mixed-media installation and performance, Lam also collaborated in theater productions and co-organize art events. As President of alternative art group, Artists Village, he helped initiate “Artists Investigating Monuments” in 2000, presenting installations and performances in various public sites. This was later presented again in Singapore Art Museum, 2004 and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and at HKW, Berlin, 2005. In 2003, he started to co-organize “Future Of Imagination”, an annual international performance art festival that showcases and focuses on performance practice and in 2009 he co-initiated, “Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak” (R.I.T.E.S). Since 1999, he has travelled to different countries in Asia and Europe to present his art projects.

‘The Soundtrack to Granada’, live sound performance + video by Shaun Sankaran & Natasha Noor:
With Granada’s beautiful historical architecture and the nature surrounding it, Shaun Sankaran and Natasha Noor collaborated to turn Granada’s vibe and feel into a visual and aural experience. The performance will be the communication of emotions, as well as spontaneous immediate responses to the video filmed during their residency, capturing the essence and beauty of the city.

Shaun Sankaran (Singapore, 1983) has presented his brand of experimental sounds across the globe under his various incarnations with several album releases, and collaborations under his belt. Having graduated from Middlesex University with a B.A. in Recording Arts. He went on to work as a lecturer at the School of Sound & Audio Engineering Singapore (SAE). While mostly based in Singapore, he has also performed in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom) as well as neighboring Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia. Founder of Earthbound SG, which showcases experimental music in Singapore. Shaun Sankaran has collaborated with C-drik Fermont, Marc Chia aka One Man Nation, Dharma from The Observatory (Chöd), Shark Fung (Wu Wei) and Zai Kuning. (Dark Vertigo). In May 2011, Shaun Sankaran directed and performed alongside Preet Kaur at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, for audio-visual project called “We Live”.

Natasha Noor (Singapore, 1989) is a multidisciplinary artist who has been a practitioner of photography, painting and visual art & design. She was enrolled in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied Western Painting as her major. She has produced a string of photography, video and design for mostly bands and events such as the experimental music collective “Earthbound” as founded by Shaun Sankaran, Dharma from The Observatory and Shark Fung and also has a collection of her personal artwork along the years. Apart from Fine Arts, she has participated in various acting roles, some in established theatre companies such as Ravindran Drama Group.

‘Metaphrasis’, a live audiovisual performance by Bani Haykal & Shahila Baharom:

As a collaborative duo, Bani Haykal and Shahila Baharom’s interest in interdisciplinary and intercultural projects tap into culture and language as primary resources. They investigate the correlation of the visual and sonic languages, combining them together to formulate audiovisual performances revolving around a narrative. During their residency, the artists further explored and developed their audio-visual performance vocabulary. This body of work included the development of a new physical structure (instrument / sound sculpture) which will be incorporated into a live performance which consists of overhead projections, physical movements and sound.

Bani Haykal writes and experiments with text / music. Based in Singapore, he was an Associate Artist of The Substation and his research looks into the culture, social relevance and perception of music coupled with his interest in narratives and performance. He is published with one book of poetry (Sit Quietly In The Flood) and has read / presented works in several festivals including World Event Young Artist UK, The Kuala Lumpur International Literary Festival, Singapore Arts Festival and The M1 Fringe Festival among others. His work with music includes being the vocalist and principal songwriter for alternative rock band, b-quartet, a contributor to performance / music collective, mux, audio-visual performance group OFFCUFF and a past member of The Observatory. As a solo musician, he explores music and sound through structured improvisation and spoken word, having worked on 2 studies, Ergophobia & how i got lost and died trying. Haykal has collaborated, exhibited, performed and toured in local and international festivals including Media/Art Kitchen (Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines), World Event Young Artists (UK), da:ns Festival and The M1 Fringe Festival among others.

Shahila bte Baharom is a visual artist primarily performing with and utilizing overhead projectors. Shahila is the co-founder of audio-visual collective OFFCUFF and as a live performer she has collaborated with various artists including Miriam Nash (UK), Patyatann (Mauritius), Mike Cooper (UK), Nicolas Sanchez (Uruguay), The Observatory, Arif ´Reef´Ayab, Jordan Rais and Cheryl Ong (Singapore), amongst others. She has participated in several festivals including the first World Event Young Artist 2012 (UK), LitUp Festival and Singapore Night Festival.

‘Tara’, a documentary in progress by Harry Chew:

This documentary follows Tara Transitory, formerly known as Marc Chia, in her journey towards the feminine spectrum. An experimental musician from Singapore based in Europe, she performs under the moniker ‘One Man Nation’.  Edited in a non-linear manner, Tara gives the audience a voyeuristic glimpse into the chaotic and often, heart-wrenching world of a transgender’s emotional and physical transformation. The aim of Harry Chew´s residency was to further explore and document Tara’s life touring in Europe, her day to day activities and interviewing friends who knew her when she was Marc. The wide spectrum of interviews- from gender studies experts to international artists to friends in Granada- will further reveal Tara’s kaleidoscopic world and highlight topics regarding transsexualism and art.

Harry Chew graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Film Sound & Video in 2002, and has been working with the video medium ever since.  While his day job involves creating and conceptualizing video projects for various MNCs and organizations with a fresh approach, he seeks balance and symmetry by producing and exhibiting documentaries, experimental projects and music videos.  With a keen interest in traveling, he has numerous overseas corporate and artistic work experiences from Canada, Cambodia, France, Germany, Holland, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Poland, Shanghai,  Spain, Thailand, Vietnam and the United States. Additionally, he has independently produced (directed, filmed & edited) two documentaries- Plunge and Switchbacks- with screenings in various international film festivals. Switchbacks has also received a best documentary award in Wales and a special mention award in Houston. In April 2013, he was invited to speak at Reitveld University regarding his work and his documentary process.  The love for the medium has also inspired him to form the Dirty 30s- a loose collective of creative individuals who enjoy working together, on projects involving music, art & design and video. They have showcased these works both individually and collectively over the last two and a half years.

‘//gender|o|noise\\’, live sound performance by One Man Nation, aka Tara Transitory:

One Man Nation´s work was best described by Portuguese avant-garde collective Soopa after a concert in Porto as a performance that transmitted a deep narrative feeling of geopolitical disenchantment, ingrained into dark textures. This disenchantment exists on more levels than purely narrative, it is exorcised by the use of every part of her body as a whole, that presence with the inclusion of the sounds produced by the intended or accidental gestures and physical actions – everything is technology making anything and everything potentially an instrument, a source of sound, a critique – the avoidance of a priori drawn ways, ontologically reinventing the possibilities of life, and as a living performer/artist, exploring all the possibilities in the here, in the now.

Tara Transitory aka One Man Nation is an experimental musician with a background in media and sound art. In 2009 she co-founded The Unifiedfield together with Marta Moreno Muñoz, which they co-directed till 2013. She is trans, nomadic and is currently sending out smoke signals from the International //gender|o|noise\\ Underground exploring the themes of gender, noise and catharsis through performances, talks and the collective experience of creating ephemeral happenings with trans*queer communities everywhere.  Originally from Singapore, she splits his time between Asia|Spain where she is developing The International //gender|o|noise\\ Underground and runs the Translæctica nights. Tara performs solo as One Man Nation, with Truna as { 23 Shadows of Amnesia } and with Pierre Bastien as Mecanation.  She has collaborated extensively and her past collaborations include Vincent Moon, C-drik Fermont, Kato Hideki, Hilary Jeffrey, Richard Scott, Alfredo Genovesi and Soopa Collective; has performed internationally at the Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao), Museum of Contemporary Art (Taipei), ISEA (Ruhr), Mapping (Geneva), Piksel (Bergen), MEM (Bilbao), STEIM Jamboree (Amsterdam), Makeart(Poitiers), Fete 0.1 (Orléans), SummerLAB (Gijon), Steirischer Herbst (Graz) and Sonic Protest (Paris) amongst others.

‘Singapur: Bulimia and Transference’, a performance by Marta Moreno Muñoz:

‘Singapur: Bulimia and Transference’ is a reverse osmosis performance depicting Singapore through its symptoms. This piece attempts to be an archeological revision of the artist´s personal life / past work and the intra-history of the space where the performance will take place, attempting in the process to return to a certain ‘psychic paleolithism’, a more intuitive performative practice which involves a departure from symbolic thinking and the disruption of the ‘law of the father’ by more archaic impulses.

Marta Moreno Muñoz (Spain, 1978) is a performance and video artist with a background in experimental theatre and other time-based arts. Graduating in 2002 with a M.A in Fine Arts, her work has focused predominantly on “feminine” subjectivity, dissolution of the ego and the notion of pre-oedipal nostalgia in response to a patriarchal and undesirable reality. She is at present in a transitional stage, shifting towards the conceptualization of larger-scale projects exploring the complex interchange between performance art and cinematic language. Currently based in The Philippines, she is working on personal artistic projects, researching for her PhD thesis “Art as an Experience of Dissolution of the Self” and directing The Unifiedfield; Marta Moreno has lived, produced and engaged in artistic works in Spain, UK, Turkey, India, The Netherlands, Indonesia, and exhibited here and there.

Workshops:

· Saturday 24th January, 13.00 - 17.00h: Circuit Bending workshop by Kai Lam.

Kai Lam (aka Singlish Punk) is a multi-disciplinary artist with a background in Sculpture. Kai Lam’s foray into aural works and sonic arts is a result of his extended practice in video, installation and performance art.

The participants will need to come prepared and required to bring any numbers of sound producing toys / radio / musical instruments/ musical keyboards / usb speakers etc, as long as the objects are battery operated, they will be suitable for the workshop. The artist will give a brief introduction of circuit bending and begin work with the workshop participants on their machines. The workshop will mostly consist of finding sounds ‘spots’ and soldering knobs and switches onto the circuit boards.

Students must bring these materials: sound producing machines (toys /radio/ instruments, etc), soldering iron / pen, etc… Optional: hot-glue gun, wire cutter.
* All participants of the workshop will be invited to perform in an improvised jam session together with Kai Lam and their circuit-bent instruments at The Substation Gallery.
Workshop fee: voluntary donation.
Registration by email writing to: info@theunifiedfield.org

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· Sunday 25th January, 13.00 - 17.00h : Performance art workshop by Marta Moreno Muñoz.

Marta Moreno Muñoz co-founder and director of The Unifiedfield is a performance and video artist with a background in experimental theatre and other time-based arts.
At The Unifiedfield we understand artistic practice as a vehicle that can transform life, our relation with ourselves, society, and the natural world by experimenting with our subjectivities, expanding the consciousness and therefore creating new existential scenarios. In performance art practice sometimes all the stored energies are released, thus facilitating the opening to new states of consciousness. Performance can play this role of de-conditioning us of our habitual mental processes allowing both the artist and the audience to discard learned models of perception and giving way to a number of new phenomena that otherwise can hardly be grasped with the rational conceptual structures.
Taking on a process rather than goal oriented approach, in the proposed workshop we will focus through different activities in the development of intuition and introspection as fundamental elements of performance art. Concentrating more on the practical side of the subject, the aim of this workshop is not only the conceptualization of a time-based art work as it could be a live performance, happening, video-action or sound intervention but also the playful experimentation as part of the process of creation.

Workshop description:

Reflection on the main elements and notions of performance art: time, space, presence, concept, process, context, non-representation and participation.

Reading of the diverse and open definitions given by artists working in performance art followed by a discussion of what experiences or knowledge the students previously had with performance art.  
		
Activities based on the 'instructions for performance' by Yoko Ono, students will conceptualize new instructions in different groups.

Here and Now: In this exercise students are invited to cross the room as slowly as possible, being feeling fully aware their bodies in space and their relation to it.

Activity based on the game of the mystical trees of Yogyakarta:

 - ask yourself a fundamental question in regards your present creative process/ the current moment you are living.  -  following your inner compass, develop a special technic to locate two particular spots on the ground.
 - with your eyes closed try to walk in a straight line in between those two spots while focusing on your fundamental question.
	
 Collective discussion about the processes generated during this session

Workshop fee: voluntary donation.
Registration by email writing to: info@theunifiedfield.org