Yeo Chee Kiong
Tan Yen Peng
Artist Collaborative Projects &
International Residency Programme
“Roaming” [a]
● Moving about aimlessly or unsystematically, especially over a wide area.
● The practice of using a mobile phone on another operator's network, typically while abroad.
In Real Time [b]
● If something is done in real time, there is no noticeable delay between the action and its effect or consequence.
Real-time
● Denoting or relating to a data-processing system in which a computer receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data.
[a] https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
[b] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/real-time
Layer One: The Parallel Mode of Real Time | Real-time
Layer Two: The Pantheon Mode of Open City
Layer Three: The Access Mode of Digital Open City
The Lead Artist and invited artists will explore the Parallel Mode between the multiple Real Time | Real-time platforms; a parallel presentation of the Onsite and the Online, the physical and the virtual.
The Lead Artist intended to construct the Pantheon of Open City within a self-portrait sculpture, in the form of a 3D printed Curiosity Cabinet. This cabinet will synchronize with the ever-growing contents of the digital Open City, sharing up-to-date sculptural details that can be observed with the naked eye.
The invited artist will further explore the convertible/switchable on-site and online presentation between classical art installation and digital platforms.
On a macro level, based on the motto of the Pantheon in Paris, “Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante” (To great men, the grateful homeland) [Artwork Image 01], the Lead Artist, Yeo Chee Kiong, will construct an in-progress digital continuum space to accommodate the classical and contemporary civilians of Open City through open call and invitation.
The Lead Artist will attempt to convert the 1797 print, The Rural Cott by William Woollett [Artwork Image 03], as the original reference for the 3D digital homeland of The Open City.
The print was discovered at an antique frame shop during the first visit to the Passage des Panoramas and was collected by the artist.
Invited artists will propose their preferred art medium to kick off the project based on their professional practices and further explore digital tools to incorporate their original and tangible artworks — such as paintings, sculptures, and prints — into the digital Open City as cultural landmarks of the cityscape.
The Lead Artist will assist or share digital tools to transform the physical artworks into digital forms.
VR Video Clip of The Open City:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x6ffOCFQJhJp4RM43JPCWQnXCUQuyXgD/view?usp=sharing
The Lead Artist will be the Administrator of the project and the digital platform.
The Invited Artists will be the user of the digital platform.
The Paris Residency at the end of 2024 presents a valuable opportunity to examine how, through the lens of both art and sports, we can continue to critically evaluate our efforts to ease the devastating conflicts plaguing humanity, considering both peacetime and wartime contexts within the city's contemporary happenings and historical past.
Inspired by Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project [5] during the Paris residency period, the two-month Paris Roaming Mode in the winter offers a free-strolling experience as a contemporary flâneur [6]. It leads to a random and broad exploration of the encapsulated cultural and historical memories within the street life, the artifacts in the museums, and the cityscape of this beautiful capital. The city has been perfectly preserved by people who love it so much — both locals and international counterparts — who prevented possible devastating consequences through the declaration of Open City status during WWII.
The sophisticated yet intriguing daily encounters in the French capital and surrounding regions allow us to reevaluate the necessity of our sensory modality in real time as we conduct in situ physical roaming, which could be easily dismissed by the overwhelming nature of virtual online browsing in the Digital Age.
The Pantheon of Open City
“In War, an Open City is a settlement which abandoned all defensive efforts, generally in the event of the imminent capture of the city to avoid destruction.”[1]The declaration of Open City by the French government on 11 June 1940 during the Battle of France was intended to protect the city's civilians and cultural landmarks from a futile battle, and it also reminds us the beginning of WWII more than eight decades ago. As we celebrate the centennial event of the Paris Olympic Games between 1924 and 2024, the cessation of hostilities known as the Olympic Truce[2]has been widely promoted during the Games.
In Contemporary Urban Planning, architects, planners, and theorists envision the Open City as a space where social integration, cultural diversity, and collective identity can be actively fostered through interaction and exchange.[3]The 2024 Olympic logo features a symbolic female portrait, Marianne[4], a republican icon representing the champion of freedom and democracy against all forms of oppression. This holds huge significance as the establishment of an Open City without the free people from all races is unimaginable.
The Paris trip at the end of 2024 presents a valuable opportunity for us to examine how, through the lens of both art and sports, we can continue to critically evaluate our efforts to ease the devastating conflicts plaguing humanity, considering both peacetime and wartime contexts within the city's contemporary happenings and history in the past. Through in depth field work and investigation, Chee Kiong and Yen Peng will each present a work that will be housed under the Open City. They will employ elements of shared experiences to articulate nuanced perspectives on the complexity of human connectedness.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_city
[2] https://olympics.com/ioc/olympic-truce
[3] https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/research/projects/isc/opencity/
[4] https://www.paris2024.org/en/a-single-emblem-for-paris-
In the Pantheon - the Paris Avatar
The Paris-SG Mnemosyne Atlas
Inspired by an experience stumbling upon scenes and figures from personal travel photos that bare uncanny similarities with found online archival images, Yen Peng’s works play with the montage or juxtaposition of archival images that resonate with a punctum beyond mere recognition. Her most recent research further draws upon the concept of the *Mnemosyne Atlas from the German art historian Aby Warburg, putting together disparate images from various times and regions, juxtaposing them in search of a visual, non-linear historical narrative. This memory/punctum-aligned expression hopes to study the crossings between personal experiences and unexpected resonances of collective memories versus official and historical accounts.
In the Paris-SG Mnemosyne Atlas (tentative name), the artist will work with images collected from the on-site research during the Paris trip, and explore unknown or forgotten links between France and Singapore. Specific topics and images related to shared experiences or histories (e.g. war, colonialism, migrants, architecture, etc) will evolve through discoveries and research processes. More than just image collection, this project aims to be a thought-provoking investigation of personal identity, collective memory, and the complex tapestry of connections across cultures.
The Atlas will be part of the Pantheon in the Open City.
*Mnemosyne Atlas - the Map of the Goddess of Memory, refers to an unfinished project by German art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929). As a collection of thousands of images including photographs, engravings, and postcards, etc arranged on panels, it explored recurring symbols and themes across time and cultures, providing glimpses into interconnectedness of human experience across time and space.