Lee Weng Choy

Near where the Library used to be, between the National Museum of Singapore and The Substation is a giant orifice. You can hear a rumbling, sucking sound emanating from it. Or is that just road traffic? Officially, it’s known as the Fort Canning Tunnel. There was even a launch party. While invitations were sent to The Substation, regrettably, none of us made it in the end. Not that you expected it to be an exciting event, but at least you could have then said, in the distant future, to your grandchildren perhaps, that you had attended a tunnel opening ceremony back in the early twenty-first century. Since the Tunnel opened a few weeks ago, I haven’t used it very much, and I suppose that’s why there’s still the slightest of thrills when I do get a chance to pass through it. Of course, it all goes by so quickly. But that’s the point, isn’t it.

I’m not going to speculate how many seconds one saves driving through the Tunnel, or debate whether it was worth the several million to build, or worth tearing down the Library for — that last one should be a no brainer. Slick and neat as it is, it’s easy to imagine life going on perfectly well without it. But it’s here. To stay. The Tunnel, however, is more than just a tunnel. It’s also a metaphor.

By design, tunnels function as short cuts. A mountain in the way? No problem, let’s drill a hole through it. Now, my default position isn’t necessarily the sentimental one. I don’t always value the scenic, narrow windy road over a straight, no-nonsense tunnel. Who wants to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, when there are better things to do with one’s day. But in Singapore, of all places, the efficiency of the Tunnel — and the symbolism of this — must be viewed with some critical perspective.

Ever since I began my employment at Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts centre, my aspiration has always been for us to act as the opposite of a catalyst (as in a reagent that speeds up a reaction). If we are to nurture local arts, to be an incubator for experimentation, then I thought we might do so by slowing things down, rather than joining the rush to be part of the next trend. Art does many things, has many social functions, but among them is to provoke contemplation, reflection and questioning — and you can’t do that when you’re in a hurry. While there’s no formula for “good” art, I can’t think of an artwork that I admire which doesn’t demand a second look and more. Good art asks for time, for experience; it privileges the slow journey, or sometimes the distracted one, just meandering along, paying attention to nothing in particular, until you see something familiar, but see it differently for the first time. In that sense, good art is like the antithesis of trying to get from point A to point B as fast and efficiently as one can.

My ex-wife¹ used to refer to my office at home as the “tunnel”. After a long day at The Substation, on many a night I’d go into the “tunnel” to work on an overdue article, reply to urgent emails, or finish a grant proposal. It’s a common scenario in Singapore: being buried with work yet also clinging to the hope that you might actually get ahead of it all, rather than always playing catch-up (as if there really were a light at the end of the tunnel). I’m all for hard work. But one has to seriously ask oneself — are you working hard, or just being busy? One may aspire for slowness, but what about actually achieving it? — especially when there seems to be so many things to do, so many new opportunities and challenges, and always another controversy to deal with.

Speaking of controversy, last year there was a debate about The Substation Garden on the arts community e-group. Many memorable events have taken place in the Garden: from the gigs in the early days to Kuo Pao Kun’s The Tree Celebration; from plays by William Teo’s Asia-in-Theatre Research Centre to the Peace Concert in response to the Iraq War. Some artists — notably Zai Kuning — were critical of our decision to rent the space to Timbre, concerned about its now more commercially intensive usage. To some, the Garden shouldn’t be rented out, but programmed with all kinds of artistic activities. The fact is, we can’t afford to do that. We offered the space to Timbre because, among all the proposals we received, theirs was the best combination of business plan and commitment to the arts. It’s easy to get distracted by Zai’s dislike of Timbre, and overlook what was more important: his attempt at a wake up call to the community to keep the Garden as a space for art rather than commerce. While there were several heartening expressions of good will in response, unfortunately, they did not amount to a financial solution.

The debate over the Garden is just one example of the criticisms and constructive suggestions we continually hear. A fair share of these comments concern not so much what we do within The Substation, but what we should be doing for the arts community at large. I’ve asserted this before, and it bears repeating: no other arts organisation in town has so many claims upon it; the many artists who work with us, the diverse audiences who come here regularly, they are our stakeholders, and they feel a strong sense of ownership, and they tell us what they think. And we listen.

This feeling of being overwhelmed with so many different demands, while shared by many in the arts, is heightened in the case of The Substation. In my inaugural editorial for this online magazine, I noted: “Communicating what The Substation’s artistic direction is hasn’t been easy…. [Our] diversity is one of our main strengths, but it has a downside. It makes it harder for the ‘general public’ to comprehend who we are.” Not to be immodest, but I think for over 16 years we’ve done a pretty good job nurturing and engaging with diversity in the arts. But we can always do better. For starters, we can better communicate what we do — and not just to the ‘general public’, but to our core audiences, our artists, and even amongst ourselves. But before I outline our plans for 2007, let me detour — did you expect me to travel in a straight line? — and discuss the role of criticism, which is another way of talking about what we’re trying to do with this online magazine.

The Role of Criticism
It’s one thing when your friends have something critical to say — their criticisms come in tandem with an effort to understand your situation. It’s another thing when what passes for criticism is cynicism. Not to be unkind to my former co-worker, Cyril Wong, but if you played ‘word association’, and ‘bitchy’ came up, more than a few of his friends would reach for his name. Case in point: in his last missive as Editor of this magazine, he said: “Like all good things, bad things like the Biennale and its accompanying hype will end. Even the stench of the vomit thrown up by denizens of our local arts scene desperate to support and be a part of the hype will stop smelling too.” After dissing the Biennale, Cyril continues his drive-by, firing at a couple more targets in the local arts scene (though he has good things to say about us, and surprisingly spares The Straits Times’ Life! section).

It’s not so much Cyril’s contempt that I have problems with, it’s that he offers it with almost no context and no engagement. While I may disagree with Cyril, he has every right to express his opinion here. The Substation is not an organisation that speaks with a singular voice — it’s peopled with some fiercely independent individuals, and I’m not only referring to our Associate Artists but to our staff as well.

As a critic I’m a big believer in speaking personally. But when I do so, it’s not my personality that I’m most interested in talking about; I’m attempting to create an intimacy with the reader. Moreover, what’s at stake is not so much the relation between the reader and me, the writer, but between the reader and the artwork, or the reader and the issues at hand. The writer is a servant, a mediator, to these other intimate relations. This intimacy must not be assumed, it must be earned. That’s what I find wrong with drive-by contempt: it’s a short cut with tunnel-like efficiency.

The critic’s job is not to be correct, not to solicit agreement; nor is it to be interesting, if that’s all one is, interesting. As a critic, I believe my job is to speak to art. That requires listening first. Too often what I read is a rush to interpretation, as if the writer’s in a hurry to project his or her opinion onto the world. What I want instead is a writer who interprets, yes, but through slowly building the conditions, the intimate contexts for understanding.

If I disagree with Cyril’s tone, let me say a few words about what we do agree upon, or rather, why I support and respect him. Simply put, I understand where he’s coming from (which unfortunately he doesn’t always reveal as an essayist). Cyril may don drag as a cynic, but he’s not one when you reach deep down. Read his poetry, listen to him sing, and not least of all, work with him.

Three Tasks for 2007
Another way of describing the role of criticism is that it’s part of the infrastructure of the arts — sometimes hardly visible, or in the background, but essential nonetheless. While some criticism can be so reader-unfriendly and dry that you cannot take in it without a glass of water nearby, even the best of the lot can’t compete with the spectacle and entertainment potential of a biennale. Critical thinking and writing need not, should not be boring, but its primary aim isn’t to be flashy or attention-seeking — that genre of communications is called publicity. Unfortunately, there’s often a confusion between the two, with honest opinion losing out to hype. If you’ve followed The Substation over the years, you’d probably think we’ve cared more for critical discourse than publicity. And you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. We have a reputation for privileging the process rather than the product. But criticism and publicity are not incompatible; they can compliment each other, and both are necessary.

Developing the “infrastructure” of Singapore arts is something we’ve always done at The Substation, and it remains one of our core tasks for 2007. Our Associate Artist Scheme is just one example of our long-term investments in artists and their practices (go to www.substation.org/associate_artists to read more about it). For 2007, some of our other infrastructure projects include the new Performance Lab, which aims to nurture professional practice in the area of “performance”. We also have writing and curating workshops lined-up, and will continue to strengthen regional networks between artists, writers and curators, as well as promote and fortify what we call regional knowledge networks: Over the years, the amount of artist exchanges in the region have grown significantly, but what we still lack is in-depth knowledge and understanding of what we are each doing in our respective places.

Another task for 2007, beyond investing in infrastructure, is outreach. We’d like to correct the impression that we sometimes neglect marketing, publicity, and reaching out to new audiences because we’re so buried in nurturing the artistic process. This year a priority is to increase our profile in general, and with young audiences in particular. Some of our programmes, like our monthly platform for new filmmakers, First Take, already have a good following amongst teenagers to thirty-somethings. We’ll be initiating new programmes and courses, and we’ll also be deepening our existing relationships and collaborations with schools, polytechnics and universities, and pursuing new ones.

Our third main task for the year is developing corporate relations. In the past, we devoted the bulk of our energies to working with artists, and when we engaged corporations, it was mainly in terms of fund-raising. This year, rather than seeking corporations as ad-hoc sponsors, we aim to establish a few long-term brand partnerships. Moreover, we’ll be looking to engage them not just as as prospective sponsors, but as potential core audiences.

It’s not that we’re looking to become more corporate or more populist. We are The Substation. Our values, if they haven’t changed since Kuo Pao Kun founded the arts centre, it’s because they are as relevant and important today as they were in 1990: the arts ask that we stop — or at least slow down — to contemplate, reflect and question.

Be Our Guest
We’re in the process of revamping the magazine, and by April, from a quarterly we’ll become a bi-monthly. Cyril continues with us as a Contributing Editor: he oversees reviews, suggests and solicits writers, and contributes an occasional column. Audrey Wong and I now serve as Managing Editors.

A new feature will be our Guest Editors. We’ll also be expanding our content to include some multimedia. Each issue will kick off with an introduction by the Guest Editor, followed by the three or four contributions she or he has commissioned — anything from texts, pictorial essays, podcasts and small-sized quicktime content. There will be reviews of performances, exhibitions and films, as well as columns from Substation staff like yours truly, and an archive of the magazine’s past stuff.

Guest Editors will bring new voices to the magazine and diversify and widen our outreach. Very soon we’ll post an update and list the first half of the year’s line-up. But we’re also looking for Guests for the rest of the year. If you’re interested, we’d like very much to hear from you. If you’re involved in the arts, media, design, architecture, or the humanities in any shape or form, that’s great but not necessary. What we’re looking for in an Editor is someone who is passionate, and regardless of the topic, has something engaging and relevant to say. Email us at editor@substation.org for more information.

(originally posted on 22 February 2007)

1. Lucy Davis, lecturer, organiser, activist and editor of Forum On Contemporary Art & Society. [↩]