OBLIQUE CITY: A response

OBLIQUE CITY Claudio Bucher (with U5) 2016 digital video, 6”

A response by Kenneth Tay

“They say it takes 21 days to get used to a new face, after a nose job.”

  We began first with a foreign face, the face of Madonna. Or more precisely, the face of a mannequin of Madonna the celebrity. It could have so easily been the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, or the statue of the strange Merlion; but it’s Madonna. And I am reminded that the real Madonna - Madonna Louis Ciccone (born August 16, 1958) - is herself older than Singapore. But while Madonna is constantly accosted with claims and rumours of her nose-job and other assorted plastic surgeries, there is no denying that Singapore is a city whose facades are constantly botox-ed. Which might explain why despite the great acceleration Singapore has undergone in the last fifty years, the facades of most buildings have not fallen to the vicissitudes of history. Despite all its reputed austerity then, Singapore, it seems, knows a thing or two about showbiz.      

 

“What I remember from 21 days in Singapore is my name, in green letters, on a screen, in Hotel Nostalgia.”  

  In June 5, 1997, a month before the Asian Financial Crisis would hit Singapore, the then Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong announces a new vision for Singapore: Singapore 21. As if he was already anticipating the financial crisis, the prime minister called on all citizens to treat Singapore as a home, and not a hotel. Borrowing a term from Sony Corporation, he emphasised the need for a “heartware” made up of motivated workers/citizens with a sense of belonging to the company/city. Singapore 21: human resource management turned into a visionary plan for a nation.1

                                                                                                                1  Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, “Singapore 21: Vision for a New Era”, speech presented in the Parliament of Singapore, June 5, 1997.  

 

“Body memory called up Côte d’Azur, Cannes, somewhere between grey residential blocks in the outskirts of Sengkang.”

60 Marine Parade Road, Singapore 449297

“I remember a cab driver who told me how he didn’t leave his hotel room in Amsterdam cause the streets were too dangerous after eight o’clock. I remember a grandson of South Indian migrants who told me that he didn’t need an umbrella when it started raining after a wedding on Sunday, cause he was jungle-proofed. Two years of national service, fighting with bayonets against old tires.”

  Sometime in 1999, when Wall Street Journal asked several world leaders to pick out the most influential invention of the millennium, Lee Kuan Yew famously declared the air-conditioner as his choice. His reason being that with the invention of the air-conditioner, people living in the tropics no longer needed to suffer from the heat and humidity of their climate, and could now concentrate and work better. Historically, as Lee argued, “advanced civilisations have flourished in the cooler climates.”2 Singapore, the air-conditioned nation, is a society designed for comfort and central control.3 It has mastered its environment. Singapore has proven that geography is not destiny, especially if you are prepared to install an entire network of climate-control systems. Not just jungle-proofed, but geographyproofed. Is it any wonder then that one of the mascots of the Singapore Zoo is a male polar bear born in the tropical climate of Singapore?

                                                                                                                2  “Air-con gets my vote, says SM Lee”, The Straits Times, January 19, 1999.   3  Cherian George, Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation (Singapore: Landmark Books, 2000).  

“I remember the absence of a Golden Age. A future built on constructive paranoia. Angry guys in exile. Angry birds on display in morning trains. I remember how I forgot why I was here.”

  I am reminded that the Golden Age of Singapore cinema is often recorded as the late 1950s and early 1960s when figures such as P. Ramlee were actively directing and acting in local film productions. A talented singer, composer, actor and director, P. Ramlee was a major driving force behind the golden age of Singapore cinema, particularly with the studio Malay Film Productions. In 1964, P. Ramlee returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after years of working in Singapore. But he struggled to find an audience, and was increasingly seen as being out-of-date by an audience hungry for Western pop music and other foreign entertainment. He died in 1973, penniless, and heartbroken about his failure to recapture the heartware of a changing nation. Today, there are several streets across Malaysia named after him: There are “Jalan P. Ramlee”s in Kuala Lumpur, in Penang, and in Kuching, but none in Singapore.

 

“It’s a city where you might start smoking. City of aunties, uncles, 30year-olds living with their parents. City of prosperity amulets and paper buddhists. In Singapore I learnt that escapism maybe isn’t an evolutionary stage of youth.”  

  I remember that in May 14, 2012, a terrible road accident occurred along Rochor Road. A Ferrari 599 GTO driven by a wealthy Chinese national, Ma Chi, aged 31 and working in Singapore as a financial adviser, ran the traffic lights and crashed into a taxi. The impact killed Ma; the 52-year-old Singaporean taxi driver Mr Cheng Teck Hock; and Mr Cheng’s passenger, a 41-year-old Japanese Ms Shigemi Ito who was studying in Singapore. While the accident was no doubt a terrible event, what was much more terrifying was the amount of xenophobic comments that followed. An angry mob of Singaporeans were calling on Chinese nationals to “go back to China!” This city did not tolerate the new rich of China taking the lives or livelihoods of innocent Singaporeans, especially if they weren’t going to play by the rules. The minimum speed required to achieve escape velocity from the gravitational pull of the Earth is approximately 40,720km/h. For Singapore, it is 178km/h.