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11/8/2004

When a Body Meets a Building

Alliance Francaise de Singapour, Singapore

1st Solo Art Exhibition by Michael Lee Hong Hwee

Opening Date : Thursday, 12th August 2004 @ 7:00pm

Michael Lee's practice can be viewed as part of a larger propensity in Singapore contemporary art to conceive, develop and expound on art works through multiand cross-disciplinary frameworks with a strong engagement with critical theory. Intelligent and fluent with the theories that define the field, Michael Lee adeptly uses multiple media including film, photography, painting and installation in addressing his concerns. Some of his explorations are a kind of coming out so to speak, of certain issues, perspectives and politics that were not as openly articulated or so much elaborated on even less than a decade ago.
Lindy Poh, lawyer, writer and independent art curator

Human beings have erected countless monuments in history, which in turn have varying impacts on the human body, mind and soul. Seen as a microcosm of the universe, the human body often serves as the structural or decorative symbol in architectural design. In most places and periods, the underlying premise in architectural endeavours is functionalism, which defines an object as good and beautiful only if it serves its intended purposes properly, effectively. Such conventions of relating body and building in causal, symbolic and functionalist terms relegate architecture to the supporting role of a facilitator of human events, rather than an active participant in dialogue with the human race. In his first solo art exhibition, entitled When a Body Meets a Building, Michael Lee Hong Hwee explores the boundaries and fictional relationships between the human body and architecture. Expect to witness buildings having conversations with one another, anatomical and architectural forms melding into each other, residences designed to be sited on the human body and some intimate moments between human bodies and buildings. The works on display are in various art forms, including drawing, video and installation.

What Has a Body Got To Do With a Building?
A human body is first and foremost a physical organisation of skin, hair, flesh, organs, nerves, muscles and skeletal structure. This physical being is never static, not just in the sense of its capacity to move its parts or entirety from point A to B, but also that it is constantly in the process of action or change: A body consumes, grows, develops, works, rests, gets aroused, engages in intercourse, conceives, reproduces, succumbs to illnesses, recovers, ages, withers away, dies. It is also not merely a physical thing. Thinkers from Plato to Freud have reminded us that the body that meets the eye belies hidden potentials and perils that human thoughts, feelings, imaginations, spirit and unconscious could bring forth. In this regard, the age-old trinity of body, mind and soul is a reminder that the corporeal body is only an index of the full existence of human being . Today more so than ever, the body is at the centre of much critical attention from such wide-ranging disciplines as art, philosophy, science and engineering. Advances in technological and medical science have made possible what were previously regarded useless or impossible daydreams: organ transplants, prosthetic insertions, cyborg technology, artificial insemination, cloning and others. On the other hand, the body is vulnerable to an increasing list of diseases, amongst many others, AIDS and SARS. In art, the body has moved beyond being a mere subject of portraiture to serving as canvas, brush, frame and platform, particularly among body and performance artists. A body is both a malleable object and subject matter. A building is a physical composition of form and space through the strategic employment of natural and man-made materials. Its primary function is utility: Whether for residential, commercial or industrial purpose, a building s raison de tre is the facilitation of human events. At the most basic level, a building provides shelter for the human body. Beyond that, it nurtures the potentials and battles the perils that lie latent within each body whilst creating social relations between bodies. This is the task of architecture, the discipline that deals with the design of buildings. From the premodern emphasis on spiritual union to the functionalism that preoccupies much of modernist discourse and the pluralism embraced in contemporary theory, architecture remains a fascinating topic for many, and
not just for those in the discipline of architecture. The last decade saw much intercourse between architecture and other disciplines including art, film and philosophy. Like a body, a building is vulnerable to environmental conditions just as much as it is to everchanging contexts of cultural discourse. Unlike a body, a building on its own cannot grow, reproduce or self-recover from physical damages. A building is more malleable as a subject matter than it is as an object.

Body and building relate in two conventional ways: causality and symbolism. The immense power of human beings in addressing their basic bodily needs and more advanced and spiritual aspirations has led to the erection of countless and varied architectural monuments throughout history, which, in turn, have profound impacts on the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of the inhabitants. To the extent that the human body is regarded, especially in Western thought, as a microcosm of the universe, it often serves as a symbolic structure or decoration in architectural design. In most places and periods, the underlying premise in architectural endeavours is functionalism, which defines an object as good and beautiful only if it serves its intended purposes properly, effectively. Such conventions of relating body and building in causal, symbolic and functionalist terms relegate architecture to the supporting role of facilitating human events, rather than an active participant in dialogue with the human race.

My art explores the representation of body and building beyond functionalism. To be more specific, I am interested to circumvent the functionalist design mantra form follows function by investigating two alternative ways of relating the human body with architecture. The first is the creation of images of useless buildings, particularly those investigating fictional and imaginary relationships between human beings and architecture. In this regard, I align myself with Robert Harbison who argues that uselessness is the most sublime of all human constructs, and art fulfils itself in floating miles above every desperate human involvement. In other words, though apparently not beneficial to human endeavours and their physical well-being, uselessness is in fact crucial to psychic health. The worth of fictional architecture is evident, for example, not simply in the popularity of science-fiction movies that invariably feature fantastical, often unrealisable architecture, but more importantly, in how such futuristic architecture often become reality after its time such as when contemporary architects refer to old 60 s sci-fi films for inspirations. The second way in which I endeavour to skirt around functionalism is through appropriation , or the transformative use of architecture in ways for which it is not intended. Movement, time and sound are three formal features of film that differentiate it from the still image such as the photograph. This approach is similar to what Henri Lefebvre suggests as the means in which social space is produced: ''Architecture produces living bodies, each with its own distinctive traits. The animating principle of such a body, its presence, is neither visible nor legible as such, nor is it the object of any discourse, for it reproduces itself within those who use the space in question, within their lived experience. ''

In my inaugural solo outing, I address the simple question: What has a body got to do with a building? I will answer this question obliquely, that is, go beyond their causal, symbolic and functionalist relations, towards the creation of useless building concepts and the appropriation of architectural elements in the gallery. These explorations provide a focus in my sustained research interests in issues of desire and space; sexuality and architecture. My investigation comes in various art forms including drawing, video and installation.

By conflating drawings of the human nude and architecture, my Anatomical: Architectural series of drawings engenders a poetics of the interiority of anatomy and architecture. My Speaking Building series combines picture and text to create twodimensional images that trace the imaginary conversations between architectures. These two series of work thus constitute my attempts at creating images of useless architecture on the flat surface.

Humanism is concomitant with the prevalent use of human forms as formal structure or ornamentation for architecture, most prominently in religious buildings in the Classical world and Middles Ages, but also in certain retrospective modernist movements such as Art Deco. My mixed-media installation titled House: A Survey Across Landscape attempts an inversion of this phenomenon. Instead of having human forms to decorate buildings, a variety of homes will embellish human forms, which double as the landscape. This inversion thus extends the representation of useless architectural design in my 2D works into the third dimension.

Three formal features of film differentiate it from the still image such as the photograph: movement, time and sound. Cinetectonics of Desire is a compilation of single-channel videos that explore the possibilities that videography of architecture and urban space can provide a platform for examining neuroses of modern, urban living. From the study of social neuroses to personal ones, Autobiography and the Reader s Body is a video installation of self-disclosure. The artist s life is a fascinating subject for the art historian as much as for the art connoisseur and art student. It is assumed that an in-depth understanding of an artist s practice necessitates knowledge and understanding of his/her background, particularly how that interacts and inter-influences the art practice. This work aims to explore the relationship between the artist s autobiography and the reader s participation. Two video projections of the same footages of inverse colours will be concurrently projected onto the wall. Because of the inversion of the colours, the projected images will appear null unless the reader-visitor steps in to partially block off one projection. This blockage, which then casts a shadow of the reader-visitor on the wall, will allow the images from the other projector to now become visible. In this way, the reader-visitor is encouraged and rewarded to participate in the artist s revelation.

At work, the body gets into a systematic routine of production, whilst donning what is most appropriate for the job and specialising in an area of responsibility for maximum productivity. The worker s body exemplifies corporeality transformed for mechanical compliance. The Body and the Workspace is a photographic installation that studies the relations between the worker and the environment. It will comprise hundreds of my self-portraits realised as miniature figurines responding to the tectonics of the gallery space. Purely through the different styling and poises of the figurines, this artwork transforms aspects of the gallery s form and space into the work environment, thereby contesting boundaries between the space for work and that for leisure, between the worker s body and the body of architecture, between one worker and another.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Michael Lee Hong Hwee is an artist, art writer and independent art curator. He cocurated In the Flesh: The Nude in Contemporary Art (2004), WoodLand: Nature, Environment, Community & Art (2004), Cinepolitans: Inhabitants of a Filmic City (2003) and Eye-dentifying Peranakan Cultures (2001-2). He has written for Asian Cinema, Asian Art News, Singapore Architect, vehicle, iSh and various art exhibition catalogues. He has won awards for his collaborative videos, including first prize for the Experimental Category in the University Film and Video Association Student Short Film Competition 1997 in Texas, U.S.A., and the United Television International Award for Distinction 1996 in Singapore. His video works have been exhibited internationally, including the 14th Videobrasil 2003 in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and the NextFrame traveling film festival, beginning in Philadelphia, U.S.A., since 1997. He is currently Acting Deputy Head of the Fine Art Department in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore, where he lectures on Western art history and selected topics in art theory. Concerned about the relations between desire and space, Lee is particularly intrigued by how human aspirations may reflect, inspire and interact with the architectural environment an intrigue he has been exploring through various media, including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, installation, video and text. He has a Master of Communication Studies from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Image: Work-a-horlicks (concept images) Photographic installation Digital print Various sizes 2004

SG Private Banking Gallery, Alliance Francaise de Singapour, 4th Floor 1 Sarkies Road, Singapore 258130 (Newton MRT, parking facilities)
Public Viewing : Monday to Saturday, 10am - 7pm, Closed on Sundays and Public Holidays Admission : Free

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