1993 APT1 Conference : Identity, tradition and change

7 association with the village, others have advanced their careers and practices independently. The activities of the village were devoted to re-examining prevailing norms and traditions, re-evaluating the role of institutions that support the production and consumption of art. In doing so, these artists prefer to employ strategies based on conceptual installation and performance art. Their preference stems from an understanding that these modes do not possess finite stylistic properties or prescribed formalistic values. On the contrary such modes permit an examination of precisely those ideals. Furthermore, such matters also allow a confrontation of issues in ways that are direct and on a scale that would not be possible to conventional means. The strategies also allow the construction of critiques of a wide range of topics without the need for those employing them to overtly declare an affiliation of position, political or otherwise. One must keep the importance of this in mind because activism, I think Piya mentioned some aspects of it from his perception of Malaysia, because activism in the public realm in Singapore is constrained and circumscribed by known and stringent rules which are clearly delineated and unflinchingly applied. It is in a context such as this that the strategies and polemics of authority are developed and pursued a context shaped by cultural, social and political circumstances particular to Singapore. It is important to remember and underline this in order to resist drawing parallels with Euro-American situations which in the majority of instances are utterly inappropriate and inapplicable. Let me just go on a little bit about the notion of alterity - I’m aware of your looks towards me. The notion of the alternative and alterity has been pursued in ways which in my view also feature deeply enhanced paradoxes and these paradoxes are being and, I think of necessity, have to be negotiated. For instance, and this may not be peculiar to Singapore at all, performance, installation art, artforms that are ostensibly cultivated as being alternative to the main stream - these very artists still while pursuing their ideologies are still dependent CASUALAARTGALL.TPl 24 May 1994