Night Festival lets you explore your inner thoughts

SINGAPORE — Ever wondered what those eureka moments you had in the shower would look like if they manifested physically?

At this year’s Singapore Night Festival, you can step through shower curtains and into a stark darkness that is suddenly illuminated by bubbles in a myriad of colours and shapes.

As a modern-day interpretation of the classic “Aha!” moment, this work — #Showerthoughts by LiteWerkz — evokes the unexpected inspirational moments we often experience while showering.

#Showerthoughts is one of the three works selected by Singapore Night Festival 2016 as part of its first Open Call initiative. Close to 30 submissions were received.

Inspired by this edition’s theme of inventions and innovations, LiteWerkz, a team of nine young and enthusiastic second-year students from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), decided to “look at how people come up with inventions and innovations in the first place”, explained Muhammad Syahid Mustapa, 22, a member of LiteWerkz.

Only a few people are allowed to enter the enclosed darkened space (located at National Design Centre) each time, ensuring that visitors get to move around the space in a relaxed manner and to explore the boundless creativity of their inner thoughts. There is even a reflection board put up at the end of the work for visitors to share their ideas.

The other two works shortlisted are: Samara by Starlight Alchemy, an interactive illuminated tree sculpture, and Light Force, Night Falls by gsmproject, a collaborative and interactive installation combining sensors, lights and the movement of water.

For Max Pagel, 33, and Jonathan Hwang, 28, the duo from Starlight Alchemy, their work was inspired by Pagel’s favourite tree at Paya Lebar, which was cut down for redevelopment. “It was a very weird moment for me because I had been driving past this tree for three years and I felt I had to do something with this tree. That was the spark to create the idea of a crying tree,” Pagel shared.

“The theme for this year —inventions and innovations — represents progress, and it made me think about how all progress comes at a cost. In this particular case, it was about the tree. We wanted people to think about whether progress can bring back what we have lost — we are building a technology tree, but is it really like the real thing or is it not?” Pagel reflected.

:Samara will be located at Armenian Church, an iconic heritage space within the Bras Basah-Bugis precinct. Sharing about the coincidental and inextricable melding of a contemporary technology-based installation with history, Pagel said: “The church was excited about this work being there, but what none of us knew was that apparently there was an Armenian folk song about the composer being traumatised by the Armenian genocide, and walking through a peach tree yard and singing about how the trees are sort of crying.”

He added: “The church asked us if we could include this song and we are going to base the animation on its composition.”

Organised by the National Museum of Singapore, the ninth edition of the Night Festival aims to deepen engagement with the public and local artistic talent through the new Open Call segment.

“When we started this year’s programming, we thought: Why don’t we try to cast the net even wider? As you know, the festival is really about showcasing a lot of different types of talents, from amateurs all the way to professionals, so one great way to find people we have never worked with before is through an open call,” said Christie Chua, the festival’s creative director.

“We got a fair bit of submissions, some from students who are very impressive, graphic designers, interior designers and people from all walks of life — it was interesting to see how they had responded to the theme,” she added.

Aside from the Open Call works, this year’s Night Festival, which originally began as a festival featuring mostly French artists, attempts to shift the focus on local artistic talents such as Ryf Zaini, 36.

Located at the National Museum’s Rotunda, his commissioned installation Into Pulsar invites visitors to pedal a bicycle, tricycle or turn a hand-cranked device to light up the 6m interactive installation and activate the gears, sprockets and the wheels fitted at the top of the structure.

“The heart of the work is about inventions and innovations. The work revolves around the evolution of the wheel, how it has shaped our civilisation. It looks at how the simple wheel would pave its way to create other inventions, such as gears and sprockets that would benefit man,” Zaini shared, adding that Into Pulsar also draws inspiration from different wheeled and mechanical artefacts in the newly revamped Singapore History Gallery.

Explaining his investigation into the invention responsible for land mobility since its inception before 3500 BCE, Zaini said: “To take a step further, the work looks at how the simple bicycle wheel has been reinvented to create motorised bicycles that would be used in this installation. The innovation then takes another step in creating visualizations with LEDs, that could not have been possible before.”

Singapore Night Festival will be held on Aug 19 and 20, and Aug 26 and 27.