Art Bullshiiit

I’m glad the government has pumped a great deal of money under the name of art. For me, as someone who doesn’t yet need to make money from practicing any craft (I don’t need to, but I do. I’m actually relatively capable of making money under more conventional circumstances), much of what they do is great. The walk up to the Esplanade is always interesting, and this week, I get to watch what would otherwise be obscure New Zealand films that now aren’t because they’re screened at Great World City.

But the way they do some things is still quite absurd. In order for art to really flourish, you have to make sure of two things. One, that people are not going around stealing other people’s ideas and selling it off as your… oops, I mean their ideas. Two, that the government don’t take so bloody long to approve an art piece for public viewing, and that they censor less. And Three, don’t compete with private companies. This actually relates back to One. Don’t put in tax-payer money into a company that’s exactly like the one across the street and then run the fellow dry so you’ll have all the market-share. Of course a private company cannot compete with all the resources that they have. They can run in red ink, but normal business don’t run on empty.

I find it absurd how the government chooses to help some people and ignore a whole bunch of other ones that are equally as good, if not better. Sometimes you wonder if all those theatre companies are only sponsored because they are tame and un-provocative (in other words, easily controlled) or are they surviving because they are sponsored, and are therefore tame. Of course there’s political satire in some of their shows, but just like the speaker’s corner (which, if I’m not wrong, has recently been dismantled), it’s just a token for democracy’s sake. A charade to make people really believe there isn’t a force censoring just about every darned thing.

I don’t notice it most of the time because I’m too busy amusing myself with things they certainly can’t censor or send me to jail for (it cannot possibly be illegal to derive sexual pleasure from getting a good whipping. Otherwise all our cane-wielding parents must be sent to jail, along with the nut-cases from my primary school –I’ve been into masochism since I was 10, when my father started collecting Sin City comics). And my life is completely uninhibited and interesting enough that I’m not complaining if a local theatre production gets censored for being too risqué. Why would I choose a night as a passive audience when I can participate in it myself; where the sensations are absolutely singular and definitely real and unrehearsed.

Oh yes. I’ve nearly forgotten that things actually get censored here.

You know, while I’m writing all this, I’m wondering if I can actually get sued for liable. Too many weird things have happened with this blog since it started and sometimes thinking about them freaks me out.

I’ve talked to a number of people who actually make a living from selling their ideas, and the difficulty with which they have when it comes to dealing with people working for the governmental organizations is just disgusting. And how other local artists working for the big Singapore based and owned companies (and we all know what big and Singapore based and owned means; *ahemnotasprivateasdictatedbythelawsofcapitalism* (or as we’d all like them to be); how these people can actually steal someone else’s idea, sell it off as their own without even the decency to make the stolen idea look good instead of some sort of huge practical joke on a national scale, and *gasp* how they can be supported and paid by the same tax money that has been promised to be used to develop local creative talent.

Of course people steal ideas all the time, and I really wish they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t like my idea stolen, so I don’t do it. And besides, as a creative individual, don’t you have any pride in your distinctiveness as an artist at all. I can’t even stand stealing music off the internet. If it’s worth listening to, it’s worth paying for.

Well, the art scene is still too sterile and dishonest (there’s nothing anyone can do about the latter. People here’ll simply have to develop that sort of ethic where they give credit where credit is due) for this place to truly become a world class art-city, otherwise all the creative people will just leave (I really don’t think creative people have a lot of patriotism in their bones), and vibrancy in a country is not something anyone can buy off a shelf.

And to all the idiots who say our morality does not have to be comprimized for the advancement of the art scene in Singapore. Yes, our morality does not have to be comprimized, but your stupidity and moral narcissism unfortunately will. If you think about all the coolest cities in the world, you’d realize the people there don’t seem to have a problem with nudity, with homosexuality, or simply with a general openessness about sex. Violence, war, death are things that are universally frowned upon, but not nudity, a pair of breasts, and two people making love.

For this place to become truly artistically vibrant, a whole lot of red tape has got to go. People need to be allowed to be spontaneous all the time.

Oh well, in the meanwhile, we’ll all just hinge our hopes of this city becoming ‘fun’ upon the development of the two Casinos. You can compete and cheat on little independent studios, but no one gonna shit around with MGM or Steve Wynn.