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Traditionally, cinemas have likely conditioned an approach
to moving images within us — nine times out of ten in adarkened room with the flickering of lights before us,
we expect a narrative trajectory to ‘make sense’ of what
we see.
And that one of tenth time in a random encounter withmoving images in a gallery or museum, we’re left scratching
our Keanu-damned heads — what was that all about?
[EDITORIAL TEAM]

Nina Ernst
Associate Director, Programmes
Jerome Chee
Programmer, Moving Image and Emerging MediaRachel Wong
Officer, Public Programmes[GRAPHIC DESIGN]

Elise Tan
Senior Graphic Designer, Exhibitions

So, in this exciting, spanking inaugural issue ofSCREEN ZINE, let us walk you beyond the lens of song,sagas and sequels to make the film experience in museums
cool again. We’ll show you how to transmute people topotatoes while walking the proverbial mile in filmmaker-turned-artist Agnès Varda’s shoes. We’ll map therelationship between the moving image and the museum
space. We’ll shine the spotlight on some of the most radical,transformative film works to grace the galleries.
And finally, we’ll exchange some rapid-fire barbs withlocal artist, musician and filmmaker Zai Tang.
Screen Zine is part of ArtScience Museum’s ArtScienceon Screen programme.

Artist, filmmaker, and occasional potato— such was the varied, colourful life of
one Agnès Varda.
One of the criminally under-appreciatedpioneers of the 1960s La Nouvelle Vague
arthouse cinema movement who, in her
twilight years received Cannes andAcademy honours (frankly, very overdue!),Varda enjoyed a late career resurgence as
an artist — and a meme — at the tenderage of 75.
Even with the late industry praises heaped uponher, Varda was never one for glorious prestige.

she said in an interview
after her honorary Oscar.
Indeed, her enormous bodyof work — all in one way or
another era-defining in its
reflection of the anxieties
and resplendence ofhuman existence, waspowered by the sameplayful frankness of her
personality — curiosity.
Varda was endlessly
curious of people.
An almost insatiable

desire to observe,
document and discoverstories behind completestrangers she chancedon the streets (which shewould affectionately call,her ‘theatre’), to give many
faces to the faceless,the hidden, and theunrepresented. And it isin these complexities ofunderstanding the many
facets of humanity, Varda
became obsessed withnew ways of seeing.

Tate(r)ModernNew ways of seeing birthed
new ways of doing — and in2003 Varda had her firstmajor exhibition at theVenice Biennale adapting her
critically acclaimed feature
doc The Gleaners and I (2000)
into the playful installation
Patatutopia (2003) featuring
700 pounds worth of potatoes.
And of course, a looping
triptych of three moving
images.

Close-ups of a variety of tubers in various states ofdecay fill the three screens. Can the humble potato
really ransom your undivided attention on loop?
Yet without plots, dialogue, music, sound or flash
to distract the viewer, what is immediately boring
becomes increasingly fascinating — the eye searches
for other things: size, shape, form, texture.
Homogeneity transforms into variety. And thenthe unthinkable comes to mind — ‘if I were a potato,
what potato will I be? Smooth yet rooted?
Lyrically waxy? Ruddy with a hint of spuddy?’
Under Varda’s artistic starch, the potato becomesthe unlikely hero of vegetables.

The Gleaners and I is asobering film about themostly invisible scavenging
community where Varda
uncovered unlikelyand unexpected heroes
hidden in plain sight.

But consider this — would you pay folding money
to observe potatoes for two odd hours in a cinema?
Likely not. Cinema has its own rules as much as
the gallery that are governed by preconceptions.

And for Patatutopia, Varda
riffed on the ideas albeit
making the very sensible
jump from people to potatoes.
Or was it the other way round?

And Varda’s truth is much simpler — there is no
prejudice behind curiosity. Curiosity is humanity
at its most basic, one that asks rather than demands,
empathises rather than criticises, and more
importantly – keeps you rooted for and like thehumble potato.

Takashi Makino

Takashi Makino, Deorbit (2013). Image courtesy of the artist

The aim isto attempt toreach the limitsof abstraction,
which isnaturallyan endlessendeavour.SpacesPlaces
Where conventional cinema
architecture can behomogenetically limiting,museums on the other
hand present themselves as
exciting blank canvases forexperimental new approaches— with correspondingly
exhilarating results.

(2013) and Tacita Dean’s FILM
(2011), both works are projectedvertically to remarkably towering
effect — made possible throughthe generous use of spaceafforded by their corresponding
museums: The Stedelijk
Museum Amsterdam (NL) andTate Modern (UK) respectively.

Here, space can become thework — and unlocking further
endless possibilities andamorphous qualities acrossother museum venues. Eachexperience becomes as uniqueas the individual viewing it.

The plentiful heft in thesespaces, coupled by the off-kilter
orientations then also unravel anew, magical dimension to eachwork that is felt as much as seen
— a blitzing, soul-rattling voidof the cosmos for Deorbit andthe playful, skeedaddling collageof mischief in FILM.

In Takashi Makino’s Deorbit

Tacita Dean, FILM (2011). Image courtesy of the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/ ParisCinemaof SensesGiven the more interactive nature of museums, film works
have evolved outside their narrative zones to moretranscendental experiences — we’re talking about giving
projected light different textures like Anthony McCall’s
Solid Light series; or creating a film for closed eyes likeSophia Brous, Dave Harrington and Wild Dog International's
reimagining of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs'
seminal invention, the Dreamachine.
Creating the illusion of physical density through mist andbeams from a film projector, McCall sculpts light into artthat you can‘touch’ and disrupt — allowing one to cease
being an observer and take on a transmutor’s role.
Image courtesy of Sophia Brous. Photograph by Walter Wlodarczyk.

And in the recent adaptation of Dream Machine (right),
a high-flicker series of moving images tune a veiled stateof ‘blindness’ to a lie-down experience. Viewers can still
sense movement through light indirectly and are ushered
into a meditative state through the crossing disciplinesof music, noise art and light.

Art can often leave a lasting impression on its viewer.
Here are our picks on some of the most moving andtransformative pieces ever made through the filmic
transmutation of light, colour and sound by artists
we have proudly worked with.

akomfrahJOHNAKOMFRAH
Purple (2017)
Comprised of hundreds of hours ofarchival footage, newly shot film
and a hypnotic score, John Akomfrah’s
Purple addresses climate change andhumanity’s destructive impact on theplanet. The work confronts viewers
in its immersive six-channel video
installation, engendering multiple
narratives that weave through human lives
and disappearing landscapes. A collectiveand somber reflection on a dying planet,
Purple is also the colour of mourningin Ghana, where Akomfrah was born.
SHOWN AT ARTSCIENCE MUSEUM IN

2219: Futures Imagined exhibition,
2019 – 2020
Image courtesy of Marina Bay Sands©

suki

SUKI
CHANLucida (2017)
Uncovering the curious, complex
relationship between the human eye,the brain and vision, Lucida is aprecarious tapestry of images stitched
together by interior architectural
spaces, bio-medical research andindividual testimonies. In conveying
how the brain processes the outsideworld, the work invites acuteawareness of these perceptual
processes to the viewer by bringing
them all — including the flaws,
blemishes, shortcomings andassumption — right to the forefront.
SHOWN AT ARTSCIENCE MUSEUM IN

ArtScience on Screen: Seeing Systems,
2018

Image courtesy of Marina Bay Sands©

RYOJIIKEDA
data.tron [WUXGA version] (2011)
Data and art collide in this futuristic digital projection by
Ryoji Ikeda, where each pixel of the image is composed froma combination of pure mathematics and the vast sea of data
present in the world. As data is seamlessly projected onto
the gallery wall, the viewer leaves feeling infinitesimalin the face of data’s seemingly infinite scale.

ryoji

SHOWN AT ARTSCIENCE MUSEUM IN

Big Bang Data exhibition, 2016

Image courtesy of the artist

LYNETTE
WALLWORTH
Invisible by Night (2004)

Image courtesy of the artist

TAKASHI
MAKINOSpace Noise (2015)
Space Noise is a blend of analogue and digital
renderings of outer space, a truly cinematicjourney of cosmic proportions. Makino’s
obsessive use of layering and light nestles
the viewer in a mesmerising vacuum between
the work and the space in which it sits in.
Coupled by the sensorial blitz of mangled
audio sampled from space station recordings ofcosmic movements, it is truly a transcendental
finger of the pulse of the universe.
SHOWN AT ARTSCIENCE MUSEUM IN

ArtScience on Screen:
Look at the Earth from the Universe, 2017

Photo by Colin Davison

An interactive video
installation which allows
the viewer to quietly respond,interrupt or disrupt theprojection of an eternallypacing, life–sized woman;
Invisible by Night integrates
gesture into its riveting
presentation to create
powerfully moving
connections with the artworkand the viewer. A subtle,
phantomly exploration ofcompassion for those whosilently suffer among us,the piece is a tender tributeto empathy, transient beauty,
and humanity we observein everyday life.

lynetteLynette Wallworth’s
installation, Hidden/Depths(not pictured) was part of
The Deep exhibition in 2015.

Image courtesy of White Room Studio

Ten words or less to describe:
Music vs Film as an artistic medium

Fluid Affects vs Concrete Imaginaries
The craziest moving image work you’ve ever seen
Zai Tang is an artist, composer and sounddesigner based in Singapore. His practice
employs a wide range of analogue and digitaltechnologies in experimenting with different
ways to translate recorded sound into
visual phenomena.

Arnont Nongyao (Live)
Criminally underrated film

Berberian Sound StudioYour proudest work to date

Escape Velocity III & IV
at Singapore Biennale 2019

About ArtScience on Screen
ArtScience on Screen explores the intersection between
art and science using moving image, video and film.
ArtScience on Screen forms the backbone of the museum’s
dedicated film programming, and is part of Marina Bay
Sands’ ongoing commitment to the local and internationalfilm culture and community. In addition to screenings,
Level 4 of ArtScience Museum will also host regular press
conferences, dialogue sessions and masterclasses withacclaimed filmmakers and artists, with the aim to inspireaudiences to discover art and science through film andmoving image.

About ArtScience Museum
ArtScience Museum is an iconic cultural landmark in
Singapore. Our mission is to explore where art, science,culture and technology come together. It is here at theintersection of art and science that innovation and new
ideas are formed. We have held large-scale exhibitions
by some of the world’s best known artists including
Leonardo da Vinci, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Vincent
Van Gogh and M.C. Escher since opening in February 2011.
In addition, we have presented significant exhibitions that
explore aspects of science including big data, particle
physics, paleontology, marine biology, cosmology andspace exploration.