12th October – 4th November 2006
Performativity

Artists:
Montri Toemsombat (Thailand)
Chanognun Tiraganchana (Thailand)
Pitchayapong Pissapan (Thailand)
RathKnotPath (Thailand)
Lee Wen (Singapore)
Andree Weschler (Singapore)
Urich Lau (Singapore)
Ana Prvacki (Singapore)
Mitch Garcia (The Philippines)
Sharon Chin and Iskandar Razak (Malaysia)

Curators:
Thanavi Chotpradit
Khairuddin Hori
Manuporn Luengaram

Performance art has a character of being temporary, which means it happen and end in specific time and place. With the ability in managing the moving images of the video media, the actions and movements of the artists could possibly be as far as the desires. The editing technique makes the images of what could be happened only in the imagination appear towards our eyes. Performance on video might not be new in art history, but it remains ambiguity in our present time. PERFORMATIVITY presents performances of Southeast Asian artists on video. Since we started the project in December 2005, we have found some unexpected limitations in some countries. Even though artworks from some countries in our region haven’t been received, we have learned many things about art situation of our neighboring countries.

Performance on video has been interpreted in variously different ways as ones can see from the variety of the works shown in the exhibition. Every piece integrated with each other by using bodies and actions to represent the underlying ideas. The work by Lee Wen, a senior Singaporean artist obviously shows the attempt in using video media to support his performance. It seems like TV program. Meanwhile, the work of the younger generation like RathKnotPath from Thailand, it is an overlap of a short film. Urich Lau’s piece from Singapore owns some characters of Video art which shows surreal movements of the performers. The editing technique creates the narration in Ana Prvacki’s piece (Singapore) and Mitch Garcia’s (The Philippines) done by using texts together with the movements of the artists. On the contrary, another two young Thai artists, Chanognun Tiraganchana and Pitchayapong Pissapan present only the movement of their hands through only one angle of one camera. These young artists create short works. As video art is a time-based art, so some artists like Andree Weschler (Singapore) and Montri Toemsombat (Thailand) made videos which audiences have to employ their endurance to behold the works as each contains a long period of time. Today, video record can be made by mobile phone camera, the collaborative work between Sharon Chin and Iskandar Razak from Malaysia shows how easy to find daily life objects to create art. From the complexity of preparing the scenery to the simplicity, PERFORMATIVITY presents the extreme differences in what called “Performance on Video.”

After the premiere screening at Gallery VER (Bangkok), PERFORMATIVITY is scheduled to travel around Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and other venues in Southeast Asia.

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