Journal & Book Publications

It considers why current key performance indicators are perceived as problematic, discusses the distinctions between intrinsic and instrumental benefits of the arts as well as existing literature on these, and argues that there is a need for more research in order to develop complex indicators in Singapore that can be used by arts organisations and the National Arts Council alike to capture the more intangible effects of the arts.
Citation:
Wong, Audrey. “Towards ‘Meaningful’ KPIs? Capturing Multidimensional Impacts in the Arts.” The Art of Measuring the Arts, Institute of Policy Studies, 2018, pp. 18–26.

Pierre Huyghe's mysterious installation responds to the life-breath of visitors to mutate human cancer cells. Susan Collins and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer construct cybernetic worlds-within-worlds to render us beings-for-others during intimate encounters with strangers. Urich Lau and TC&A involve and implicate the audience in eerie expressions of what existentialists term being-towards-death. These artworks prompt feelings of separation, alienation and existential angst; and emphasize human estrangement within a mysterious, incomprehensible or absurd world. But a cybernetic-existentialist reading also reveals that their evocation of human disquiet and isolation is tempered by an equal emphasis on positive notions of feedback loops, 'separation with communion', existential freedom and authentic interactions with the world and with Others. The artworks articulate cybernetics' and existentialism's shared interest in collapsing boundaries and erasing distinctions: between agents within a system; between the self and the Other; and between perceiving, feeling and acting.    

Citation: 
Dixon, Steve. “Uncanny Arts and the Aesthetics of Cybernetic-Existentialism”. Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, vol. 16, no. 2, 2018, pp. 191-214.

It is about creating a participatory environment for the target audience to co­create successful advertising with the Creative in order to increase its effectiveness. Besides examining past successful Consumer Generated Advertising (CGA) campaigns to study the interaction and engagement of the Audience which had made them effective and led to their success, a series of interviews with key creative professionals in Singapore were conducted to provide insights into the co­creator role the Audience play in a participatory environment to create successful participatory advertising campaigns with the Creative in the context of Singapore. All in all, the findings gathered affirmed that the shift in the way people communicate due to the digital revolution has called for a collective effort between the Creative and the Audience to produce effective advertising campaigns that can break through ad clutter. This study would benefit agencies, brand owners, brand strategists, marketers and communications professionals by offering them a better understanding of the shift in the changing advertising practices today, and in return create a more vibrant and creative advertising industry.    

Citation:
Sim, Kathryn Shannon. “Audience As The New Creative: A Study of the Co-creation Role Audience Play in a Participatory Environment to Create Effective Advertising Campaigns with the Creative in the Context of Singapore.” Cumulus Conference Proceedings Paris 2018, no. 03/18, 2018, pp. 1178-1197.

Conventionally, creative media courses adopt the studio-based learning, and with this unique dynamic teaching approach, students are required to have face-to-face tutorial sessions with their tutors on a regular basis, as well as participate in group projects and produce creative artefacts of industry standard quality. In this paper, we investigate the critical motivators for creative media students and identify those factors throughout the study. The study aims to examine how crucial and influential the autonomy, peer relationship and the future career opportunities for students’ motivation. Research includes a survey with questions based on a conceptual framework adopted from self-determination theory. The results suggest that autonomy, peer relationships and the opportunity for future careers are the primary motivators for students in the programme. The implications of the findings are discussed, and recommendations are provided to faculty members in the creative programmes.

Citation:
Shaw, Christopher, and Jae-Eun Oh. ''Engaging Creative Media Students' Motivation: The Influence of Autonomy, Peer Relationships, and Opportunities in the Industry.'' World Journal of Education, vol. 8, no. 6, 2018, pp. 1-10, doi: https://doi.org/10.5430/wje.v8n6p1.

Design establishes itself as a social process when situated within real-world contexts, thereby repositioning collectivity as an inevitable condition of design research and practice. This paper introduces the learning and working dynamics of design research students engaged in self-directed studies to examine how individual practises subsequently influence collective references in forming thematic parallels. Examples of student research are used to illustrate how divergent explorations of design issues converge to produce less insular approaches towards a collective body of knowledge. This paper discusses how individual perspectives contribute to unanticipated collectivity, communicating the value of facilitating a shared learning curriculum for design research and practise.

Citation:
Chon, Harah, and Nur Hidayah Abu Bakar. ''Collective Individualism in Design.'' Proceedings of Cumulus - To get there: Designing togethere, Conférence des Écoles Supérieures d'Arts Appliqués de Paris 04/2018, edited by Claire Brunet and Luisa Collina, Cumulus, 2018, pp. 734-747, ISBN / ISSN: 978-2-9565440-0-5.

Acknowledgement of, respective for, and an embracing of culture, cultural traditions, and practices that are culturally relevant are some of the fundamentals at the core of this art therapy membership organization. A critical and multipronged relationship has been established among ANZACATA, Singapore, and the MA Art therapy training program at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. This article presents a perspective on the development of art therapy in Southeast Asia with consideration to the significance of East/West influences, relations, and training. The aim is to provide a reflective account of the unique East/West nature and role of ANZACATA and on art therapy in Singapore through my role as program leader of the first and only postgraduate psychodynamic art psychotherapy training in Southeast Asia. This perspective is further informed through substantial experience as a credentialed art therapist bridging Eastern and Western countries, cultures, clinical practices, and professional art(s) therapy organizations. This article was written and articulated through an expatriate’s informed lens of being immersed in the local culture over an extended period. The discourse highlights the significance of international connections while asserting Southeast Asian relevance and context as the discipline of art therapy matures in this region.

Citation:
Lay, Ronald P.M.H.. ''East/West nature of ANZACATA: A perspective on the significance of international connections while asserting Southeast Asian relevance and context in practice and in postgraduate art therapy training.'' CAET: Creative Arts in Education and Therapy: Eastern and Western Perspectives, vol. 4, no. 2, 2018, pp. 88-97, doi: https://doi.org/10.15212/CAET/2018/4/12.

This practice-based research attempts to outline a practical framework of cultural specifics capable of producing an animated film that is identifiably ‘Singaporean’ to a global audience. Resistance against the Marcusian One-Dimensional Man theory, the premise of Kenneth Paul Tan’s Cinema and Television in Singapore in 2008, will be the basis of this research to understand the emergence of contemporary Singaporean films. Alfian bin Sa’at’s definition of the ‘heartlander’, a recurring and highly relatable element in Singaporean cinema largely due to the geographical statistic of the population percentage living in Singaporean public housing (referred to as HDB), provides the social semiotics needed by the research to understand Singapore culture. Films such as Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen and Sandcastle by Boo Junfeng will be analysed according to five indicators – setting, characters, mise en scène, language and premise – as they manifest Singaporean traits in their attempts to integrate local culture. The same indicators are used to analyse films such as ‘Tatsumi’ by Eric Khoo so as to locate cultural deficiency within these local animated features. ‘Flats’ by Ervin Han and similar animated shorts are subsequently examined as examples of attempts at infusing local culture into an animated production. The practical result of the research is presented as a production journal of an animated short explicating the socio-political aspects of local identity.

Citation:
Ang, Qing Sheng. ''Infusing local culture in Singaporean animation: Developing a framework of cultural specifics from a study of contemporary cinema in Singapore.'' Animation Practice, Process & Production, vol. 7, no. 1, 2018, pp. 113-137, doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/ap3.7.1.113_1.

This illogical market denial stems in part from Canada’s preference for housing Creative Writing educations within English departments, who are hostile to creativity and living Canadian writers. Canada pays national economic, social, pedagogical and aesthetic consequences for its globally anomalous disinterest in Creative Writing doctoral programmes.    
Citation:
Whetter, Darryl. “Can’t Lit: What Canadian English Departments Could (but Won’t) Learn from the Creative Writing Programs They Host.” New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, vol. 11, no. 1, 2017, pp. 316-326.