Charles Lim 2
Details
Charles Lim 2
Metadata (MODS) |
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| Titles | Charles Lim 2: Clip 2 |
| Name | Charles Lim |
| Name | Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Type of Resource | sound recording-nonmusical |
| Genre | Interview |
| Identifier | Interview |
| Identifier | Charles Lim 2 |
| Abstract | Charles Lim discusses what he thinks the purpose of visual art is and how visual arts intersect with invisible forces (such as The Foreshores Act). |
| Extent | 7:21 |
| Form | sound recording |
| Note | Charles Lim: So, there’s a certain kind of tension between stories and reality, actually. And for me it’s very important to engage with the real, because we live in a real place, you know, there’s physics involved, and… [0:12] Joanne Leow: Materials, and states, yeah, for sure. So, I mean, the stories you’ve been telling me, yeah… Charles Lim: So it’s not—everything is like, you know, just because a guy says so it’s real. [0:22] Joanne Leow: Yeah. So, in a sense, the stories that you’ve been telling me also make me think that that’s why SEA STATE is zero to nine. There are just so many different elements that you’re trying to bring together in the work, I mean, can you talk a little bit more about why the project has so many different mediums? Like, what were you… why were you working in so many different mediums, what were you trying to achieve? You started out painting, that’s your trade, but… [0:44] Charles Lim: I think, I believe as an artist, actually, that art is a really limited medium. I think it’s very limited. Maybe even more limited than theater or film, actually, because film you can—you have a narrative, actually, and you build something, and then you can lay everything out. It unpacks itself; film unpacks itself. But I think in the visual arts, actually, we are working on a different plane, actually. I think it’s—I find it disheartening in a sense when art goers come to an art exhibition and they believe—and they expect the artwork to unpack itself, to kind of like, just lay out for them. And in the end the kind of artwork you get is very didactic, you know, it becomes like going to school again, you know, and all art…“we are stupid,” and basically the art is supposed to enlighten you. But I think art works on a different level, actually, and I think it’s just as important, it’s trying to kind of open up the way we see things. In the past, you know, when I was a younger artist, I used to think that my artwork needs to unpack everything and everything needs to be in it, but then I realized that, actually, as an artist if I can get away with one idea—if I can push one idea—I’ve really succeeded. And the work doesn’t need to talk about all those issues that we urgently need to talk about, actually. But the thing is that, as an artist, we have the advantage that we have the body of work that we can build to actually eventually speak about the whole thing. The way we see it is very important, actually. And the way we see things, I feel that needs to be informed from our own experience of being here, you know, because our bodies exist in the space, and it’s under the pressure of whatever thing is happening to us here. It needs to be…it’s informed by being here, actually, I think it’s very important. So, I feel that someone, say like somewhere far away, would never be able to experience or be informed in the same way—I feel that those nuances are actually very important. [2:58] Joanne Leow: Nuances and histories. Charles Lim: And histories, actually, yeah. Joanne Leow: Right, like histories are embedded in the body. When you were doing your work, I mean, yes histories, nuances, and your body, obviously, like your presence on that coastline, or in the water, or— Charles Lim: Yeah. Joanne Leow: —on the foreshore. But then, when we talk about the Foreshores Act, there’s this legal apparatus as well that governs our bodies and the actual material, like the physical world. Can you just talk a bit more about that? I mean the Foreshores Act is so interesting… Charles Lim: Yeah. Joanne Leow: …how do you see that relationship between your art and something like this? This, you know, immense… [3:31] Charles Lim: I think the Foreshores Act is something quite invisible. And I think it’s quite interesting as a sailor to engage as an artist in the invisible, because actually as sailors we are actually trying to deal with something that’s invisible, and the wind is invisible. As a sailor it’s like, you know, there are many ways of looking at, at forming a relationship with the wind. I could go to a weatherman and then he looks at all these weather charts and he shows me like, “oh, there’s a front coming,” and then “it’s going to cause the wind to veer in this way.” But then what happens when you’re sailing in the race course—that’s a very general weather shift, actually—but what happens in the race course, there are these micro-shifts happening, and it’s very important to navigate your boat through these micro-shifts so that you can have an advantage over your opponents, so you can sail faster. So, that’s one way of sailing a safer way, actually. And what’s really interesting is that when you sail, you are in a way forming a relationship with something that’s invisible. But there are ways of looking, of forming that relationship, and it’s looking at things—what the wind is doing to the sea. Say, like, when the wind blows over an area of the water, it forms a patch of wind, so you can actually literally see the wind patch moving in the water. [4:58] Joanne Leow: So the water makes the invisible visible. Charles Lim: Visible, yeah. So what the effect—but actually in the end, you still can’t see the wind. But it does—like the spray, the way that the patch is moving, the shape of the patch—and these things, it’s really interesting because initially when I was sailing, I couldn’t see it, when I was younger. And then what happened was I did painting, and then because you are so in tune with graduations…so, from painting, when I went back into sailing, suddenly I could see all the wind ships, actually. So, what’s happened is that, as a sailor, there are multiple ways of sensing this. You’re looking, and then also you can feel the pressure on the wind. So it’s like your… [5:39] Joanne Leow: Your own body… Charles Lim: …your own senses, so it’s about triangulating information, actually. And then you triangulate the information and it becomes automatic. And then in the end you have this third thing that’s actually created—that’s floating out there, and in a sense, for my installations, that what I’m trying to do. In a way I’m building a conspiracy (laughs), you know, I’m putting a bit here, and then I’m putting a bit there, I’m putting a bit there. And that’s why it’s…when I’m doing the install for SEA STATE, I feel that it’s very important that I have this light, actually, that’s in the space, so the viewer, the person that’s in there, he is aware of his own body, you know. I’m kind of against dark spaces for my own work at this point in time, because I feel that in context of Singapore, actually, that the way we view information is so narrative, is so linear, it’s like, “oh now look at this, now look at this, now look at this, now look at this.” And then, you know, then you build a thing and then you go, “oh, okay, this is what you’re trying to say.” When I have an installation space there are these numerous works inside the space, like numerous videos, actually, and objects. And your body is there, and because you’re aware of your body, you’re actually compelled to move in the space, so when you’re moving around the space, you’re looking at the works at different viewpoints against other works. You don’t just look at one work on its own. So, what I’m trying to do is, actually, from moving the works from a space where it’s very narrative, highly narrative, into more of a play around situation, actually. |
| Access Condition | Contact Dr. Joanne Leow |
| Subject Geographic | Pacific Ocean |
| Subject Hierarchical Geographic | Asia--Singapore------Singapore |
| Subject Local Name | ----Foreshores Act--Water--Visual Art--Mixed Media Art--Pacific Ocean-- |