SAW2022 Dialogues - Rethinking Cultural Programming Reflections

Rethinking Cultural Programming as a Tool to Activate Community and Belonging (Reflections)

Presented by Singapore Art Museum

Speakers:

Itamar Kubovy, Co-Founder & Co-Leader, Inside LIVE, Freeman; Inaugural Executive Director, Pilobolus

Khoo Eng Tat, Senior Lecturer, Engineering Design & Innovation Centre; Principal Investigator, Immersive Reality Lab, NUS

Lim Chye Hong, Head of Education, Programmes and Access, Singapore Art Museum

The pandemic has forced a quantum leap experiment on the world leaving us with much to process about humanity in the digital age. Physical isolation forced relationships into a virtual medium. We have the opportunity to design the future of culture and community in a way that serves the human being holistically, taking into account that we are social animals that can only function when our emotional needs are met as we communicate. Talking about design for the most productive and innovative future that addresses the needs of our society as it is today, not what it used to be. Speakers Itamar Kubovy, Dr. Khoo Eng Tat, and Dr. Lim Chye Hong shared their experiences in navigating the digital realms to optimize live, five-senses, and in-person experiences. The key focus is, how to rethink cultural programming as a primary tool to activate a sense of community, trust, and belonging. Itamar said how the pandemic forced everyone to push the technology to day-to-day activity, it takes some decades to experience and push the revolution but the pandemic pushed the revolution to now. Every aspect changes completely.

Pandemic exposed how much we need each other, technology allow us to reach out to people. He and his friends reach out to people during pandemics and gather videos (1 min video) from various artists over the world, creating a website that shows the artists' videos in a form of virtual neighbourhood, creating this togetherness. Using simple almost traditional ideas of organising culture, presenting it uses digital technology but feels like home. Creating a virtual community into a real one. Exhibitions converting to online, after the payment of ticket then you can access the website. Eng Tat shared how NUS medical students started to use technology to train and use virtual reality and mixed reality to create virtual simulated patients using AI, to train and interact with them. Bring it into the physical space itself and create training environment. Which helped them to solve this "pandemic barrier" and allows education to continue. Technology does not push people further apart like how many of us thought, it actually pulls people closer than we thought it will during this pandemic. Allows experiences to continue and building relationship. Listening to this dialogue, made me realised that how art and science overlap and come together using technology, allows new aspect of how art “should be like”.