just rambling

Kult: A Visual Archive of Our Time

The magazine market with its quick turnaround and fierce competition has always been a fertile ground for creativity. This is a latest incarnation (ok, I’m a little late in discovering this) of a magazine: Kult’s ArtCade Machine — 3D Magazine. It merges a magazine with a 80’s arcade machine!
KULT

Kult, is a free printed quarterly magazine by a local creative agency of the same name that uses visual culture to explore issues of our society today. The ArtCade was created for its launch issue last year that explored the theme of “Trust”.

In its second issue, Kult looked at the “Artificial” and also created an interactive online version of its magazine. Unfortunately, it is offline currently. The magazine edited by Brendan Graham and art directed by Steve Lawler recently published its third issue, which features some 29 illustrations by artists from all around the world that looks at the health epidemic AIDS. Compared to the first two issues, which came in forms that explored new boundaries in magazine publishing, this is a little bit more regular, but still an interesting read.

KULT

Kult isn’t the first local magazine that devotes itself to use visual culture to explore issues. In fact, its art director Steve worked on the last issue of a now defunct local magazine FL.ag that runs on the same concept. Interestingly, the issue of FL.ag that Steve worked on also looked at AIDS and its cover image is the same one done by Austin Cowdall found inside this issue of Kult.

FL.ag

I wanted to be an astronaut

My parents used to buy me Lego sets during my birthdays and Christmas and I always insisted on selecting one from its space series. These are covers from a Lego series around 1990 that I used to have. The Lego pieces are no longer with me, but I found the boxes chucked away in a corner of the house today.

I once thought I could be an astronaut. And, my parents never discouraged me, nor let me in on reality. So I dreamt, until I discovered Singapore had no space station.

Well, it still amazes me how Lego sets are actually just made up of simple designs of building blocks that can lead to endless possibilities. Today, I also realise how privileged I was to have had access to these expensive toys. It’s also struck me that conceptually Lego is like modern life — only those who can afford it have the blocks to build their own dreams.

For Malls, Not All

Photo by Sam Kang Li

In his 2005 National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong outlined plans to develop the public park above Orchard MRT station that Filipino maids working in Singapore used to picnic at and knew as ‘Golong Golong’. “I think it’s a prime site and we’d like somebody to develop it, a new focal point with space for events and an observation tower,” he said. “And we’ll make Orchard Road one of the great streets in the world, a place to see and be seen, a place for all to enjoy.”

The sale of the site fetched a cool $1.38 billion dollars and the mall built upon it, ION Orchard, is packed with over 300 retail outlets and fronted by Louis Vuitton, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada and Giorgio Armani . It is hard to disagree when Evalyn, a maid who like most here earns only about $400 a month, calls ION “a rich person’s place”.

Come 2013, the mall will be crowned with Orchard Residences, the district’s tallest building in the form of a 56-storey tower of luxurious residences. And it will mark the conversion of a place the maids used to relax in to a place of work instead.

To make Orchard Road “A Great Street”, the chairman of the Orchard Road Business Association recently expressed, in a Straits Times (ST) interview, her desire to clear beggars, flyer distributors and street buskers off the shopping street because they are unsightly.

Both developments make it difficult to reconcile with PM Lee’s promise to make Orchard Road a “place for all to enjoy”. In fact, a recent letter to the Straits Times Forum also showed how they have influenced the public’s definition on who should get to enjoy Orchard Road.

The writer questioned the Filipino enclave, Lucky Plaza Shopping Centre’s, place in Orchard Road and suggested it be moved next to the Thai enclave of Golden Mile Complex because they are “like peas in a pod”. The letter then went on to suggest that in its place “should be a building comparable to the new malls coming up on Orchard Road”.

Such a view explains why Lucky Plaza and the surrounding properties try hard to keep Filipino maids on its edges come Sundays with unwelcoming signs and regular security patrols. Their continued existence along Orchard Road hangs on whether it can remain relevant to what it will become…

One of the great streets
(exactly like the rest of) the world,
a place to see
(only what you want to see)
and be seen
(only if you are allowed to),
and a place for (m)all(s) to enjoy.

—

The post above is adapted from my article of a similar title about Filipino maids and the fight for space in Singapore that was first published in Singapore Architect #253. It has since been reworked to feature as a story, Home maid picnics, in my project, Reclaim Land: The fight for space in Singapore.

Still propaganda, but in a commercial-friendly package

The redesign of Pioneer magazine, the Singapore Armed Forces’ (SAF) publication for public consumption, has, in my opinion, achieved the important goal of reaching out to its audience.

It has done so by mimicking and even blatantly copying the design language (so much for being Pioneer) of “lad mags” such as Stuff Magazine, T3 and Wired. This explains the neon colour palette, diagonal-line background, Web 2.0 typefaces and icons that literally burst out of the pages. Aping a look that is familiar with the magazines its target audience reads is a sure way to stay relevant.

Left is a spread from Stuff Magazine in September 2009, on the right is a page from Pioneer’s August issue.

But beyond it’s self-proclaimed “fresh look” from the August issue, is there really a “new beginning” as it touts? The core content that features the latest happenings in the SAF remains but what has been given a boost in line with its new look is more content pertaining to lifestyle issues.

This lifestyle push plus the “lads mag” mentality has also produced a new section called “The Back Page” which featuresdeserving people who work in the SAF — thus far four women, none dressed in military garb. While it is not stated specifically that only women will be featured, how possible is it that the majority gender has not been able to nominate someone deserving from their own kind? Without a criteria to judge who is considered deserving, and the only common thread thus far is they are all women, one can only conclude there must be a policy to objectify women in the magazine to appeal to its readers.

The redesigned Pioneer magazine definitely looks livelier and more exciting. But with each new issue, I find myself less excited than the last. Under all the bells and whistles, hardly anything has changed since it started 40 years ago, it is still a newsletter of propaganda about our military.

Singaporeans can’t get enough of shopping malls

Watching people queue up to enter a new shopping mall on the news today struck me as just absurd.

An auntie was on leave so she decided to come and take a look.

An elderly lady  joined the queue to enter Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing store, just because there was a queue. She didn’t even know the store was from Japan or what it sold. 

Are Singaporeans so devoid of anything to do that they flock to the opening of new shopping malls and join queues just because there is one? And why is the opening of a new shopping mall on my television news again?