L4NDf33lzz references patterns designed and manufactured in Singapore from the 1950s to 1970s before the city-state shifted its economic strategy into an Export Oriented Industry. Many of these patterns were produced for textiles and generated by unnamed craftsmen.
These patterns became a source for sampling and mashup where the artist modified them digitally with archival and stock images of Bras Basah. Scaled up in a grid, these colossal supergraphics pay homage to the site and the original creators of these patterns.
Between June to August, the artist and his collaborators will engage in a visual dialogue with the graphics that will alter the images shown. Shifting and remixing between the analogue and digital, portions of the vinyl will be manually cut and remodified with new elements introduced. Pushing the boundaries of a static display, its material and medium, these interventions explore the publicness of the hoarding as more than an urban canvas and experiment with its potential to invite interactivity with its passers-by.
Although industrial technology has vastly changed, L4NDf33lzz underscores the human labour and knowledges embedded in materiality that are cemented in these processes. The patterns continue to be visual testimonies of their makers and suggests a cosmopolitan space where things and non-things collide and where the only constant is the passing of time.
L4NDf33lzz continues from the artist’s Creative Residency under National Library Board (NLB), where these images and patterns were first excavated.
The works at the SAM Hoardings are on view from 18 May to 29 October 2023
Hoarding around SAM's building on 71 Bras Basah Road
Free public outdoor works. Accessible at all times.
