RUNNING (IN) LIFE 1.0

About KAI SYNG TAN: artist / art curator / art educator

For the past 20 years, the installations, performances, paintings, text and films of interdisciplinary artist, art curator, art educator and academic Kai Syng TAN have been circulating in 45 cities (Guangzhou Triennale, Biennale of Sydney, ICA London, House of World Cultures, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, British Short Film Festival; Transmediale). Kai Syng has won several awards (San Francisco International Film Festival Merit video award, Young Artist Award, President’s Young Talent, Most Promising Young Artist Award aged 18), residencies (NIFCA, Japan Foundation, Switzerland) and grants. Having been trained – art-wise and life-wise – in both the ‘wild west’ and ‘far east’ makes Kai Syng a wacky streetwise mutt. Thus far her battle scars include: London (BA in Fine Art, 1st class Honours, Slade School of Fine Art, top student; current PhD candidate); Tokyo (MA in Imaging Science and Arts, Excellence Award, Distinctions, Musashino Art University, top student), Chicago (School of Art Institute), all on full scholarships (including from the National Arts Council; Japanese Chambers of Commerce and Industry – if not an artist, she would have been a professional scholarship application form-filler). And before all that, 18 years of a rigorous academic regime and 11 years of classical piano lessons (Grade 8 distinctions) in the tropical (shopping) paradise of Singapore. Since 2007, Kai Syng has been an advisor in a panel at the Media Development Authority of Singapore. For 7 years, she was also a digital arts consultant and film lecturer, and ran a Video Art degree programme in an art university.

Kai Syng’s work primarily examines the notion of ‘reality’ in all its shapes: actual, virtual, imagined and dodgy, often from a fiercely personal, playful, philosophical perspective, at a critical distance, with irony and self-deprecation. Previously, she had done this by viewing the world through a self-reflexive video camera of a restless tourist and had been named ‘one of Singapore’s foremost video artists’ (by curator Dr Eugene TAN). Apart from having sang and danced in front of presidents and world leaders (at the Moscow’s Dom Musiki in 2008), Kai Syng also ran into Shimon Peres in Sderot, 2km from Gaza Strip where she curated a South East Asian film programme at Cinema South Festival. From 2012, Kai Syng’s large-scale public permanent video installation, commissioned by the Land Transport Authority, is also on show at the Bras Basah Station, in the heart of the Civic and Arts and Heritage Districts in Singapore – supposedly until and after she/we die!

Kai Syng is currently a PhD researcher at the Slade School of Fine Art on scholarships from University College London and the National Arts Council of Singapore. Her thesis and studio work, called Kaidie’s 1000-Day Trans-Run 12.12.2009 – 09.09.2012, propose a critical strategy of running physically and metaphorically (‘letting one’s imagination run wild’; ‘being on the run’ et al), as a means of ‘running’ (navigating, negotiating, governing and transforming) our 21^st-century technologically-saturated world. For the purpose of her research, Kai Syng has picked up running in real life and has thus far completed several marathons (including the Virgin London Marathon in character, as her avatar ‘Kaidie’**) and raised money for charities. In the past 2 years Kai Syng-Kaidie has also exhibited at the LEA Leonardo new media exhibition curated by Lanfranco Aceti and Christiane Paul, which feature legends Vic Cosic and Teri Reub. In addition, Kai Syng has performed in Sao Paulo in the Upgrade conference, at the Brunel University in London at the digital humanities conference, London College of Communication as guest lecturer, Making Space at the Slade which starred Grayson Perry and Martin Creed as well, and the Singapore Art Show as featured artist. When not running she still nurses wet dreams of reaping some returns from all those music lessons by becoming a mature-child-prodigy-concert-pianist playing Beethovens and Bachs and worshipping Glenn Gould and humming and groaning and making people walk out of the room.

Come Summer 2012, Kai Syng will premiere a new performance-lecture at the Lancaster University’s Sociology department, as well as exhibit as ‘Singaporean delegate’ in a photographic exhibition in Piccadilly Circus on the 2012 Olympics with a new work. She will also participate in an exhibition in Perth, Australia, and work as a London Ambassador appointed by the London Mayoral office – but will Kaidie hijack her splendid service to the public? All this in the midst of orchestrating Kaidie’s final, impending expiry… Come join our quixotic quest!

*For full CV please contact any of the Kaidies at <dislocation@3rdlifekaidie.com> and one /some/all of them should respond to you.

** Personal best of the 2 full marathons: 4 hours 24 minutes 37 seconds at the 2011 Nondon Marathon (exactly matching her birthday and Chinese age); personal best of the 4 half marathons: KNI Walthamstow Half Marathon 1 April 2012: 1 hour 53 minutes 03 seconds, in spite of the sloped terrain at one point, many hazardous traffic crossings including a ROUNDABOUT!! and grumpy+foul-mouthed local residents)

*** Top half of this page is correct as of 2012 April. After this sentence everything else is old…… yawn….

* CRITICS’ COMMENTS (EXTRACTS)

* The work of Tan Kai Syng engages with the disorientation and realities of urban life. Although originally trained as a painter and sculptor, Tan has established herself as one of the foremost video artists in Singapore, engaging with the medium in interesting and often innovative ways. – Dr Eugene TAN. 2007. Contemporary Art In Singapore.  Eds NADARARAJAN G, STORER, R. & TAN, E. Institute of Contemporary Arts. Singapore. 142.

* Kai Syng’s ability to juxtapose images and sound of any site she finds herself in and piece these together into a tableau of cut-and-paste reality, creates an almost frenzied, but almost surreal mirror of contemporary life. - Joselina CRUZ. 2007. You Are Not A Tourist. Sculpture Square Limited. Singapore. 20.

* In all these works as also in her latest ISLANDHOPPING, Kai Syng Tan confronts her new social surrounding with the strategy of a research in progress that is an unusual mix of critical engagement, intellectual references and not to forget a very, very special way of engaging humour. - Johan PIJNAPPEL. ‘Kai Syng Tan’. Biennale of Sydney (catalogue). Sydney. 268-269.

* The room Tan Kai Syng devised for the exhibition ‘Politics of Fun’ in the House of World Cultures is overwhelming. Interviews and documentation are shown on many monitors, among them hundreds of books, tickets, brochures, maps, notes and sketches. Some of these seem to be relevant, others less so, but all are souvenirs of her three-year stay in Japan. Her video ‘Island Hopping, 2002-2005 Japan’ confirms the impression of a magpie-approach. In this potpourri of unstructured, disparate, but dense scenes and recollections, all details are interesting, and jump-cuts can be bridged by viewers’ associations. Blank spaces make for challenges. The viewer has to add his own narrative thread to the disparate stories. Even an email from her is brimming with information. She rejoices in communication, and her guises are protean. Within a brief conversation she is the humorous cynic, the attentive listener and so on and so forth. Whether she is gathering, making or showing things, she is wholly engrossed. - Susanne MESSMER. 2005. ‘The Manic Collector’. Culturebase.net.

*ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

* September 2009 – September 2013 (projected!!!): PhD candidate of a practice-related Fine Art PhD, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.

* April 2003 – March 2005: Masters of Art (M.A.) Department of Imaging Arts & Sciences, Musashino Art University, Tokyo, Japan. Receive Award of Excellence, Distinctions in all subjects.
* April 2002 – April 2004: Japanese Language Center of Japan Student Services Organization, Tokyo, Japan
* Sept. 1994 – June 1998: First Class Honours, B.A. In Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, UK.
* Aug. 1996 – Dec. 1996: Exchange student at School of Art Institute of Chicago, USA.
* 1988 – 1993: Art Elective programme, G.C.E.’A’ Levels, G.C.E. ‘O’ Levels, Singapore.

*SCHOLARSHIPS

* 2009: Overseas Research Scholarship and Graduate Research Scholarship from University College London; grant from National Arts Council of Singapore.
* 2002: Scholarship from Japanese Chambers of Commerce Industry Singapore to read Masters in Japan.
* 1994: Shell-National Arts Council Art Scholarship Singapore.

* ART BIENNALE, TRIENNALE

* 2008: Guangzhou Triennale 2008 with new 3-projection installation, Here/There/Where, China.
* 2008: Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh.
* 2008: Invited to participate in Nanjing Triennale 2008 (but later dis-invited!), China.
* 2006: Biennale of Sydney 2006 with mixed media installation, ISLANDHOPPING IN-CONCLUSION 2002-2006. Undergo Artist- In-Residency. Conduct masterclasses at Universities in Canberra and Perth, Australia.

* AWARDS, GRANTS

* 2010: Permanent public commission at Bras Basah Station (Subway) Singapore.
* 2002-2009: Project and travel grants from the National Arts Council, Singapore.
* 2007: National award, Young Artist Award. National Arts Council, Singapore.
* 2003: President’s Young Talents Exhibition, Singapore Art Museum.
* 1999: Merit Award, New Visions (Video), 42nd San Francisco International Film Festival, USA.
* 1997: Sessional Prize from University College London.
* 1997: Project Grant from Slade School, UCL.
* 1994: Award at 8th Panasonic Video Awards with stop-motion animation, Singapore.
* 1993: The Most Promising Young Artist Award, UOB 12th Painting of the Year Art Competition.
* 1992: Certificate of Distinction Phillipe Charriol Contemporary Art Competition 1992/1993, Singapore.
* 1990: Distinctions for ABRSM piano examinations Grade 8 (practical). Pass Grade 8 Theory of Music, Singapore.

* ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCY PROGRAMMES

* 2010: Villa Straeuli, Winterthur, Switzerland
* 2009: Beppu Project, sponsored by Japan Foundation, Japan.
* 2006: Sydney, Perth’s Edith Cowan University and Canberra’s Australian National University, as part of Biennale of Sydney
* 2006: Artist-in-Residence Award from NIFCA-Theatreworks. Suommenlinna, Finland.

* SOLO EXHIBITIONS

* 2005: TOKYO, JAPAN: 30 May: Kai Syng Tan Special Programme: 4-hour screening &  talk. Space NEO, Ochanomizu,
* 2005: TOKYO, JAPAN: ISLANDHOPPING IN-CONCLUSION Spring 2005 9-21 Gallery Surge. Opens with live concert with Tamaru and Adachi Tomomi.
* 2005: LONDON UK Curated by Ong Keng Sen at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.90-minute ‘live’ lecture performance at Brandon room, solo exhibition at Digital Studioso 4 projections of films at cafe.
* 2004: TOKYO, JAPAN: 13-25 September: ISLANDHOPPING Fall Variation at Gallery Surge. Opens with concert with Carl Stone and Christophe Charles.
* 2004: TOKYO, JAPAN: ISLANDHOPPING at ASK gallery in Ginza. opens with concert, and talk show with  the legendary Takahiko Iimura.
* 2004: TOKYO JAPAN: Over a 2-hour Tan Kai Syng Special Programme, 2 works screened. Tokyo Film School, under Yamagata in Tokyo Festival.
* 1999: SINGAPORE: 13 May: Pardon My French!, screening and installation, Alliance Francaise du Singapour.

* BODIES OF RESEARCH / THEMES & VARIATIONS / LEITMOTIFS :

* 2009 – 2012: London, UK: Life 3.0: existence, in between, psychogeography, realities, fantasy, internet art, performance: A ROUGH GUIDE TO THE MEANING OF A LIFE 3.0; THE AMAZING NEVERENDING UNDERWATER ADVENTURES! (from 2010: permanent exhibition at Bras Basah Station, Singapore).

* 2005  -2009: Singapore: City as theme park, psychogeography, realities, fantasy, performance in video, installation; work as curator: HERE/THERE/WHERE (Guangzhou Triennale 2008); A FOOL ON THE STOOL IN SCHOOL (inaugural show at 8Q SAM 2008); THE RATHER TERRIBLE SLAUGHTER OF THE TOUR GUIDE (Singapore Art Show 2007); CEASE/FIRES/DIS/EASES (Asia-Europe Mediation, 2007). Begin long-distance running.

* 2002- 2005: Tokyo, Japan: ISLANDHOPPING: in between, travelling, essay film, installation, ‘live’ laptop performance, subjectivity, realities, histories, video. (Biennale of Sydney 2006, ICA London 2005, House of World Cultures 2005, solo exhibition ASK and Surge galleries in Tokyo, President’s Young Talent 2003)

* 1998 – 2002: Singapore: Self, histories, subjectivity, identities, essay film, installation, film, video: CHLORINE ADDICTION (Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2001); I AM FIT FOR LIFE! (Nokia Art Show 2000) SPRING.BEAUTY.LOVE. (Earl Lu Gallery 2001), FEELING SO WHAT (CONTRADICTION IN TERMS) (Venice Open 2003). Begin collaboration with composer Philip Tan. Begin daily swim (1-1.5km).

* 1994 – 1998: London, UK: self, subjectivity, alterity, identities, self-reflexivity, experimental forms, essay film, 16mm, video, sound, installation, text, artist’s books, hypertext, performance: mud hypertext (1998), ALL CHANGE!!! trilogy (1998), BROOKFIELD ZOO (British Short Film Festival 1996)

* 1993- 1994: Singapore: identity, issues, experimental forms, ink paintings, comic books, text, video: THE CREATION (Panasonic Video competition 1994)

* Aged 14 – 18: Singapore: identity, fantasy, other worlds, escape, painting (oil, water colour), sculpture, design, portraitures: SAMS (UOB Painting of the year competition 1993); NIRVANA (Philippe Charriol Art Competition 1993)

* Aged 14: Has epiphany of sorts; begin taking art (a bit too) seriously.

* Aged 13-18: Enrolled in Art Elective Programme from secondary school – junior college, alongside Double Math, Physics, Chemistry, Economics et al.

* Aged 4: Begins piano lessons. Begins ‘professional career’ as artist by participating in art competitions.

* Aged 0: 1 month premature, but weighs in at 7lbs.

* SUPERVISORS

* 2009 – 2012: Slade School: media artist Dr Susan Collins, artist/writer Dr Sharon Morris, media artist Mr Jon Thomson * 2002-2005: Musashino Art University: Sound artist Associate Professor Christophe Charles *1995-1998: Slade School: Performance artist Professor Stuart Brisley

*PROFILE IN JAPANESE (Beppu Project artist-in-residency programme 2009 June)

* ONLINE PRESS (SELECTED, IN JAPANESE)

* 2009 Beppu project artist-in-residency programme/exhibition * 2005 Peeler magazine interview * 2004 Solo exhibition A.S.K. Gallery, Tokyo * 2004, 2005 2 solo exhibitions at Gallery Surge, Tokyo

* ONLINE PRESS (SELECTED)

* UCL scholars profile * Slade School of Fine Art * Slade Centre for Electronic Fine Art Media * 2008 Guangzhou Triennale China * 2005 Culturebase interview * 2006 Saatchi Gallery profile * 2001 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival *UNESCO profile * Artinno gallery

* For BIBLIOGRAPHY (TEXT THAT CITE KAI SYNG TAN; TEXT BY KAI SYNG TAN); FULL LIST OF COMMISSIONS, WORK AS CURATOR AND EXHIBITIONS, WORK EXPERIENCE AND CONSULTANCY et al, please contact Kaidie at <dislocation@3rdlifekaidie.com>