I’m a Steamroller Baby

Kray Chen

21 Feb–24 Mar 2018

I’m a Steamroller Baby was initially commissioned as a 11 channel installation displayed along a passage tunnel of 70 metres at The Esplanade, Singapore. The title refers to a military cadence that the artist vividly remembers during his time during compulsory conscription in Singapore, specifically, a time when he was assigned to an “obese company” - an extended training bootcamp designed for obese recruits. His feelings for the song are rather conflicted – on one hand, it was used to tease at the spectacle of 200 slow marching obese recruits. On the other, they displayed finding pride and identity while performing so.

The running steps attempt to keep up with the tempo of the music, synchronizing his running pace to that of the music, alluding to the constant negotiation one swings between regimentation, control and independence. The counting clock reaches 9:10 mins, referring to the time a Singaporean man at age 29 has to clock for a “Gold” award in the military fitness test. Wearing the number 910 as sort of runner’s tag, he strides along brimming with a Sisyphean contemplation and hope.

Much of the actual running footages have been altered, especially during the music segments to match up to the tempo. This intervention frees the artist from the limits of the physical, allowing him to be unchained from his conditions, even if only temporarily.

Kray Chen, 'I’m a Steamroller Baby', 2017, HD video, 5 minutes. Install view at Blindside, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

Online, Exhibition, Play

Overview

PLAY (2014-2019) was a continuously programmed online gallery that presented single channel video art by national and international artists to audiences throughout Australia and the world.

Acknowledgment

This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.

Biographies

Kray Chen (b. 1987, Singapore) is a visual artist based in Singapore. He finished his Masters of Arts in Fine Arts in 2014 and has since practiced actively locally and internationally. His participation includes solo exhibitions 1st Prize in 2013 (SG) and It's A Set Situation in 2016 (SG), group shows such as Art Stage Singapore 2014, Prudential Eye Awards Exhibition (SG), The Pleasure of Improbable Placements (Spain), Paradis Sans Promesse (France) and so on. He has also resided in Hangar (Spain), FRAC Des Pay De La Loire (France) and NTU-CCA Singapore. Kray's practice largely deals with lived experience and corporeality. Bringing to attention movements, gestures and behaviors of him and around him, Kray taps on their peculiar characteristic to discuss the value of progress in Singapore, reflecting on the psyche of a place caught between traditions and modernization.

Curators

Lucie McIntosh is an artist, curator and writer with a deep commitment to the independent arts community. She is currently a Director and Program Curator of Blindside, an independent, artist–run space based in the City of Melbourne. Lucie’s exhibition and research based practice explores process of signification and, more specifically, in how the process of signification might be made visible through the content of an artwork. Her practice emphasises the inherently plural and personal nature of meaning—reminding us of, and celebrating, our agency in its creation. Lucie is interested in the many ways that ‘the image’ can be expanded and consumed in political and philosophical contexts. Her practice relies on plurality and intertextuality—each artwork compulsively referencing its many varieties of self, content, history and maker.

Ian WooDr Ian Woo is an artist and musician influenced by forms of modernism, perceptual abstraction and the sound structures of music improvisation. His paintings and drawings are characterised by a sense of gravitational and representational change.