Emancipatory modes of knowledge production in Ho Tzu Nyen’s The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2003/2012–ongoing)

Abstract

AbstractWith his on-going, and probably endless, series Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia, Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen questions today’s representations of Southeast Asia and attempts to embrace the region’s plurality, fluidity, complexity and intangibility from an artistic perspective. What he calls a “a generator of projects,” or an artistic platform, is an open-ended matrix organised freely around alphabetic letters that deploys into many and various artforms, exploring the essence—if any—of Southeast Asia as a regional entity. One of his entries, R for Rhombicuboctahedron, takes for instance the viewer away into a physical experience that speaks to the body and to the imagination more than to the brain: in this video based on footage from the Internet, the density of the data transforms into the density of the jungle while the breathless rhythm of the images plunges the viewer back into the typical Southeast Asian humid atmosphere, prone to breathing difficulties and respiratory conditions. Based on academic research, the series embodies the artist’s effort to convert and transform the outcome of his research into multisensorial and empirical art forms. As such, the Critical Dictionary brings forth new creative possibilities and innovative epistemological languages that challenge today’s modes of knowledge production, and in particular a form of rational and scientific knowledge that dominates our society.