Journal & Book Publications

This article surfaces one artist/art therapist’s art-making through a visual exposé of his perspective on containment of circumstances that are essentially beyond his control. Art-making and self-reflection are championed as effective resources to sustain community even during periods of mandated isolation and distancing.

Citation:
Lay, Ronald P.M.H.. ''Consolidating containment: A visual exposé.'' JoCAT: Journal of the Creative Arts Therapies, vol. 15, no. 1, 2020, pp. 17-22, ISBN / ISSN: 2652-9459.

The meaning stays within the animation itself, rather than branching out through merchandising or fan activity. Takahata contested the way viewers often engage with the animation medium in a popular context. He went beyond the light-hearted genre framework to produce narratives that do not lead to happy, emotionally satisfying endings. Neither did he glorify the enchanted transformative potential of the animatic image. To address his aesthetic qualities in context and examine his construction of character and their worlds, this paper analyzes his works, including Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974), The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013), Grave of the Fireflies (1988), and Only Yesterday (1991). Through close examination of selected sequences, Takahata’s challenge to the norms of anime structure and aesthetics are shown to be a part of his creative production process that resulted in the distinctive impact of his work.

Citation:
Gan, Sheuo Hui . ''Stimulating Thoughts Rather Than Appetite: On TAKAHATA Isao's Animation Aesthetics.'' The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 2020, pp. 111-125, ISBN / ISSN: 1347-300X.

Although the performance received reviews from renowned critics in prominent New York newspapers and magazines, it disappeared from the historical records almost entirely. The article provides a critical evaluation of the artists' conceptual and technical approaches towards the deployment of analogue media technology for creating an early example of audience participation and human-machine interaction in mediated artworks. This analysis is complemented by an evaluation of contemporary reviews of the performance to illustrate to what degree the critical reception at the time was prepared to appraise the concept of technology-based interactivity through a human-machine interface in artworks appropriately. 

Citation:
Muench, Wolfgang. ''An Evening at the Ballroom: Whatever Happened to Televanilla?'', ScienceOpen. RE:SOUND 2019: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Media Art, Science, and Technology, Aalborg, Denmark 08/2019, edited by Søndergaard, Morten, et al, 2020, pp. 258-267, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.39.

Art-based methodology supports the reflexive stance of this preliminary investigation and documents this initial phase of a larger research initiative. This article serves to highlight an overview of a cross-border, cross-cultural collaboration that led to a two-part digital experiential workshop between a Bali-based artist and an artist/art therapist, involving his postgraduate art therapy students from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. The art in art therapy is championed with a focus on integrating technologies with one’s art practice, one’s artist identity, and one’s art therapy practice.

Citation:
Lay, Ronald P.M.H.. ''Championing art in art therapy training: A multidimensional art collaboration in Southeast Asia.'' Canadian Journal of Art Therapy: Research, Practice and Issues, vol. 33, no. 2, 2020, pp. 80-88, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/26907240.2020.1844437.

Ranging from musicians and conductors to lecturers and educators, these essays present diverse perspectives and incisive insights into this particular sphere of music, and are both a useful entry point for the curious reader, as well as valuable companions to experienced enthusiasts.

Citation:
Loh, Michelle, and Yan Sing Lum, editors. Traditional Chinese Music in Contemporary Singapore. Singapore, Pagesetters Services Pte Ltd, 2020, ISBN / ISSN: 978-981-14-3778-6.

In this study, Steve Dixon examines how a range of artists’ works reveal the ideas of Existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Camus, de Beauvoir, and Sartre on freedom, being and nothingness, eternal recurrence, the absurd, and being-for-others. Simultaneously, these artworks are shown to engage in complex explorations of concepts proposed by cyberneticians including Wiener, Shannon, and Bateson on information theory and ‘noise’, feedback loops, circularity, adaptive ecosystems, autopoiesis, and emergence. Dixon’s groundbreaking book demonstrates how fusing insights and knowledge from these two fields can throw new light on pressing issues within contemporary arts and culture, including authenticity, angst and alienation, homeostasis, radical politics, and the human as system.

Citation:
Dixon, Steve. Cybernetic-Existentialism: Freedom, Systems and Being-for-Others in Contemporary Arts and Performance. London, Routledge, 2020, ISBN / ISSN: 9780367142490.

The exhibitions of the Serdang Folk Museum and its particular history are discussed against a backdrop of National Heritage via the institutions of the National Museum and the state museum of Selangor, the Sultan Alam Shah Museum.

Citation:
Janamohanan, Sunitha. ''The Serdang Folk Museum and the Performance of Heritage: Community Museums as an Alternative to National Heritage.'' Making Heritage in Malaysia: Sites, Histories, Identities, edited by Sharmani Patricia Gabriel, Singapore, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 87-117, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10.1007/978-981-15-1494-4.

Frida Kahlo's encounters with "Gringolandia" (as she called the United States) were formative and complex. She appreciated the beauty of San Francisco in particular, relished the ethnic diversity of the city, and was mesmerized by Chinatown. She also met fascinating people, many of whom became her lifelong friends. It was in San Francisco, the first city she visited in the U.S., that Kahlo began to fashion her indigenous Mexican identity, deliberately distinguishing herself from the local women, whom she called "scarecrows" and "dull." "The gringas really like me a lot and take notice of all the dresses and rebozos that I brought with me, their jaws drop at the sight of my jade necklaces and all the painters want me to pose for them," she wrote her parents shortly after her arrival.

Citation:
Henestrosa, Circe, et al.. Frida Kahlo and San Francisco: Constructing her Identity. Munich, Hirmer Verlag, 2020.