I have just started reading "The City in History" by Lewis Mumford, and the chapter on the first urban implosion spoke about the time when the 3 key "governing" institutions of the city were in the forming - namely, political, economic and religious agencies.

In this trinity, it may appear that religious agencies do not wield as much power as they used to. However, if we view the religious agency as that which provides psychological support by way of explaining our origins, why our environment behave the way it does, etc, then the religious agency has been taken over by science. An alternate view could be that religion has since been replaced by the arts and culture, where we forgo or lower the importance of an articulated "supreme being/s", and focus instead on the merely unexplainable sublime.

From this perspective, perhaps we can see the three fundamental roles of the trinity agencies:

1. Political - Governing interaction
2. Economic - Governing survival
3. Religious - Provide a psychological pillar

Before going to sleep tonight, I just wanted to add a quick and short note to my rant below on the state of busking in Singapore...I can't help but find us all just BOBOs - Bourgeois Bohemian, perhaps a little too much to my taste. I'm not trying to criticise the IS article, but rather, I often feel that we have certain misconstrued views, why busking not popular in Singapore is one of them. We say things like, "Oh, we should allow more busking in Singapore, other artsy cities have them too, and it makes the city so vibrant." But hang on a minute...

Where do the buskers come from? Many of them actually did not choose busking as a profession, or even a hobby. They're doing so so as to survive (difficultly on top of that). This is why I think we're BOBOs - many of us enjoy the "artsy" scenes of Paris, London, Tokyo and New York...but we fail to realise that this vibrancy (aka "busking") is the result of something most would choose to avoid, that is, an economic downturn.

Alrighty...good night.

After reading a feature article in I.S. Magazine (Singapore) yesterday on the state of busking, and how so "sadly" our buskers are not "professional", or earning well, I decided to dig up and share below some paragraphs from an article I wrote almost 10 years back in Paris, which presents my views on busking.

"I was in the metro tonight, and all of a sudden, I heard some Mexican or should it be Brazilian music; that I'm not too sure, coming on and off. I ignored it as I thought it was a couple of jeunes banlieusards (french for "suburban youngsters") playinga fool with their mini stereo or something like that. Then, I noticed this man standing in front with his back facing me. He had a curtain-like thing hung between the poles in the cabin. Then he took out this speedy-Gonzales lookalike puppet and blasted the music that I heard a while ago. Gonzales then appeared "on stage" with his puppeteer behind the curtain, performing his famous piece. That caught the attention of everybody in the metro. In fact, not only did it catch our attention, it actually brought smiles on all the lovely faces. This was indeed a rare sight.

Usually, when you take the metro, all you see is a bunch of visages (french for "faces"), either stuck in their books or simply sitting there, looking into the nothing ahead. The only laughter would come from people chatting with their friends. Hence, what I saw tonight simply brought upon a revelation; of how simple things like these in life bring about a smile. Un sourire. (french for "smile) We might want to ask ourselves, why don't we see this sort of performances (which by the way reminds one of ballad singers and other street performances from olden times) in Singapore, where all is well and the government trying to cultivate culture in the people, and so on and so forth. Explanation?

Now, here's the irony, do you think that his SDF ("San Domicile Fixe" french acronym for No Fixed Home" or in plain English, "homeless"), would have been able to, or would have resorted to bringing smiles to our lovely visages if the French economy was in any better state? Big question mark? The answer is probably no. What does this mean then? Does this mean that we should all pray for a bad economy in order to enjoy such little things in life? Certainly not. What it does signify though is that we, city dwellers, be it Singaporeans, or Parisians, should learn to step back from time to time. We should look at the little things in life, even if they seem childish...."

I have recently discovered my fetish with Time. That of which we all have only a limited amount. In fact, I have two festishes with Time.

Time - the mother of all goods and services?
In the ra-ra of my daily life, I come across many new corporate guru thinking - ranging from value innovation to the 2 second rule of advertising, etc. Since the 60s, these corporate management thinkers have churn and re-churned, combined and mixed new ideas with old, creating whole new school of thinking every other month. Despite all the different axioms and rules that the gurus spout in their little bibles of management and profit-making, I have been thinking that Time is the mother of all goods and services. This is simply because we all have limited lifespans, and that is something which we have little control over. And because we have so little control over it, we seek perpetually to have control over it, through survival and the best use of Time - whatever little we have.

This leads to two key thoughts - extending our Time, and making sure our Time here is of high quality. For example, eating helps us to stay alive, thus allowing us to live one more day. And because we live for one more day, we might as well eat well so that our limited Time here is not spent in vain. I can go on, but I think you get the gist.

Frozen in Time
My second fetish with Time has more to do with what I have been up to recently in terms of artistic exploration. For about a year plus, I have been reflecting on the difference between still images such as paintings and moving images in all its different forms. And I have somewhat come to admire the beauty of still images as they are able to capture the essence in Time, life frozen in time. Of course, moving images are interesting too, they have another dimension, etc, but the beauty of still images is precisely its lack of Time, at a Time when we all have so little Time. We are all simply so busy - juggling our lives between the MSN messenger, the word document, that web page that our friend just sent us, sipping a nice cup of caffeine and trying to make sure that the teacher or our boss is not checking in on us!

The hour is late, and it is time to lay. Good night.

If you were to do a survey asking Singaporeans if Singaporeans in general were passionate, chances are most would say that we were the world's most apathetic people.

Food as Culture
I was slurping my pork noodles for dinner at the famous noodle stall "Tai Wah" at Crawford Lane this evening, and I could not help but wonder at the queues forming for their famous pork noodles; whilst watching a TV programme that went around Singapore interviewing famous food stalls, asking the customers why they kept returning. It was quite amazing as many of these customers described well their reasons for returning, almost like professional critics.

Ensuring the arts engage
I have heard one a many artist comment that if Singaporeans could have the same passion for the arts as what they have for food, then Singapore would be truly a global arts city. Although most meant to say that our audience need to become more sophisticated in their taste for the arts, it would seem to be more logical if artists thought about how they can improve their craft, just as how the different hawkers strive to be the best amongst the others.

This was possibly best exemplified in a recent letter to TODAY commenting on Theatreworks alienation of their audience. Of course, Theatreworks were quite diplomatic and responded that as arts groups mature and evolve their craft, their audience might change as well. But underlying all this, is the desire of our audience to participate, and not be alienated by the arts in Singapore.

For those working in the arts, it is rare to pass one day without hearing some form of lament somewhere about the lack of government support, audience apathy, etc. And this take place in many places even those known to be cultural hubs.

Perhaps it is time for the arts community to stop one second, and focus their energies on where the enemy is. For most people, artists or not, our defensive mechanism often kick in and shout "The Enemy is Outside."

It is perhaps useful for the arts community to look inwards, and ask if the enemy is really outside, or inside. Take, for example, the issue of audience support - is it the audience who is not cultured enough to appreciate our work? or are we failing to produce quality work - much as the term "quality work" still begs defining.

That's some food for reflection.

I was reading an interview in the recent RIBAS magazine with Jack Pringle, the 71st President of RIBAS. In his interview, he highlighted problems that the Architect's profession face today such as pay, fees, etc.

My take on this is that the profession needs to review its relevance in today's fast moving world, just as it did a century ago. Companies and governments expect things faster, in fact, it is corporate truism that our bosses always give us our assignments at the end of the day telling us that it was due yesterday!

Similarly, projects are all fast-tracked today. Of course, the artist in the architect would argue that the world should slow down, and that too much haste would not allow quality projects to be delivered. Alas, the world moves on, and the profession either catch up, or be kicked out.

Already, I have heard that Ove Arup developed software that helps in the architectural design process by running through possible design scenarios based on fixed requirements. This speeds up the design process leaving the architect to focus his energy on variables, and to exercise his or her art.

Some negative harbingers will say that such software will replace architects in the future. Maybe so, but rather than enter futile speculation, I have other concerns. In fact, even if such software becomes a norm for the profession, it will not improve the general state of architects today. What it will do though, is line the wallets of the principals of the architecture firms. This is so because architects are trained to work with their passion, and by definition, that also implies accepting the worst conditions and renumeration. Consequently, even if firms adopt such design software, even though working hours might reduce, the firms are likely to just take on more projects. In other words, the profession has already lowered its own level by creating a bizarrely low per hour wage due to their passion, and firms will definitely ride on that.

For the profession to solve its issues, it might be more useful for the profession to relook at its fundamentals, and understand our relevance to our clients, and how we can best provide them value at optimal cost. Also, if firms adopt software such as that mentioned above, the principals should have enough sense to understand that time savings in this instance is only a normalisation of the architect's working hours, and not just another opportunity to grow their bank accounts.