Brandon Tay, 34
Participating artist, Singapore: Inside Out
So tell us about your job.
In a nutshell, I use technology in novel ways to create art pieces in the form of installations, performances, or combinations of both.
Is that more art or design?
My personal take on it is that audiences should respond to any kind of artwork on a visceral, intrinsic level. The context in which I work isn't traditionally seen as art; it's a bonus in the sense that the filters we might encounter in a gallery are not present.
What does media art add to a gig or a DJ set?
The way we consume music now is really tied to an experience. Especially with electronic music, it needs to offer something that we used to get from a band rocking out onstage.
Whether it's visuals, consuming the music via an app or another transmedia format, or some element of set design, an unrepeatable kind of experience needs to be created. The main challenge for artists is to be able to engage an audience in the present, to grab enough attention so that viewers are beholden enough they don't have to tweet or Instagram about it.
How have you brought that to the Singapore: Inside Out exhibition?
The objective of the project [titled 'Typology', it appears as an LED façade on the structure in which the exhibition is housed] is to organise my own idea of what 'Singapore' is in a categorical, empirical way.
Using animation, data visualisation, live footage and photography, the piece attempts to interpret what contemporary Singapore is – via its architecture, people and data – before piecing that together into an abstract but coherent narrative.
Singapore: Inside Out is at Tan Quee Lan St from Nov 27-Dec 6.