KENT CHAN

LET THE MUSIC REVOLVE (AGAIN)

(Letters, posters, digital prints, 594 x 841 mm & remixed music tracks, 2018)

Was there revolution hanging in the 80s air? Were the rumbles synced to the rhythm of people’s grumbles? Looking at the Slovenian video art archive’s many 80s music videos feels like peering into a crystal ball from reverse – the (mis)fortunes of an era told backwards – accompanied by a soundtrack of punk and underground music.

The exhibition and its title is a reflection on Let the Music Revolve, a 1989 exhibition of Slovenian video art in a Singapore television factory. An exhibition that unravelled amidst the winds of change in the 80s is made to play out once more in today’s uncertain climate. What might this present hold?

To what politics, what soundtrack and at what volume?

A series of letter correspondence between the Slovene curator of Let the Music Revolve and the Singaporean coordinator from the 80s, interjected by the artist’s own letters to them. A pair of contemporaneously-made exhibition posters (made in collaboration with Singapore design/DJ duo LHTTTT) for the 1989 exhibition in Singapore and the 2018 exhibition in Slovenia, titled Let the Music Revolve (Again) that re-visits the former. Three Singaporean DJs (rEmPiT g0dDe$$, xexexe & Irfan Kamal) were invited to remix the music of three 80s Slovene videos. An exhibition and a party: would echoes of the past move contemporary bodies?