Bart Seng Wen Long
9 mins
Composited over found footage of patrons eating out at Chinese restaurants, a latex-clad figure spins in tandem with the lazy susans commonly found, and used as an object of entertainment, in Chinese restaurants. The figure doubles as both a sculptural ideal placed upon a pedestal and a consumable object of communal amusement, eliciting a range of curious responses from the diners. The exaggerated, cartoonish and sometimes flirtatious performances that this fetishistic body brings out of these folks, blur the line between derision and affection, othering and intimacy. In the second half of the film, a rupture occurs and with it, a chance for transformation beyond binaries.
Bart is a Singaporean visual artist, writer and curator. His multi-media practice conjures uncanny scenes from contemporary cultures, where fluid identities collide and intermingle, all the while situating within them an autobiographical array of themes like self-fetishisation, fantasia, otherness, trauma, human connection, mythology and the neoliberal capitalist singularity.