2016–18
Lecture and video installation with car seats and synchronised screens
Opening with footage of an accident captured from a dashcam, DASH considers the convergence between crisis and accident within a risk-managed and financially hedged era. While the dashcam was designed to bear witness to the accidents that happen to the vehicle it was fitted for, its proliferation in recent years has inadvertently yielded a contemporary index of the accident in the vast accumulation of crash footage on the Internet. By probing what it means to move on from the accident, as do the many vehicles in these images, the lecture unravels the broader logic of “horizon scanning” that underpins the foresight programmes of the Singapore government. As a crucial node along the electronic circuits of global finance as well as the sweaty regional routes crossed by disenfranchised migrant labour, Singapore is held up within the lecture as a privileged site to attend to the disturbances or “weak signals” that crop up on the horizon. From this limit-space where one can never know what might come at you, a fantastic speculative economy—populated by the likes of “black swans” and “dragon kings”—is produced to affirm some narratives while foreclosing others.
